Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
Thanks to afroelectric, Pana-sule, starwater09, Zakila, Destiny W, JadeliketheGem, Invader Johnny, Lovoski, Guest, kikicat, KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun, Crystalmoon39, SweetestChick, Gerren, soos, ZoneRobotnik, Trish, and Guest for reviewing!
To Trish:I'm so sorry to hear about your family troubles, and I hope things get better for you! Hugs!
I received several comments requesting this thread not to devolve into OC/Dan. Fear not! Dan/Val is always my OTP, as you will likely see here. :) Also, I do hope that those of you who disliked the first installment of this will like this epilogue. If not, then...at least it's the end, right? (Cue my nervous laughter.)
Shot Summary:The Woman in Red Part 2: Valerie Gray's granddaughter is haunted by Valerie's legacies…and by the woman herself.
Chapter Warnings: Language and mention of sexuality.
Deliverance
Shot 42: The Woman in Red Part 2, Epilogue
The Amity Park Defense Center had a Records Room.
Here, the preserved notes from Valerie Gray herself were kept in books. Her writing included battle strategies, calculations on Amity Park's resources, and schematics for building a fully underground, sustainable farm. On occasion, there were drawings in the corners—poorly drawn cartoons of herself fighting Dan Phantom. There were even some older newspaper clippings of a green-eyed, tan-skinned Phantom, with Valerie's sharp writing: What happened?
But hidden within the pages was a flash drive. The drive was old technology but still compatible with a few of the computers in storage. It was dated two days before her death.
It held an audio file.
"I've done a lot of things," Valerie said. Her voice was a smart rasp, sharp with intelligence and spunk. But something in it was hollow. "I don't regret much. I'm gonna see the human race survive."
Desperation filtered in. "I did the right thing. I know I did."
And then the audio file fell silent, only a buzz in the background to pass the time.
"I did the right thing," she said again, as if to convince herself. Then her breath began to shudder, and there was a quivering silence.
The quiver turned into a real shudder of Valerie's breath. Her voice raised in pain, as if she were crying. "Fuck, why I am doing this."
The audio file stopped.
That night of her betrayal, Valerie had held Dan down, half-dressed with her bra strap hanging off her shoulder and her pants unbuckled, her breath still uneven with desire for him. For a moment, an equally disheveled Dan did not quite catch what had happened. Then he realized that the click on his wrists above his head was some kind of odd metal—that it was canceling his powers—
His breath and hers puffed out in the cool night air. They were in a distant valley far from Amity Park, with soft grass and Dan's cloak beneath them. The trees were a canopy around them. Her hips were still locked with his.
"What is this?" he murmured to her. An edge worked into his voice as he tensed beneath her. He felt his hair drop from its flickering to fall limp around him.
Pain flickered across her face as she swallowed hard. Her lips were bruised and shining from their heavy kisses, her ringlet hair trailing down her shoulder in a mess. "This is the end," she said. "I'm stopping you, here and now."
His eyes flashed—first in surprise, then in betrayal. In a second, his entire body tensed, and he clamped his legs against hers. He knocked her sideways as he rolled himself over until she was beneath him. His strong arms slammed down to break her hold.
Valerie grimaced at the battering ram of his strength, unable to hold up against him. As he pinned her, her battle suit spread over her half-clothed body. Then an ectoranium net shot from a port at her shoulder. It struck Dan in the face and knocked him over with a grunt of surprise and pain. He fell hard into the grass.
She twisted into a defensive stand.
Dan's jumpsuit was still halfway zipped down and falling off his powerful shoulder. His white hair was tangled in the netting. "Dammit," he hissed. His red eyes flashed as he struggled to find the edge of the net. "You bitch. You absolute—"
She said nothing as she hardened her eyes and pressed a button on her arm.
Suddenly, the net came to life with an electric shock. Dan's entire back arched up in pain, his mouth opening with a gasp as his mind scattered. Just as the shock ended, she pressed the button again.
Then again.
And again.
The ghost's body convulsed, his eyes nearly rolling up. Without his powers, it was too much for him. An odd, disjointed moan tore from his throat. It reverberated with agony.
At that, Valerie stopped.
As he lay gasping on the cold grass, Valerie deactivated her battle suit. She leaned down and grabbed her tank top from the ground, then began to hide her body back under her military uniform. She hid her face from him as she slipped her shirt on.
His dazed eyes watched her, almost with an awe that she had taken him down so smoothly and with such advanced technology. She'd been planning this for a while. His chest rose and fell with uneven breaths. "…I exp-pected this," he rasped, "the f-first time."
"Yeah?" Her face burned at the memory of their lovemaking. "Well, that would've been predictable." From out of a pocket in her pants, she pulled out a small needle case and prepared to use it. "And I hate being predictable."
Dan was still trembling from the shock of the electrocution. He half-thought to say something about so-called love and trust, but his mind was too fragmented with the thought that Valerie had betrayed him, manipulated him.
"This is gonna hurt," she said. Then she kneeled down beside him and grabbed onto his hair to expose his neck. He grimaced and tried to jerk away. She jammed a needle into his neck, pushing the glowing green substance into his veins. His face twisted in pain.
Then, suddenly, he didn't even have the strength to do that. It was a paralyzer of some kind, stilling even his tongue. His struggles—so human without his powers—began to falter entirely.
