Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
Thanks to Lady Audentium, Invader Johnny, Trish, ClosetLover, hrisi292, KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun, starwater09, sharkyskadi, SweetestChick, Crystalmoon39, Iblamepie, Gerren, Dareeen, ZoneRobotnik, JadeliketheGem, and JK for reviewing last time! Again, I so appreciate your support of my work!
So, for this update: The plot was a one-shot request from Silverstone007 back in….gosh, August of 2014? It's been a long time, and I've been wanting to get to it. I figured it would be a nice break from the drama of Karma and Aftermath.
Shot Summary: The Ghost Writer is working on a romantic novel. His victims include a powerful ghost and a vengeful human woman.
Deliverance
Shot 54: Intermission: The Romantic Novel
"At last!" the Ghost Writer breathed happily. "I can stop suffering and do real work!" He threw the records of the Ghost Council's latest meeting onto the pile where he stacked all of their meeting transcriptions. The papers were quite dull and usually contained coffee stains and doodles. His work for the Council had offered him invaluable protection during Dan Phantom's rampages in the Ghost Zone—but otherwise, he would not have even bothered with such a job. The Council mostly just squabbled and used his transcriptions to prove who started it.
That silly, old Council. Always "Phantom" this and "Phantom" that. Even the Ghost Writer knew Dan Phantom was not going to be defeated through any of the Council's usual ploys. They always sought to throw a physically powerful ghost at Phantom, and Phantom swatted them like flies. Something more clandestine needed to happen. More elegant.
Something to cow Phantom without him even realizing it.
The Ghost Writer sat down at his new keyboard (which he rebuilt with his payments from the Council) and cracked his fingers. His mind was racing with thoughts and words. "Oh, this is going to be fun."
He sipped on his green tea—a bit of lemon for alertness, a bit of honey to sweeten it. He unwound his scarf and adjusted his glasses.
And then he began.
On the far side of the Human World, Dan blinked as he began to hear a familiar voice provide an overture.
"Once, a powerful being roamed the Human Realms."
His eyebrows furrowed. "What the…hell?"
"The Rogue was a fallen warrior," typed the Ghost Writer, eyes narrowed at the screen. "A man of sorrows unnumbered, who had lost even his identity in the sands of time. Ravager of Worlds had become his identity—destruction the fruit of his labors."
Phantom stopped flying, his dark cape twisting about him in the sudden movement. "The fuck is this?" he muttered, red eyes scanning the horizon. He turned around. There was nothing.
It seemed the voice was directed at him, from every angle.
And then it hit him, and his eyes narrowed. "…Ghost Writer," he seethed.
"The Rogue had many enemies who longed to destroy him," the ghost continued, ignoring Phantom. "Among them was a Huntress, a remarkable woman whose name meant bravery." He heard it from Technus that a fourteen-year-old Danny Phantom had at one point dated Valerie, and that Valerie had considered giving up ghost hunting to date Danny. The Ghost Writer had also heard that Nocturne had almost defeated them with a dream that encouraged romance. Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, was probably the most likely candidate for the role of main love interest. "No mere mortal man could challenge her, although she herself was mortal."
Deep within the resistance building, a exhausted woman groaned on her bed. "…The fuck is that?" she moaned. She blearily opened up her teal eyes and struggled to sit, her ringlet curls in a tangle down her back. She yawned. Maybe she'd just been dreaming.
"The Huntress had sacrificed her life to stop the Rogue," the Ghost Writer continued dramatically, now really getting into it. "She had neglected sleep and food to fight him. Lovers. Friends."
"Oh my god," Valerie breathed, the sleep fading from her eyes. "I'm hearing a voice?" In fear, she looked around her dark room. Her deepest worry was that the voice seemed to be coming from every angle. And it was talking about…her?
Was she hallucinating? Sleep-deprived? (The last one, more so than usual?)
She activated her battle suit, only to realize that the ectoplasmic readouts were off the charts. According to it, the entire city was swimming in some kind of ghostly power—herself included.
"Oh my god," she said again. She had to sound the alarm. Something was really, really wrong. Maybe it was some ally of Phantom's. She was seeing his signature on the radar.
"But before either of them could clash in another glorious battle, a mysterious power came over them, and they both fell under a spell of sleep."
Suddenly, Dan Phantom and Valerie Gray collapsed like dolls under the power of the Ghost Writer, silent, unconscious.
