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Shot Summary: Dan and Valerie fall through a portal to Salem, Massachusetts. The year is 1692. They are not prepared for the Puritans' reaction. Genre: Horror/Angst. Halloween special.


Deliverance

Shot 45: Salem Part 1


Valerie should have known fighting in the sky above the Bermuda Triangle was a bad idea. One minute, she was dodging a blast from Dan Phantom—the next, they were tumbling through a warp of space and time.

It'd been so sudden, the force so powerful that the portal all but engulfed them. The once sunny sky darkened to a pitch black. The Red Huntress desperately attempted to correct the flight path of her jet sled, turning her head in a wild search for Phantom, to no avail.

Then the darkness lightened into a sky with a full moon—and she slammed hard into something. She blacked out from the impact, the last noise in her ears the crunch of metal and the crack of her suit.


The next thing she knew, Valerie was staring down at hay and wood, confused and disoriented. Her head pounded.

It took her several seconds to realize the tightness around her middle, the tingling pins and needs in her arms and legs—the way her head pounded. She lifted her head up blearily. Torches of fire swam in the distance, along with the dark outlines of people. Shadows.

Then it hit her. The pressure around her—those were ropes.

Valerie's teal eyes snapped wide open in fearful alert. She was tied to a wooden stake of some kind, the rod splintering against the thin material of her clothes. The ground beneath her was uneven, wooden.

Logs were piled up, scraping against her ankles.

"What the—?" she rasped out in surprise. She realized she was wearing not her battle suit, but only the shorts and loose tank she'd worn beneath it. "Where's my battle suit?" she called slowly. She felt confused and pained, then apprehensive as her eyes met those of the people standing around. They were wearing heavily-woven shawls and bonnets. They looked like something out of a historical reenactment society.

The two women nearby became frightened as Valerie called to them, and they backed away. "The witch hath awoken!" the older one called out over their shoulders. Although she spoke English, the inflections were different from modern speech. "She hath awoken!"

"…Witch?" Valerie's voice strangled in a quick snap. "What did I do to you, lady? I've been called a lot of things that rhyme with witch, but at least that's accurate sometimes." She began to struggle against her bonds. "I'm just trying to stop Phantom here, and I dunno why you've got me tied up, but this is crazy."

The surrounding people did not take well to her crude tone or to the modern accent of her voice.

"She doth speak of demons!" the younger woman gasped, still backing away. She turned to a man beside her wearing similarly outdated clothing, and he grabbed onto her hand and squeezed tightly.

The man's voice was soft but grave. "She shalt not for long," he promised. His dark eyes narrowed in on Valerie.

Then Valerie took another good, hard look at her surroundings. All around were other pilgrim-looking men, holding one-shot hunting rifles, several of them pointed at her. One man in black stood with a rather large Bible in his hands.

She swallowed hard. Those guns looked very real. The stake she was tied to felt just as real. Surely this was more than a dream. She knew about natural ghost portals, but that was only a theory. Something about this… She tried to calm herself enough to ask, "Okay, look. I just wanna know. What year is it?"

The man holding the Bible walked forward. His voice was deep. "1692."

"1692?" Valerie repeated. She was starting to hyperventilate. "You've gotta be kidding me. You mean I actually jumped back in time? Where am I at? What town is this?"

"Salem, in the colony of Massachusetts." The man placed the book under his arm and walked forward, as if at great cost to himself. He seemed disgusted by her, his aged face in a twist.

Something about the town name made her fear heighten, but she could not recall why. Oh, if only she'd been listening all those years ago in her US History classes…

And then it hit her. "Oh shit," she breathed to herself and began to struggle hard against her bonds, which further terrified the surrounding audience. The men with guns raised them a bit higher, aiming for her heart.

"Thou art a witch," the old man accused her. "Dark magic surrounded thy body, and beneath it the—" he struggled for words, waving his hand at her thin shorts and tank top— "swatches of a dark harlot. Why hast thou conspired to ruin our fair town? What evil hast thou called to our midst?"