She pulled her fingers from his tangled hair, and his head dropped to the ground. All he managed of his rage and fury and pain was a shuddering breath. His last weapon was his eyes—expressive regardless of the paralytic. His eyes were tight and sharp, speaking levels of his disbelief.
Valerie looked away. "It's not my fault," she said. Her voice was strained. "It's yours. This was the only way to stop you, so I took it."
Her betrayal burned him. He'd shed his clothes with her, even going as far as to genuinely enjoy their affair. He knew now every line of her naked body, every imperfection on her skin, every sound of pleasure she'd make. He'd thought their intimacy came along with some idea of truce. He supposed he was wrong.
She pulled away the heavy net, kneeling beside him. She forcibly zipped his jumpsuit back up, her hands rough and familiar against his body. There was a quiver in her fingers. "For the record," she said. "I liked our nights together. I know you did too."
He watched her through sharp eyes, unable to speak. If she truly hated him, that would have made the betrayal somewhat easier to handle. But if he thought back to her face, twisted in pleasure beneath him on that first night—her trembling hands digging into his shoulders as her gasps strangled in her throat with ecstasy—he could not relegate their affair to simply business. She had committed high treason against Amity Park, almost as much as he had committed high treason against his own principles.
But if there were even the slightest shreds of true affection in her heart, then that was worse than her apathy. Because that meant his affection was not worth enough.
She pulled away. Her final touch, a straightening of his jumpsuit across his shoulders, was rough and unloving. The infamous Red Huntress recalled her battle suit once more, the armor paneling over her in a clean way that had always attracted Dan's eye.
She pushed the button to her comm, turning around. "Paulina?" she said, voice still a little strained and breathless. "Get my dad on the phone. We need containment outside the Shield and fast." A pause. "Yeah, I finally caught the son of a bitch."
Lieutenant Gray, the granddaughter of Valerie Gray, was the fastest, most well-known hunter for her age. But it seemed there was always a flaw or misstep that tarnished her performance in some way. It made people weary of trusting her fully, even to a point where she'd dashed the hopes of the semi-religious fanatics who believed she was some reincarnated version of Valerie herself. Of those, several citizens of Amity Park rather believed the blood of her grandfather kept her from fulfilling her true destiny as the next Huntress. They whispered she would never be good enough for the title, just as her own mother had failed to obtain.
She had a deep fear they were right.
The girl stared at herself in the mirror, seeing her grandmother's features for the millionth time, and her eyes burned strangely with tears. Dan Phantom's words had been sinking deeper into her psyche.
"She would have despised you. A corruption of her DNA. A failure to her name."
Her face twisted, and she could no longer stand to stare at herself. "No," she whispered. Her eyes, sloped like Valerie Gray's, had begun to burn with tears. "I am not. I am better."
But her reflection imparted nothing beyond her own desperation to surpass everyone's expectations. It carried only twenty years of people looking down at her and saying, You think she's good enough? I mean, she's really not Valerie.
What's her name again? Is it Valerie too?
"I'm ending it," she said to her reflection, as if to speak to her grandmother. "What you couldn't—I'm ending it. And then I'm gonna save the world all by myself, and they'll worship me." Her watery eyes narrowed at her own reflection. "Me. And you'll stop ruining my life."
And so her heart hardened again, and she steeled herself against the wisdom of Clockwork, the Master of Time. She decided she would allow Dan Phantom to continue to fade out. Because if she had to be miserable because of her grandmother, it was nice to know at least someone else was too.
At least he probably deserved it.
Months passed. Nocturne had transformed a small portion of the Human World into a playground for nightmares and sleeping beauties. He'd managed to trick the young Lieutenant Gray with a dream that left her unsettled and tight-lipped about the grandson of one Dashiell Baxter, and it was only after a comrade slept-walked off a cliff that she managed to beat Nocturne back.
She now trudged through the hall of the dormitory, still in her damaged armor and feeling worn and sick. Her superiors demanded a 50-page report over the whole incident, most of it having to do with exactly how her comrade had died.
Valerie Gray wouldn't have messed up, a little voice mocked her. She would have known she was being tricked. Valerie Gray had perfect battle strategy. Unlike you.
The lieutenant's dirt-smeared face tightened in misery. With a set jaw, she opened the door to her private bunk, fully planning to grab her things to bathe in the washrooms. Or maybe she'd grab her other blaster and then blow some energy at the shooting range.
But as she shut her door, her suit's radar began to bleep. Her teal eyes widened. There, in the far corner of the room—
A glowing woman leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. Teal eyes snapped up and narrowed. "Why are you tormenting him?" she demanded. Her voice was a harsh rasp, intelligent.
Lieutenant Gray reacted without thinking, drawing her blaster and shooting straight at the ghost's face.
The woman blurred to the side and disappeared just as the blast struck the wall behind her. Then suddenly she reappeared behind the girl, her voice a pull between irritation and amusement. "Honey, I built that gun."
She wrenched the blaster away, and the metal of it crunched oddly. The lieutenant cried out in anger—it was the second one she'd lost to a ghost in one month—and spun around to attack. Strong, dark hands clenched around her arms.
It was then she noticed the ghost's strength. The lieutenant gasped at the tight grip, which felt like the ghost were crushing her bones. But as she stared straight at the ghost, her fight suddenly began to leave her.
The dark hands were connected to sleek, form-fitting armor. It oddly mimicked the patterns of Valerie Gray's last battle suit, but it was as black as onyx, illuminated by the greens of the ghost's own light. The ghost was taller than her. It looked down at her with teal eyes more illuminated than her own, shining with a glassy death.