The Ghost Writer took a bit of time to drink his tea at that point, reading over his work. "Hnn. Now, what to do, what to do…"
He considered a few options. An evil smile worked its way upon his lips, deciding that, although his work was necessary for the salvation of the realms, he could have fun with placing his victims in compromised positions. "When they woke up," he said, "they found themselves on a cold, prison floor—tied back to back. The Huntress's head leaned upon the Rogue's shoulder as she came to."
Valerie groaned, feeling like her side was on fire. When she moved her head, she realized her pillow was lumpy and hard. She opened her eyes, which then widened in fear. White, flickering hair was touching her face. She was tied to a cold, muscled body.
And she knew that body.
"The hell?!" she whispered in fright, looking down at herself and at the heavy chains wrapped around her torso. When she'd fallen unconscious, something had reverted her battle suit back to her pajamas—shorts and a thin, black tank top without a bra. Her face bloomed in a blush of horror.
Against her back, Phantom began to move. His tiredly opened up his red eyes, then looked down in panic. "What the…?" he breathed incredulously. He could feel the smaller, warm back strapped against his own. "Valerie?"
"No shit, Sherlock," she snapped. The two sat back to back for only a second before they both began to struggle.
"The Rogue attempted to phase through the chains, but they negated his powers," the Ghost Writer continued gleefully. "And the Huntress attempted to activate her battle suit, but it did not work."
Valerie tried to scoot away upon realizing she was defenseless, only to bring Phantom with her, his eyes narrowing in pain at the way the chains cut into his stomach.
She panicked, "Dammit, get off of me!" The chains were tight. Her legs were tied together too.
"Get off of me first," Phantom snarled, jerking the chains.
Valerie gasped in pain, jaw dropping at the way her breath left her. "Don't do that!"
"Then don't do it to me," he retorted. He looked around, the room dark with only a small ray of light bleeding in from a barred window.
The woman stopped resisting, and she sat there in a huff, blowing a ringlet curl out of her face. "Can't you just go intangible?"
He grimaced. "No."
She laughed. It was a short, bitter sound. "Oh great. I swear to god," she said, struggling to twist her legs out of the chains on her ankles. "Once I find out who's doing this, I'm gonna murder them. With a spoon."
"I will join you," he muttered, imagining the Ghost Writer cowering at his feet. Oh, if only he knew the location of that damn ghost's lair! "But I already know who it is."
"You do?" she demanded. "Who is it? Is the guy behind the voice?"
"We are in the clutches of the Ghost Writer," Phantom seethed, red eyes dark with fury. "He works with the Ghost Council."
She shoved against him. "So this is one of your enemies then. Why the hell am I here?"
Phantom snapped, "How would I know? He must see you as a threat as well, given your hatred of my kind." He jerked against the chains, trying to move his hands. "Perhaps he is attempting to kill two birds with one stone."
"That's comforting," Valerie deadpanned. "You know anything about him? How he works?"
"He's a wiry little prick who likes to stick his nose in other people's business. And whatever he writes on that keyboard of his will come to pass." He stared in suspicion at the ceiling. "Although I thought his keyboard had been destroyed."
"As the two acclimated to their odd situation, they began to realize they would have to team up to escape."
"Look, it's gonna take us both to get out of here," the woman said, irritated with the voice narrating her life. She looked around in suspicion at the dark, stone walls surrounding them.
Dan scoffed. "And what do you suggest? You're nothing but a weak human without your suit, and these chains—" he struggled against them, "—are cutting out my powers."
"Oh? And what the hell does that make you?" she retorted.
"A brilliantly handsome victim." His voice carried no shame in it. "There is no natural means of disrupting my power, whereas you had no natural power to begin with."
She shoved her shoulder into his back. "That's not what I meant."
He shoved right back. Then he sniffed, and his eyes narrowed. "And what is that on my—?" He tried to look down and to the side. He blinked in surprise, almost incredulous. "Your hand is touching my ass."
Valerie's face flamed. Whoever had chained her up had made her left hand nearly impossible to move, stuck between the chains and what she assumed was the hard muscle of Dan's hip. She now realized it was a little more than just his hip. "…I can't move it," she said, voice halted. "Not without—"
"—Touching me more?" he interrupted. He sniffed, and then a dark glint entered his eye. Then he moved himself a little closer. "Like that?"