His outdated dialect and direct judgments made her face twitch in panic. "Listen. I'm not a witch. I'm just a girl from the future. My name's Valerie Gray, and I'm trying to hunt down the real evil here—which is still flying around in this dimension somewhere." She huffed, begging. Her heart was pounding. "Come on, let me go. And I'll protect you."

The man hummed, raising a brow. "The future," he repeated.

"Yes!" she said quickly, hoping to convince him and everyone else listening. "Almost four hundred years in the future. My tech—you think it's magic, but it's just science. And everyone wears stuff like this in my time."

He remained entirely emotionless, then began to turn away. "Burn her," he said to the men standing to the side.

Valerie's heart stopped. "What?"

The man declared, "Thou art hereby accused of sorcery and witchcraft, and art sentenced to die by burning at the stake. May God have mercy upon thy soul."

"Dammit, don't you dare," she cursed in fear, eyes wide. "Aren't you freaking listening?! I'm trying to protect you! This is all a big mistake! There's something coming, and you can't stop him without me!"

She heard the villagers gasp. "Listen to how she profanes! The devil hath truly possessed her tongue!"

"Her skin is as black as sin," another man muttered. "An unholy child of demons."

"Yes," an older woman agreed in fear. "She doth herald in evil."

Valerie's jaw dropped as she stared out at the people she considered like herself. She had never felt such hatred for her own existence—not even from Dan Phantom. That they sneered upon the color of her skin made her falter in self-consciousness and awe.

Her panic heightened to a point where her breath hitched. She eyed the guns in the distance, knowing that just one bullet, without her suit, could kill her. "Please," she begged. "I'm not a witch, or—or whatever you think I am! I'm human like you! I'm human!"

A villager called out, "She hath been weakened without her source of magic! Let us cast the flame upon her before her strength returns!"

A rousing cry shook the air, hand-held torches raising up. And then mass of Salem villagers began to close in, throwing their torches against the pile of logs beneath her.

Tears began to well in her eyes. "No, please!" She strained every muscle strand, trying to break her bonds. The heavy rope held tight. The wooden stake did not budge. Her heart began to pound faster, her body nearly hyperventilating. "I'm not a witch! It's all a big misunderstanding! I can help you! I can protect you, if you'll just let me!"

"Listen not to her blasphemies!" called out the old man from the distance as they set the fire. "Be not seduced by her falsehoods! Her promises shalt lead to death only!"

The logs beneath her were dry and cracked, as if Salem had not seen rain in weeks. As the torches piled at the edge, the logs began to crackle with flame. She felt heat rise against her, and great, unending fear gripped her. "Oh my God; this is really happening." She tried to struggle harder against the stake, but they'd tied her tight. Tears began to well in her eyes; her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. "This is real."

"Take not the name of the lord in vain, harlot!" cried out the old man, who raised his finger against her. "If you were innocent, the flames would not harm thy body!"

"What?!" she cried out, staring at him with blurred vision from her tears. "That doesn't even make fucking sense, you son of a bitch. Get me out of here! Stop this right now!"

But her cursing did her in. The villagers continued to light the logs around her, and the dry wood accepted their will. Valerie's ears burned with the sound as much as her eyes watered from the increasing smoke. She struggled hard to no avail. "I'm not a witch!" she cried, her voice strangling into something hysterical. "Please—let me go! This is crazy!"

But no one moved to help her; instead, their dark eyes gazed upon her in distant curiosity. They were enjoying this, watching her crumble under the fires.

The smoke began to rise. She strained to breathe in clean air, her teal eyes wide and open to the heavens. "Stop!" she screamed. "Please! We can talk this over! I promise! I'm a human being—just like you!"

The villagers stood, watching Valerie's limbs begin to shake in terror. She coughed, her own death reflecting in the flames as she began to hyperventilate.

But then a bright light flashed in the sky.

"Oh, you weak and silly fools," called a familiar, demonic voice. The entire village stilled at the sound. "Why do you persecute the only one who could save you from me?"