The ghost was a splitting image of Valerie Gray in her prime.
It pulled away from her, noting the realization in her eyes. When she twitched her fingers again, the girl's chin lifted, and her whole body began to float off the floor under the ghost's command. It made them eye-to-eye. "Is this how you say hi to your family?" The ghost tilted her head with mock disappointment and ran a hand through her ringlet hair, which floated at angles of its own volition. She looked like Medusa—beautiful, snake-like, striking. "Do you not recognize me?"
The young woman was sputtering, eyes wide as she trembled under the power of the ghost. Her own visage nearly stood before her. "Y-you're her," she breathed. "V-Valerie."
"In the ectoplasmic flesh," the ghost affirmed. Her full lips twitched into a smile, but something about it was predatory, as if her teeth were a little too sharp. "Now, I've got a bone to pick with you, girl. I'll make this quick."
The lieutenant's breath shuddered as she fought to control her own panic and raging thoughts. "B-but—how…How are you in here? The Sh-Shield—!"
"—Answers to me," she huffed. "Do you really thinkI couldn't circumvent it? Or any other security you use?"
The girl fell silent, her body still suspended in the air by the ghost's power. Valerie Gray had a presence, monstrous in its excess. She could feel the vast gap between herself and her ancestor.
"Promise me you won't try anything," the ghost of Valerie demanded. "And I'll let you down. I'm not going to hurt you."
The sharp clip of her voice inspired little confidence, but the girl nodded anyway.
Valerie lowered her hand and watched the girl with sharp eyes.
The instant the lieutenant's feet hit the floor, she lunged for Valerie. The ghost blocked her and turned to knock her on her side, but the lieutenant shifted her weight and kicked at Valerie's leg, which blurred into nothing before reconfiguring.
Like a viper, Valerie struck out and grabbed onto the girl's ankle and twisted, her teal eyes darkening. "You wanna test me?" she challenged. The girl cried out in pain as she struggled to get away. "I've got a bad temper."
"So do I," the lieutenant snarled, tears in her eyes. She flipped back to break Valerie's grasp, landing hard on her twisted ankle. Her face twitched, but then she launched again. Twenty years of self-hatred boiled over, and she cried with rage.
The ghost blocked her strikes one by one, the dance of hand-to-hand combat as familiar as her own name. Her floating ringlet hair bounced with every turn, her black armor shining in the light. "Don't make this difficult," she complained.
"Just go away!" the lieutenant shouted, her teal eyes lit with tears and fear and a great pain. "You got a gold medal for seducing a ghost—but I trip in a combat exercise, and everyone thinks I'm a failure!" She grabbed onto one of Valerie's floating locks and pulled hard. "I hate you!"
The ghost grunted with pain as she instinctively grabbed onto the girl's hair as well, gnashing her teeth in anger. Then a knife shot out from the lieutenant's upper arm, slicing deep into Valerie's cheek. She flinched and recoiled in shock.
Bright green blood welled in a line down her face, and it spilled over in a trail. Valerie raised a dark hand to her injury. The girl before her was breathing hard, her own face streaked with tears as she held a defensive position.
"I will sound the alarm," Lieutenant Gray promised harshly. "And I'll turn an entire army against you."
The ghost flickered her eyes back to the breathless girl who was her granddaughter. She wiped her face, and when she did, the dark of her skin smoothed over as if she'd never been cut. Her fingers came away with green blood that slowly lost its glow. "What makes you think you can?" she challenged, raising a brow.
Lieutenant Gray paused at that, her watery eyes narrowing in confusion. "…What makes you think I can't?"
Valerie wiped her face again, catching a bit more blood that she shook off. "Because your ankle is swelling. You'll hurt yourself more to run to the alarm." She looked frustrated and wry. "I'm not trying to hurt you."
The problem was that the lieutenant had been trying. The cut at her pride—that she'd honestly attempted a fight, which Valerie saw as mere play—was enough to make her tears well back up. "Too late," she hissed.
Dan Phantom's words returned again, like a snake whispering in her ear. She would have despised you. A corruption of her DNA. A failure to her name.
Valerie looked hard at this girl who had become her granddaughter. "Yeah? Well, I've known for long time you hate me," she said. Her raspy voice was a strong echo in the room, but it was strained. "I can't say I'm surprised."
The coldness in the girl—her self-centeredness, her lack of interest in Valerie's own plight's—it was partially a demon of her own doing. Valerie herself had died without knowing her. No other family member had survived those early years, which left the girl to be raised by legends blown out of proportion and the scrutinizing attention of media.
The girl backed away in defense, only to inhale sharply when she landed on her twisted ankle. It reminded her that this apparition before her was dangerous. "Just go away," she demanded. Her breath shuddered with a strange sob. "Leave me alone."
"No," the ghost said. "I've wandered for years to stay away from Amity Park. But I'm done now." She snapped her fingers and pointed to the bed. "Sit down while I heal that ankle of yours."
The lieutenant stood there in some form of consternation and disbelief. "What?"
"You heard me. I'm not gonna ask again."
A moment of tense silence passed. "Why?" she challenged, fighting down her own tears and trembles. "Don't you hate me too?"
The ghost rolled her eyes and then kneeled down before the girl, her full lips in a tight line. "No. And I didn't mean to hurt you," she said again. Then she touched her fingers to the girl's slightly swollen ankle. The girl flinched at the touch, half-expecting to be attacked, but then a gentle red light seeped out of Valerie's fingertips instead. "I'm not used to tempering my strength in this form. This isn't at all how I wanted our first meeting to go."