"Stop it," she hissed in panic. She tried to fight against him, only to blush more with the realization that—oh god, she was unintentionally groping her arch enemy.
He huffed in amusement, a wicked grin on his face. "I can hear you blushing."
"I am not."
"You are."
"No. I'm not."
"Admit it. You like my ass."
"What? No."
"You always have," he declared, even as he began wiggling in his chains to see if he could make them give way. "Do not deny your attraction to it, if not to me."
Her face screwed up in a terrible twist. "What the hell's gotten into you? I'm not attracted to you, and I definitely don't wanna be chained to you either." She started looking around in desperation, half-wishing Phantom's powers had been unaffected so that he could have simply broken them out.
But then, if he were in this kind of mood, maybe it was better for him to be powerless.
Dan's flickering hair tickled her face as he turned his head, calling to her, "We are in the clutches of a diabolical villain, Valerie. There is no escape from the Ghost Writer until he wishes to release us, so I will at least try to enjoy what little I can."
"By hitting on me?" Valerie hissed dryly.
"Yes," he murmured. "That is for my own self entertainment, since I have no one to kill. And since I cannot kill you either, being possibly my only ally, it only stands that I indulge my other interest in you."
She'd noticed that the odd narration had disappeared. "Which is tormenting me."
She could hear his smile in the genuine delight of his voice. "What else."
"How about finding a way out of here?" Valerie retorted harshly.
His voice lost a glimmer of its joy and lowered, "Because there is no escape. Not until he finishes his ridiculous story, whatever it is."
Valerie fell silent for a time, gazing about the room. The dungeon had a few unlit scones. It all appeared to be something straight out of the middle ages. "You mean to tell me," she said, struggling for words, "we're stuck here, like this?"
"This is his universe," Dan admitted. "We can defy him in minimal ways, but he is ultimate the god of his own story."
"…You've gotta be kidding me." Valerie began to try moving her arms once more, the chains digging into her skin. "What kind of sick degenerate gave him that kind of power? And you mean to tell me thatyou—who brags about killing everything—can't take on a dude named Ghost Writer? What's he gonna defeat you with, an apostrophe?"
He shoved against her lightly. "Do not anger me and make me fight you while chained," he warned. "I shall become very cross if the Ghost Writer makes fools of us here."
"Given that I'm tied to you, I'd say he's already accomplished that." A worry began to work its way through her. "So how sadistic is this guy?"
Dan's voice was dry. "He is a writer. His breed are like cats who toy with their food before it's dead."
Valerie paused for a moment, then panicked, "Oh great. So you're saying we're food down here?"
The deep, narrative voice of the Ghost Writer appeared, "Suddenly, there came a muffled roar from the other side of the castle."
The noise shook the foundations of the building, and then came the sound and vibrations of very heavy footsteps in the distance. The building continued to tremor until the origin of the footsteps faded away.
The lines of Dan's body tensed, his elfin ears perking up at the sound. "It has a fairly strong ectoplasmic signature," he said to her, voice low with a strange awe. "But then it cuts off and reappears in a different…location?"
Valerie's face twisted, even as she sat tensely. "What the hell does that mean?" she hissed in a whisper. "Is it teleporting?"
He shook his head, his dark brow furrowing. He was beginning to realize that the time for teasing Valerie was over, and that the Ghost Writer had done something strange to the universe. "Its trajectories do not make sense for teleportation," he murmured. "It is almost as if…"
Another noise cut him off. It sounded like a groan coming from every stone in the walls. And then the walls themselves began to shift, and the floor beneath them tilted up at a sharp angle. Valerie's eyes widened as suddenly her and Dan's body tilted too far, and she yelped when she lost her balance.
In the blur of the moment, Dan's broad shoulder hit the floor first, absorbing the impact. He grunted in pain, and Valerie hung strangely in the chains off of him, breathless in surprise. The walls then expanded out into a vast room before falling back into the statuary silence of normal walls.
Dan managed to huff, "…as if the castle is the one moving."
Valerie coughed out some dirt, still a bit wide-eyed. "No shit." Like this, the fall had jerked the chains a bit loose around one of her arms. It was the one with her hand still pressed against Dan's backend. Then she added to him dryly, "You couldn't have fallen on the other side, could you."
"How could I—oh." Dan's voice strangled off in a surprised way as he felt Valerie's hand begin to shift and slide up his body. He tried to lift his head off the floor. "Are you feeling me up?"