Swooping from the sky, one infamous Dan Phantom landed hard before them all, cratering the ground. The foundations of the village square shook. Several people screamed. A woman or two fainted. Numerous men raised their one-shot rifles and shot, but the bullets passed harmlessly through Dan. He laughed, his deep voice echoing with a psychotic ring.

"I have conquered earth once," he called lightly to the terrorized villagers. "While I'm waiting for a new portal to open, I suppose I can spend my time conquering you."

He flickered his gaze to Valerie, a strange emotion passing through him before disappearing back to his usual darkness. "My," he greeted her. "You're looking a bit…hotter than usual."

It was the most vulnerable he'd ever seen her. She was fully tied to the stake, her dark skin shining with sweat and soot from the heat as flames slunk in closer. Her wild hair was falling out of a tie. Her thin clothes and bare feet made for little protection. When she looked up at him, something about her was unsteady. Desperate. "F-fuck you," she said hoarsely.

The insult rolled off his shoulders easily enough. With a quick blur, he appeared before her, standing in the midst of the impending flames. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Ask me nicely, Valerie dear, and I'll release your bonds."

"No," she snapped, eyes wide. Her limbs were shaking. "You'll…want something in return."

He stroked her sweaty face, reveling at the fear there. "That is how a deal works," he said easily. "Unless you would prefer your fate in this particular time warp? I do agree with the village's judgment that you are a witch."

Her breath hitched. "How the hell can I enjoy this? They're trying to kill me!"

"You enjoy when I try to kill you," he shrugged.

Her face twitched. "That's different," she whispered harshly. "You can't actually kill me."

"Hmm. But you are lacking your battle suit now." A Cheshire grin stretched his thin lips. He twisted a finger around one of her loose curls. "I could kill you in any way I desired."

The villagers watched in total disgusted consternation as Dan interacted with the bound Valerie. One of them whispered in fear, "The demon hath arrived to save his dark mistress!"

Suddenly, Dan's eye twitched. He turned around, defensive. "I'm not saving her."

"I am not his mistress!" Valerie yelled, eyes wide.

Dan turned back to her. "Oh, no?" he said, enjoying Valerie's defenselessness. She tried to turn herself on the stake away from him, but he grabbed her chin and leaned in, pressing his body against hers. "I think you could be."

She glared hard at him, but his cold body staved off the heat of the smoldering wood planks beneath her. His billowing cloak wisped cold air against her. "Not—on your—afterlife," she hissed breathlessly, leaning into his touch with relief. In that moment, she was almost thankful for his presence.

His touch softened on her chin. His gloved fingertips almost caressed her cheek. "Then I suppose I cannot save you." He tilted her head up. His blood-red eyes searched hers. "A pity."

Valerie swallowed hard. "Don't act—like you c-care," she whispered, her hoarse voice paining her smoke-burnt throat.

"Hn." He suddenly pulled away from her, and Valerie thought that the ghost would truly leave her to die. Then he raised his hand and shot a quick blast at the base of the stake. The calculated power burned through the ropes tying her legs together. They fell to the wooden pile, bloodied from Valerie's struggles. "I do not simply care."

The villagers gasped at the ghost's odd alliance with the human woman, and several shielded their eyes, various others running away in belief that the battle was now lost. A few more blasts like that would release the witch, who was now weakly struggling to turn her body away from the flames. "Demons!" the leader cried. "Get thee behind us! Go back from whence you came!"

Great amusement entered Dan as he turned around to face the old man. "A demon?" he repeated happily, stepping through the flames to stand in front of Valerie. "Why, that is the most…apt—" He raised his hand and shot a blast at a nearby building, destroying it in a blaze— "description of myself I have ever heard. Go on, do continue to compliment me. I enjoy your fear and disgust."

The leader simply gaped at him. Green flames intermixed with real fire as the nearby building, their church, burned. The cross above the doors fell and splintered into fiery pieces.