The girl's face slacked a bit with relief as she felt the power sink in and cool her pain, but she remained fully vigilant. The ghost before her was still dangerous. She didn't know what its intentions were, even if it did carry the face of her grandmother. "...Did Clockwork send you?"
Teal eyes flicked up to her, narrowing. "I sent myself." She pulled away with satisfaction upon fully healing the girl's ankle. Her ringlet hair floated in guilty discontent as she stood up, nearly a head taller than her granddaughter. "How's that?"
The girl tentatively set weight on her ankle again, only to discover it was painless. Her teal eyes widened a bit. "Better."
"Good." Valerie eyed the girl. "Now, I'll make this quick. You screwed with my tech sealing Dan Phantom. I felt it when you woke him up. I checked the outputs, and you've been draining him on purpose." Her full lips pressed tightly together. "I want you to stop it."
For a time, an almost bewildered expression came over Lieutenant Gray. "…Excuse me?"
The ghost picked up on her sudden defensiveness and snapped. "You don't understand—he's mine to torment, not yours. It's personal. Love hate."
That set the girl further on edge, and her lip curled in a snarl that she barely managed to hide behind a mask of control. "I'm afraid I disagree," she said. "Phantom's a liability as long as he exists."
Valerie crossed her arms, and something uncomfortable echoed from the lines of her body. "I didn't design that cell to drain him."
"Then you overlooked a valuable opportunity." The girl's head tilted. "But you were probably more interested in making him some kind of tamed love pet than saving the world."
The ghost's voice was rough and strained. "Do not accuse me of that. You don't know what you're talking about. I never even opened this cell after I sealed him."
Lieutenant Gray had managed to get under Valerie's skin, and she latched on tighter in an attempt to win. "But you thought about it. So much that you're here, now. Trying to take care of unfinished business."
The truth made the ghost back-step. A raw pain shadowed Valerie's expression. "You don't understand," she said. "What it does to you, to betray someone like I did. You don't get over that."
"I suppose not," the girl agreed. "I thought to tell Phantom that you committed suicide over it, but that would've fed whatever sick sense of romance you two had while you strung on my grandfather."
The official reports stated Valerie Gray died from a burst blood vessel in her brain. But the lieutenant had inherited her grandfather's personal notes at 18, and in them, Kwan admitted Valerie's real death was a suicide though alcohol poisoning. He'd found her first and, out of some form of love, covered up the truth so Valerie's memory would not be tarnished.
It hadn't been much longer after Valerie's suicide that her and Kwan's only child died giving birth. Kwan held on for a few years, but the sight of his granddaughter, who looked so much like Valerie, was enough to drive the final stake in his heart. He lost his will to live and fell victim to a winter sickness.
Valerie stepped back again. Her power core, which was stealthy and bright, seemed to flicker with pain. "I loved Kwan too," she whispered. "Don't think I didn't."
The girls' face hardened into something oddly emotionless. "It really shows," she said dryly. "Especially compared to how you're itching to save Phantom from me."
That did it. Valerie's teal eyes darkened to red, and a demonic aura tainted her image. "Phantom's mine, you hear?" she snapped, her raw nerves exposed. "Mine to do what I want. Mine."
In that second, Lieutenant Gray knew she'd hit on her obsession. "He'll trust you even less than I do," she said casually, but Valerie's twisted countenance made her hair stand on end and her skin goose-bump. She had not forgotten the pain of her twisted ankle.
The ghost's red eyes focused on her in a barely controlled anger. "Don't patronize me," she hissed.
"And what would you do if I tried to stop you?" The girl's military mask remained strong, but her heart was pounding inside. Valerie looked as if she would attack. "Would you kill me to get to him? Do you pine for him so much?"
The wordkill seemed to make the ghost flinch. Recognition reappeared in her red eyes with a kind of panic that burned her with a sudden, all-encompassing dread.
For a time, she seemed to struggle to control herself.
And then her form dematerialized in a quick wisp, as if in panic.
Valerie reappeared deep in the basement of the Amity Park Defense Center, her mind scattered. "I'm in control," she breathed to herself shakily. Her eyes misted with angry tears as she clenched and unclenched her fist. "I'm in control."
But she wasn't. She'd spent years away from Amity Park, knowing that her existence as a ghost was unnatural and too controversial to be seen by her people. Her anger was amplified. Her emotions were unsettled. Small things set her off into an animalistic rage, and this form of hers—the power and strength was so great—
When she thought of Dan Phantom, there was such a great need to confront him about that night. The pull on her power core had grown worse and worse the farther she roamed to deny her own obsession. She feared she'd one day blank out and wake up to a destroyed city if she did not get rid of such repressed feelings.
Breath that she didn't need hitched in her chest. She'd so easily injured her granddaughter, and for what purpose? "I didn't mean to," she whispered. "I want to—I didn't mean—"
Now here she was, pacing in front of Dan Phantom's containment chamber with no way in. The prison of Dan Phantom loomed as a dark shadow over her, nearly overwhelming in its heights. She needed a human voice to speak the code for his release. She'd assumed she could win her wayward granddaughter over—or least make some kind of exchange. Combat training for access to Phantom.
Instead, her granddaughter probably hated her even more now.
"Dammit," she muttered under her breath, which broke with pain. "God dammit."
She stared up miserably at the black, ectoranium-lined walls, afraid to touch them for fear of injury. "Why couldn't you have been good?" she mourned. "Woulda saved me a lot of pain, you know!"
But Dan Phantom, providing he were even still coherent, would not have heard her with the walls between them.
Valerie began to cry, her lip quivering as she fought to control it. "Dammit," she whispered shakily. She wiped her eyes as tears burned through her. She leaned her back against the containment cell, sliding down. The solidity of the Human Plane was sharp and gripping. She needed solidity. She felt unstable and strange again, as if she would lash out in anger or fall to pieces.
She hid her face in her hands, her dark skin shining with the glow of her tears. "I can't fix it," she breathed shakily to herself. "I just…"
The ghost rested there for a time, figuring no one would venture to this part of the basement. Her hair floated in a disjointed way about her, as if it had picked up her sullen pain. Her black armor dampened in its brightness.
But not far away, one girl in a red suit climbed down a few footholds, stealthily dropping in the darkness. Her radar had picked up Valerie's signature, and she'd followed, eyeing the sector of the basement that held the prison cell of Dan Phantom. The lieutenant thought to attack, but then she heard an odd sound.
As she neared closer, she saw the ghost sitting on the floor beside the cell, crying.
The sight was enough to make her hesitate. It rather made Valerie seem more like an ordinary woman and less a monster…unless it was simply an act to manipulate her.
Lieutenant Gray raised her weapon. She stepped forward into the light. "You know I can't let you run free in here."
Valerie's eyes—teal again now—snapped up to her living granddaughter. A great misery wore upon her face as her body tensed up. "You gonna fight me?" Her voice was a rough snap, but it was distorted in strength by her sadness.
"I want to." She fell silent, her expression a mix between attempting distance and being uncomfortable. "I want to burn you out of existence and watch you suffer."
The honesty was brutal and cold and made the ghost flinch to hear such words from her own blood. Surely, Kwan would have cried at the twisted soul that was his granddaughter. "At least I know where we stand," Valerie muttered. Her voice was shaky.
"Don't pretend it's one-sided," the girl said. "My grandfather's notes say you hated my mother—that you couldn't even stand to look at her. I'm sure you're thinking the same about me."
Valerie's memories spun back to a time when she'd been in a hospital, holding a baby in her arms, staring down in overwhelmed panic that it was in fact hers. Her face twisted suddenly with a great pain and a deep guilt. "I didn't hate her," she said. "And I don't hate you."
The blaster trembled a bit more in the girl's hand. She lowered it to hide her inner emotional war. "Yes, you do," she whispered. "Everybody does."
At that, a deep silence breached between them.
Valerie suddenly saw beyond the strong walls the girl had built up around herself. In that moment, she saw herself reflected in the girl—a child drowning under the weight of too many pressures, her distance and brutality simply a defense against criticism. "I don't hate you, Vanessa," she said. Her voice broke as she stood up, her ringlet curls floating in sad angles. "I don't."
The girl's breath stalled at the mention of her real name. It sounded soft coming from Valerie. It meant this ghost knew her intimately in some way, as no other soul in Amity Park called her by such. It was always Lieutenant Gray. She back-stepped, almost in fear. She was losing emotional control. "Don't call me that."
"Why?" she demanded softly. Her eyes welled with tears. "Do you hate your name?"
And in truth, she did. Growing up, people had criticized her for sounding weak with a name like Vanessa. It sounded like some high-born aristocrat too elegant to get down in the mud and fight. The girl pressed her lips together tightly, afraid that if she spoke at all, she would drop all semblance of emotional control and either try to shoot Valerie or break down crying.
It left them both standing in silence, Valerie's question still ringing in the air. The silence spoke volumes in ways words could not.
Eventually, the girl said tightly, "Everyone hates my name too."
The ghost's core squeezed as a heart would in pain. "No," she said. "I don't." In a blur, she reached out to the girl and flew to her, wrapping her arms around her.
The girl stiffened in surprise. But the touch was soft and maternal, the cool arms of the ghost wrapped firmly around her as if to ground her in reality. It hit her that she could not remember being hugged before. She did not know what to do.
Valerie's voice was a soft, strained rasp in her ear. "I don't hate you," she said again. She could feel the quivering warmth of the girl, her ghost body in awe of the beating heart and life that flowed in her veins. She ran her fingers along the girl's familiar, ringlet hair. "I never have. And I like your name, dammit."
Lieutenant Gray's voice trembled. It felt good to hear affirmation, but she feared it was not genuine. Even worse, it was love straight from the one soul she hated more than any. "You'd kill me if it meant getting to Phantom. I know you're lying to manipulate me."
The ghost closed her eyes, and tears slipped down her face. "No," she pressed. "I don't want to hurt you. And I'm not trying to manipulate you. I just need forgiveness, or else I'll be stuck like this forever. I get…unhappy when I think about that. I never wanted to be a ghost."
The girl swallowed hard and pulled away, trying to keep some semblance of professionalism. She felt raw from Valerie's embrace and the way her ancestor seemed to accept her as is. It was strange to think of Valerie as having regrets, hating her own self. It was beginning to crumble a wall. "It's not my fault you're a ghost. And just saying you don't hate me doesn't make me want to help you."
Valerie's face pulled. "You wouldn't believe me if I said more."
"No, probably not."