Dan tilted his head. "I will kill you sooner if you do not amuse me."

"D-demon," the old man breathed. It seemed reality was finally sinking in. "Demon."

But then another man intervened. "Thou art no demon!" cried a sudden, and oddly familiar, voice. "Nay! Thou art a ghost!"

Dan's dark brow furrowed as he stared out into the dark of the night, only to see a familiar form breaking through the crowd. "That voice," he murmured in interest, and then his eyes widened.

Jack. His father, Jack.

Off in the distance, a man named Jack Fenton Nightingale raised his bow and arrow and released. Dan caught the sound before the sight and raised his hand to create a barrier—only for the arrow to cut through it like butter. The arrow, teeming red with some kind of substance, struck Dan right in his power core. Surprise and pain made him cry out as he dropped into a crumple on the dirt.

"Haha!" cried Jack. "At last! I—Jack Fenton Nightingale—hath stayed the hand of evil!"

Dan cried out in pure agony, his body arching with spasms. His gasps of pain challenged Valerie's coughs and struggles.

In a blurry haze of pain, he saw Jack Fenton Nightingale's face appearing over him. The ghost grasped onto the wooden shaft of the arrow, only for it to burn his hand. He cried out, overwhelmed. "Wh-what is this?" he cried out. "Who—You look like—"

Memories caught deep in his throat. His father. Jack Fenton. This man looked exactly like his father.

Dan attempted to turn onto his hands and knees, nauseated as his body sparked strangely. Red smoke hissed from his wound. His cloak and hair flickered dully as his power drained.

Jack's expression of hatred melted into genuine delight. "Thou art no match for Blood Blossoms!" he declared. "They exterminate evil and doth make a tasty treat!" He had shouldered his bow to pull a small bag from his side. When he pulled out his hands from the bag, he held red flowers. Blood Blossoms.

Dan's nostrils flared in panic as his vision began to pixelate. "N-no," he hissed, narrowing his eyes to slits. No matter the man's face, this Salem villager was attempting to exterminate him—and was winning.

Jack Fenton Nightingale held no fear as he cast more Blood Blossoms around the ghost, his large hands dropping the flowers in a calculated position. He called merrily, "Thou shalt be exterminated with great pain, ghost! Along with thy mistress!" He circled the entire burning stake, and the instant he dropped the last Blood Blossom into a perfect circle, a wave of power slammed into Dan.

Suddenly, the ghost collapsed down again on his back, his body arching as he screamed in pain. The ring of blossoms intensified the effect of the arrow. It was making him mindless. His wild, red eyes swiveled up to Valerie, still burning at the stake.

At this point, the flames were within inches of her body. The gray smoke had billowed to black, and she'd weakened from smoke inhalation. She hung in her bonds, her breath shuddering as if she were suffocating silently. Her eyes were wide in some permanent way, staring down at him almost in confusion. The smoke was sedating her as she suffocated.

A breathless, bitter laugh reached him. "Ridiculous," he gasped, groaning in sorrow as his body rejected itself. "B-both of us, d-defeated by Puritans." He almost found true amusement in it, if he were not in so much pain.

Valerie's breaths began to stall in strange ways, her body shivering despite the heat. It hurt to breathe, down even into her lungs. "N-ngh," she managed to hoarsely cry. Her thoughts were bleeding white—confusion overwhelming her.

Her rolling gaze landed on Dan once more, who was still on his back, his body seizing. The arrow in his chest seemed to glow an even brighter red, trails of ectoplasmic blood leaking from the wound—from his mouth and his nose—

Fear. She saw, for the first time in Dan's afterlife, fear upon his face.

A final spark of lucidity wormed through her. Valerie blinked, realizing that her only salvation would be to reset their deal. To save him.

"N-not," she whispered hoarsely, "dead. Yet."

With a cry of agony, she used the last of her energy to push burning wood off the pile. Flames bit deep into her bare foot, and she shuddered, vision blackening into dots. The burning wood tumbled off the controlled pile and into the path of the Blood Blossoms. They crushed a few, setting nearby ones on fire.