The ghost stepped forward. "So believe this. I could've forced others with commander-level clearance to open up Phantom's cell. But I'm asking you, of your own free will. You're the only one alive who can help me."
Her granddaughter fell silent for a bit, still unsettled. "To fade out?"
The ghost nodded.
"Why me?"
"Because Phantom's the regret that started them all, but I have others." She reached out to touch the girl's face. Her long fingers were heavily calloused and rough with friction, but the gesture held more familial love than the girl had ever known. "I was a terrible mother. I knew I was terrible, but I never asked for forgiveness. Since you're the last Gray, I'm hoping one day you might forgive me."
At that, the girl's face turned unreadable. Twenty years of hate and frustration had scarred her, and yet here Valerie Gray was, beginning for forgiveness. From her. On behalf of the whole family. "You ruined everyone's life," she whispered, eyes watering. "You haunt mine everywhere I turn. What makes you think I'll forgive you?"
"Because if you let me, I'll help you. And I'll start by giving you what I should've given to your mother."
The girl resisted the urge to lean into Valerie's touch. "Which is?"
"This." Valerie pulled away and grabbed onto her hand, interlocking their fingers. The onyx armor around her began to waver and shift. Then it decoupled from Valerie and surged beneath the skin into the girl, who gasped at the feeling.
Black panels suddenly latched over her, restructuring against her smaller frame and linking tight into her blood. The armor was overwhelming. It teemed with a life of its own, as if it'd picked up Valerie's mannerisms. It wrapped up the girl in a sense of belonging—acknowledging her as rightful owner.
Valerie now stood in her simple combat boots, her old white tank, her faded camouflage pants. "There," she said in satisfaction. "The truth is, when I was alive, a ghost named Technus designed the armor for me. I never built it myself. And there was never a perfect Valerie Gray who won the war on her own. I made mistakes all the time—worse mistakes than you." Her eyes softened.
The girl was shaking as she stared at her arms, now fitted with sleek, black armor. It seemed to call to her, Blood of Valerie Gray. The Black Huntress.
Valerie's simple, dark hands raised her chin up. "I know I can't buy forgiveness," she said, searching the girl's eyes. Her voice was rough with a plea. "But tell me I've earned a talk with Phantom. I'm not even asking you to let him go."
The girl hesitated, realizing this ghost had just given up its greatest weapon in exchange for favor. This ghost had just admitted to a terrible level of imperfection. This ghost claimed to love her—even her stupid name.
Slowly, the granddaughter nodded.
A great relief came over the Valerie, and it nearly welled more tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."
The outer ring of ectoranium doors opened, and the girl quickly ushered in Valerie, then slammed the doors behind them. "You'll have to replenish him yourself," she said. "I can't risk opening the cell to the outside world."
Valerie was already rushing for the inner doors. "I know." She could see the platform upon which Dan Phantom sat. His form did not glow or move, but was instead slumped over.
"Once you give him enough energy, we can feed that back into the system to seal him again." The girl pushed a few buttons on the panel, then called out, "Unlock sequence code Alpha, Tango, Romeo, 3, 7, 0."
A smooth female AI voice said, "Unlocking sequence activated. Awakening sequence previously activated at restriction level five. Requesting commander override to continue."
"Commander override code 9, 2, 5, 8. Lieutenant Gray."
"Override code acknowledged. Welcome back, Lieutenant Gray."
And then the inner gates gave way.
Valerie stood in apprehension, her face tight. As the lights flickered on, she raced forward.
Dan Phantom had slumped forward, his eyes closed as if in sleep. His white hair fell about his face in straggles. His body, once so powerful, had sharpened with starvation. Gone were his strong muscles, and in their place were malnourished angles. His suit seemed to hang off of him, as did the muzzle strapped across his face.
He did not seem to even acknowledge the lights or the two presences in the room.
"The awakening sequenceis on, right?" Valerie snapped in worry. She stood before Phantom, raising his chin. Her fingers quivered at the thought of touching him once more. She ran her fingers down his sharp cheek, then hooked into the muzzle and unlatched it, casting it aside. It clattered to the floor with a crash. His jaw was bruised, his lips cut and cracked with mottled, green blood.
Vanessa Gray's face twisted in disgust as she watched Valerie fret over Dan Phantom. "The only way to drain him was to keep the awakening sequence on."
"But he's not waking up," Valerie murmured in fear. "It's only been four months—he shouldn't have gone down this fast." She pressed her hand against his chest. She could feel the bones of his ribs, then the erratic pulse of a failing power core.
With a grimace, she pressed some of her energy into him, feeding his core with her own.
Lieutenant Gray watched apprehensively. It struck her that she could theoretically turn tail and cage both of the ghosts, never to return again. But something about that seemed cowardly, now that she understood more of Valerie Gray's regrets—and especially now that she wore the legacy armor of the Huntress.
"Ngh." Dan Phantom's sharp face twitched, and he instinctively leaned his face against Valerie's arm, feeling the cool power transfer from her. His weakened power core sputtered at the feeling of another ghost. On instinct alone, he drank from her presence. He leaned against her as a drowning man would, desperate for touch.
When he opened his eyes, the healthy blood-red of his irises was an odd, sickly brown—as if the blood had dried. He stared straight at Lieutenant Gray, and for a time, he did not seem to recognize her. Then he caught sight of her shorter stature, her lighter skin. "You," he rasped. His baritone voice was hoarse and weak. His face twisted in a snarl. "The lieutenant."
Valerie quickly pulled away and grabbed a lock of his hair, forcing his face up. "Hey. Don't you snarl at her."
It was then his eyes focused on the ghost from which he'd been siphoning energy, and a great confusion came over him. He pulled back, eyes tight, as he took in her glow, her illuminated eyes, her floating locks of hair like snakes. "Valerie?" he breathed.
Her grip on his straggling hair softened, and she ran fingers down his face. "Hi to you too." Then she touched her fingers to his restraints strapping down his arms. The metal curled up and crinkled, then fell away with a cold hiss.
Instantly, he reached up. As he touched her face, his hair began to flicker again. His power core brightened. The bony angles of his body began to fill out once more, although he still remained weak. His sickly eyes brightened back into a ruby red.
"You are changed," he murmured, in awe of her ghost body. She had a monstrous presence as one—it permeated even through him. He delighted in that.
Her fingers shook as she covered his hand with her own. "Because of you," she mourned, her voice pointed. Oh, she could feel his delight. Even though he was a worn prisoner at her own command, she could feel that he was happy to see her. "I couldn't pass on."
A dark delight came over him. He pulled away and sat back to behold her. In that moment, he looked as a king upon his throne, as comfortable as any. "Well, well." He tilted his head. "Valerie Gray, the Ghost Slayer. You have a heart after all."
His blood-red eyes then flickered to the uncomfortable-looking lieutenant, and his delight faltered. "Does she have to be here?" he complained to Valerie. "I've a rather high-spirited argument I've been planning to have with you for decades, and it does not involve a third party."
"I'm staying," the lieutenant cut in flatly, raising a sculpted brow. "I don't trust you. And I don't trust her with you."
His lip curled in a snarl once more. "Very well then, half-pint. Do not say I didn't warn you." He turned his attention to Valerie, roving over her familiar body and still acquainting himself with her ghostly appearance. He fully intended to make the girl regret staying to chaperone.
"Valerie dear," he said loudly, his voice dripping with a false patience, "I find myself terribly disappointed to find that after our passionate nights of lovemaking, during which you gasped my name and begged for me to fuck you as hard as you could stand it, you then spread your legs for Kwan." The name came out as a growl. "Of all people."
The girl in the corner turned a bit red, and then her face slipped into an emotionless mask. She crossed her arms.
Valerie's full lips dropped open at his coarse descriptions, her face turning green as a blush spread from her cheeks to her ears. The night she'd fallen into Kwan's bed, she'd been half-drunk and so had he, both desperate for affection from anyone. "I did love him," she said defensively. "In ways."
He reached out to touched her face again, tracing her jaw with a softness despite his hard gaze. "Not as you loved me." He almost seemed to snarl. "He was not your match. Not as I am."
Valerie closed her eyes. Her power core had ached for decades to feel his touch. Her eyes burned with tears—to feel his familiar callouses. "No," she whispered. "Not as you are."
"Then why would you betray me for him?" he demanded. He traced her lips, which were full and soft as petals. His fingers trembled the slightest fraction as he then touched her wild hair, in awe at the way it moved of its own volition.
Her eyes misted. "It wasn't for him. I had to choose between you and saving humanity."
His lip curled in disgust. "After all the pleasure I gave you, and the titles I would have bestowed upon you, you would choose them over me?" He slid his eyes back to the girl, who was standing tensely. "And what on earth possessed you to bear children with Kwan? You corrupted your line. I would have preferred you with any over that soft-hearted fool." He could not stand the thought that Valerie—his Valerie—had found solace in the touch of a lesser man. It burned him to think of her writhing naked beneath another.
Valerie backed away, glancing at her living granddaughter. "I didn't corrupt my line."
"Oh no?" Dan challenged. His red eyes darkened with psychosis, and he jerked against the smooth cuffs still holding his torso and legs down. "Your granddaughter is horrid. She did not even feel sympathy for me."
"Probably because you don't deserve it," Valerie said dryly.
The undercut bounced off his shoulders. Instead, he found himself staring at the granddaughter again. She was a symbol of Valerie's betrayal. "Sympathy or not, the girl must die," he declared. "She even disrespects you, so I see no reason to let her live."
Valerie raised a finger, eyes hard. "You're not gonna touch a hair on her head," she warned. "She's a part of me. If you hurt her, you hurt me."
Dan's face twitched in displeasure. "She's the part of you I don't like," he snapped. "Warped with hidden agendas. I should like to see that part of you crushed into the ground."
The lieutenant gave him a flat look, as if to say, You're not helping your case here.
"And I'd like to see your sadistic side crushed into the ground," Valerie retorted to Dan. "But at least mine's a noble goal."
"My sadistic side?" he accused. "What about yours? You seduced me several times and upon finally gaining my trust, gave me several electric shocks for it. I'll have you know that was quite painful. The paralysis was even more demeaning. I'm sure you enjoyed it."
"You gave me no choice," she huffed in pain. "You were going to attack Jasper City again, and then you were boasting about how you'd make me some kind of ghost queen as part of your reign of terror. I had to stop it."
"And you could not have stopped me in a more honorable way?" he demanded sharply. "What on earth am I supposed to tell people when I get out here? It's embarrassing."
As the lieutenant listened in, she came to the conclusion that Valerie and Dan Phantom bickered like an old couple. It made Phantom seem somehow less dangerous, all while making Valerie seem more so. It also struck her as odd that Phantom did not seem entirely angry about being captured by Valerie—simply that his pride had been damaged through her methods.