It broke the circle.

The dazed pain on Dan's face immediately eased. He blinked up at Valerie, his red eyes refocusing. His body began to twitch and seize again as regained self-awareness. He cried out to her, distantly realizing that she'd done something to help him.

It was then he began to smell the stench of burning flesh. Valerie.

"With haste!" cried out one of the villagers. "Nightingale—the demon's power hath returned!"

Before Nightingale could respond, Dan turned himself on his side and raised his hand, conjuring up a small ectoplasmic blast. He shot it straight at the man with his father's face, watching in satisfaction as the man fell back, his right arm on fire with green energy.

Then Dan groaned, turning on his hands and knees, wincing at the arrow still eating away his power core. Sweat poured down his body, his white locks matted against his face and neck. He looked up at Valerie, his red eyes widening.

She was completely limp now, her eyes half-lidded as her chest seized for air. On fire. Her legs were on fire.

"Valerie," he rasped in fear. He reached out his hand. His power was as threads—broken and frayed, hanging on out of sheer will alone. He gasped in pain as he drew it forth, and to his surprise, realized that something was incredibly different.

Before him spanned a small portal back into the Ghost Zone. It hummed with a vision at the open space and floating doors of that realm. He stared at his fingers in amazement—a new power?—before realizing this could be their ticket out of Salem. Thought of escape renewed his determination. His cold body hissed against the increasing heat of the flames as he moved forward, moaning in pain at the energy cost.

Valerie. He needed Valerie to save him too.

With a cry, he reached her at the top of the burning pile. His gloved, blood-stained fingers shook as he wrenched at the knots tying her torso and hands. He could not tell if she were still trying to breathe, or if her heart even had a beat.

The ropes came loose under his manic desperation. Valerie's body limply fell forward, and he barely caught her with his arm, grunting in pain at the increasing tear the arrow made in his body. Her skin hissed against his, producing a white smoke.

Dan back-stepped unsteadily on the fiery logs, blinded. His weakened muscles struggled to hold them both up.

"Nay, thou shalt not escape!" cried the man with his father's face. Nightingale boasted an ecto-burn down his arm and shoulder, but he was raising his bow once more—preparing to shoot them both through with a final arrow—

Dan blearily located the site of the small Ghost Zone portal, and in exhaustion, half-fell and half-flew to it, carrying Valerie with him. The world of 1692 Salem blurred as the portal wrapped around them. Then the portal closed, just as Nightingale loosed his arrow, the screams of the villager's anger echoing.

Within seconds, they slammed hard onto the ground of the Ghost Zone, where tombstones scattered black dirt in abnormal patterns. Dan groaned, his red eyes widening at the pain that barreled through him. Something had crunched inside of him, and new blood seeped from his nose as he coughed.

The arrow—he had to get it out. His power core had nearly depleted.

Beside him, Valerie was still burning hot, which he grasped onto in hopes that he could convert it to energy for himself. Her eyes were wide now from the jolt, her breaths visible wheezes. Her legs up to her calves were badly burned, blackened skin hanging off bloodied and blistering muscles.

They both shuddered in the echoing wisps of the Ghost Zone.

"Ngh." Her tired, half-lidded eyes landed on him beside her. He had never touched her so intimately, nor had she touched him so. She leaned into the coldness of his being, desperate for relief from the heat that had burned her. Tears ran down her face, unable to comprehend that the coldness seeping against her body was Dan's own blood.

The ghost squeezed his eyes shut, the lines of his body taught with agony. "Arrow," he breathed. "I—c-can't." Nausea overwhelmed him. "Get it out." Even touching it agonized his hands.

Dan grabbed one of her limp, half-burnt hands and placed it on the jutting arrow shaft that was still destroying him. "The d-deal," he begged. "Your t-turn."

She tried to focus on him, wavering between light and dark. "I'll g-get you home," he bargained desperately. If she did not help him, the Blood Blossom-soaked arrow tip would purify the last of his power core. Then he would die, and with her injuries, she would die with him.

Valerie struggled to remain awake. She weakly grasped onto the arrow, her swollen throat and burnt lungs stealing away her ability to speak. She instead gave a pained nod.

Her fingers hesitated, and Dan swallowed hard in preparation for pain.

With the last of her strength, Valerie tore the arrow from his side. Then the world went dark in a splatter of ectoplasmic blood and Dan's agonized cry.


Sometime later, Valerie woke up in great pain. She felt as if her legs and burned nerves were still on fire. A breathless groan escaped her cracked lips, and the cold air around her constricted her burnt airways. She struggled to catch her breath, eyes widening in panic as she become more aware of her whole body.

A green heaven encompassed them, swarming with tombstones and doors. They hadn't moved from where they'd fallen in the Ghost Zone.

As she shuddered in air, she realized Dan was lying beside her, his arms limply wrapped around her. She felt this should have been terrifying to know, but he did not seem conscious. Her whole left side felt still and cold.

With a wince, she turned her head to the side and came face-to-face with him.

Something cold dropped into her. Dan's red eyes were half-lidded and unfocused, with tear tracks running down his sooty face. But his gaze was entirely hollow. He didn't move. He didn't glow.

Valerie realized she was lying in a dried pool of Dan's ectoplasmic blood. It was stiff on her clothes and in her hair and on the black dirt beneath them. She tried to inhale to steady herself, but the action sent sharp pain through her, and that drew a whimper, which quickly turned to a hitching breath. Dan had bled out, his purified power core unable to regenerate his wounds in time to clot the internal hemorrhaging.

The woman's smoke-fuzzed mind was muddled with confusion and panic. The body beside her was missing its soul.

Her enemy—her greatest pain and deepest regret—was gone.

Dan's fingers had bunched up into the material of her shirt. In his last moments, he had grasped tight to her. It was an intimate hold, his limp and cold knuckles pressing against her bare skin, his body curled around hers.

His final legacy was to save her, and hers was to save him. And no one would ever know.

Tears welled in Valerie's eyes, and she turned her head to stare up sightlessly at the never-ending expanse of the Ghost Zone above her. Her wheezes were the loudest sound she could hear. It began to hit her, in a sort of distant awe, that she was likely going to die in Dan's arms. No one would think to look for her in the Ghost Zone—not soon enough.

A moan of agony tore through her as she struggled to raise a leg. Stars burst behind her eyes, and the sound of her own voice pained her nose and throat. She could not walk. She could hardly breathe.

Just then, the Ghost Zone's odd winds brushed Dan's thick, white locks against the side of her face. His hair was still cold and soft against her skin, almost a caress.

Valerie began to cry, her vision blurring with tears. She was going to die with him, but she would have to die alone. "No," she whined, voice gurgling strangely in a rasp. This was not how it was supposed to end. "N-no."

Dan's arm across her was heavy, almost protective. Maybe she just thought it was protective. Maybe she just wanted someone to hold her as she died.

The Red Huntress blinked to rid her eyes of tears and stared about at the world around her. Her wheezing breaths were enough of a sign that falling into sleep would likely mean a coma. Her wounds, if not already infected, would be soon. She figured she would still hang on for some hours more before her body gave out. She closed her eyes, breath shuddering. She just had to go back to sleep. That wasn't so hard. Just…sleep. And everything else would take care of itself the minute she stopped thinking about it.

Forever.

She let the pain take her, her thoughts muddling again into a daze, then unconsciousness.

The instant Valerie's world darkened again in exhaustion and pain, Dan's fingers twitched against her skin.


A/N: Happy Halloween, everyone! It's been a crazy few weeks over here, but I figured I owed ya'll a Halloween-ish upload. I apologize if it's a little rushed. This chapter is part 1 of 2.

Please review with your thoughts, questions, ideas, or constructive criticisms. Thank you!