"You're not getting out of here," the granddaughter cut in, smooth voice dry. "You're still a prisoner under my jurisdiction. And after you finish up…whatever this conversation is with the ghost of my grandmother, I'm returning you to cyro-sleep, until such a time that we can further decide your future."
Dan bared his teeth at her in a growl. "I will get out of here, you little pip-squeak. And you'll rue the day that I do, because I'll—"
Valerie slapped her hand over his mouth and hissed at him. "—Dammit stop." She turned a wild gaze over to her living granddaughter, as if to gauge her tolerance. "Just stop. You're not helping, okay?"
The ghost grunted against the muffle-effect of her hand, then grazed his fangs against her skin in warning that he was not above biting her. She recoiled quickly, only to whack him upside the head and give him a dirty look.
He snarled at Valerie in response and jerked in his bonds. "You devil woman," he hissed. "For what reason do you come here then, if not to free me and beg for my forgiveness? Do not say you've come just to tempt me with your image and relegate me to the darkness again." His voice strained. "Surely, you are not so cruel."
Valerie looked uncomfortable. "I've bargained to keep you sealed here," she said softly. "She's not going to try draining you again. But she can't free you. And I can't either."
"Why not?" Dan demanded. "I spent sixty years imprisoned under your law. I then suffered the torment of starvation under your granddaughter, feeling myself waste away as I mourned you." His voice hardened. "I mourned you."
The woman's face pulled with agony, and she reached out to touch him in some level of comfort, only for Dan to hiss, "Do not touch me. Not if you are still against me." He sat up straighter in his chair and raised his chin with damaged pride. "I will not submit to your caresses again. This is my punishment against you so long as you keep me here."
Valerie's full lips pressed tightly together. She longed for the free touch of Dan Phantom, but not at the cost of human life—which would most surely happen if she schemed in any way to free him. "I don't want to hurt you," she whispered. "I don't want to keep you here, but this is the only way to keep everyone safe from you."
He turned dark, red eyes to her, still in longing for her. "And I don't want to abstain from reclaiming you as mine in every way. How unfortunate we find ourselves at a stalemate."
"So you're not even going to try bargaining for freedom?" Valerie asked incredulously. "You really just wanna be strapped to that chair forever?"
He shifted petulantly on his chair, face in a pout. "I desire nothing more than to frustrate you. You put me here. It is well that it should burn you as it does me. I take solace in your pain."
Her strong fist clenched. "You son of a bitch." Her power core revved with the thought that Dan would string out forgiving her. "Stop making everything so difficult."
"And stop manipulating me, Valerie dear," he snapped. "I cannot be your prisoner and your lover at once. Free me now that I have served sentencing, or reseal me. I will not be made ridiculous by you again."
Her voice broke. "And I can't love you fully until you stop being so evil. Don't you get it yet?"
"Get what? That you cannot accept me as I am?" He upturned his nose at her, then looked to the granddaughter. "You, there. Lieutenant. I demand you remove this ghost from my sight and engage my sleep protocols."
Valerie's jaw dropped. "What? Do you have any idea—?!"
"—I will not speak to Valerie again nor forgive her betrayal," Dan continued petulantly, "until you two discern a provision for me that allows me identification outside that of prisoner."
The girl raised a brow. "That's not going to happen."
"…Yes, it will." He closed his eyes and settled against his chair in anticipation of another long sleep. "Valerie will think of something, I'm sure. Perhaps her solution might even improve your own…current standings."
The granddaughter looked unconvinced, but she grabbed onto Valerie's arm and began pulling her back. "Come on," she said. "I'm tired of listening to him."
Valerie snatched her arm away to give Dan a hard glare, pointing her finger at him. "I hate you," she hissed. "I really, really do."
He opened one lazy, red eye. And then he smiled pleasantly at her. "Lieutenant, tell your grandmother for me that I quite hate her as well, with the exception of her image naked beneath me again, her legs spread in wanton desire and breasts—"
"—Alpha, Tango, Romeo, 3, 7, 0!" the girl called out, voice strained as she blushed, feathers fully ruffled. She grabbed onto Valerie again and used the strength of the battle suit to drag her out.
Valerie harsh rasp was a whip in the air, full of pain and embarrassment. "You son of a bitch. Don't you dare even dream of—!"
Then the ectoranium gates slammed down between them and Dan Phantom.
The AI asked, "Initiate sleep sequence?"
"Yes," the girl confirmed, her eyes still a little wide. She was still holding onto a frazzled and growling Valerie with a death grip.
"Sleep sequence initiated."
And then hydraulics kicked in, lowering the temperature of the inner cell that held Phantom. As the chamber began to fill with a coldness that lulled him into stillness, Dan relaxed fully, knowing that he'd be woken up again soon, if not simply for the ghost of Valerie to yell at him and then cry and yell some more. An additional plus would be having that granddaughter there as well, to get a rise of embarrassment out of her. It would be fun to torment her as well.
He fell into sleep, a little, conniving smile on his lips.
Oh, the fun we shall have, Valerie dear.
And against Valerie's wishes, he dreamt of her.
A/N: And thus concludes this mini-story. I do hope that you enjoyed it, for what it's worth. A lot of people hated this thread last time, and a lot of people liked it. I guess it's a good thing I designed it to be short?
Please review and give me your thoughts, questions, ideas, and constructive criticisms. Thanks!