"No," she hissed. "I'm trying to get out, so hold still. The chains are loose on my arm." With a few winces, she managed to wiggle free one limb.
"Then continue to touch me as much as possible," Dan advised. "I've been in great need of stimulation lately. Although the best kind of stimulation requires that I face you."
She huffed, "I'm gonna bathe in bleach when this is over." By removing one of her arms, it loosened the chains again to where she could more easily move other parts of her body. "And for the record, this is as much stimulation from me as you're ever gonna get."
"A pity," Dan hummed, even as he waited to hear the sound of a chain drop. "Your form inspires me to feel less desire for snuffing your life."
Valerie's hand hit the ground as she began to wiggle beneath the chains, trying to pull them over her head and shimmy through the largest opening. She managed to pull the first chain over her head, which began to loosen the rest more. "So you'll compromise your own game for boobs and an ass, huh?"
This time, Dan began to move with a bit of relief, having sensed that she was free enough. "I desire conquest," he admitted freely. "That does not mean I cannot appreciate your assets."
She moved to elbow him hard, but in the moment she did, it loosed the bonds more. He turned about in the chains, the metal now sliding easily against the material of his jumpsuit. He then rolled on top of her, and she yelped as her back suddenly hit the floor.
His hands landed near her head, his face inches from hers with a curious interest in his red gaze. His breath was a cool winter's breeze against her flushed cheeks. "Do you appreciate mine?"
Valerie stared up at him in surprise, feeling the length of his body against hers. "What?" she breathed, face blushing hard.
"Do you not even think of that night we defeated Nocturne?" he asked, searching her eyes. "The dream he created to distract us—you wore a red dress, and I—"
"—was supposed to be dead?" she interrupted. Her voice was a bit softer but held great suspicion. "Yeah, I remember it."
"I kissed you to wake you up."
"And I said I would've rather gotten shot," she whispered. "Now get off me. You're squishing my pancreas."
He fell silent as he looked at her, his lips twitching in a humorless way. It appeared that Valerie knew just the words to cut him. He struggled to know if her blush were one of attraction or genuine embarrassment and anger. He therefore began to pull away from her, grabbing onto the chains to work himself out. "Perhaps it is well you respond so," he sighed. "I require other assets of yours for now, namely your wiles and resourcefulness to ensure the Ghost Writer does not kill us both. Do you agree to another truce?"
Valerie blinked as she breathed a little easier, the distance between her and Dan increasing with every dropped chain. She sat up on her elbows, and the remainder of the chains clinked against each other and the floor. She could still feel the pressure of his muscled body and his hips against hers, which had made her heart skip a few beats. "Truce," she said, voice strangled.
Dan managed to slip out of the bonds entirely and then grabbed at the ties on her ankles. With a jerk, they snapped in his fingers, his ghost powers returning.
He held out his hand. "Let us escape from here before the walls cave in again."
She hesitated, then gripped it back.
"And as the Rogue helped the Huntress to stand," the Ghost Writer narrated dramatically, "a small, golden key suddenly fell from the confines of the Huntress's clothes to clatter on the floor."
At the feeling of something dropping from down her front, Valerie blinking in surprise. The key had hit the floor, its configuration the exact one to the major lock that had been on the chains. And then she looked up at the ceiling and cried in frustration, "Are you fucking serious?"
"Oh, yes. Now refrain from speaking directly to me. It disrupts the narrative."
Dan's eyebrows flew up as he looked from the ceiling, to the key, to back up at Valerie's tank top, where he began to notice that she wore no bra. A smile stretched his thin lips. "It surprises me that you, in all of your fiery anger, would be cold."
Her eyes lit with fire as her face flamed. She shoved him hard and then crossed her arms over her chest. She activated her battle suit, which worked now that the chains were off, and the armored panels protectively locked over her. "Shut up."
"The castle was a labyrinth of shifting tunnels and dead ends," the Ghost Writer typed merrily, taking a break only to sip on his tea. He was having a jolly time with his two victims, who seemed to write themselves very well. He hadn't known that Phantom had, in fact, kissed Valerie before. This changed things—for the better, as he had a new thought for toying with them. "The mysterious monster continued to remain on the far side of the castle, out of their reach."
Dan twirled the key in his large hand. "Valerie," he called after her, "can you place this between your breasts once more? It has lost its heat and is therefore less interesting to me."
She carried a lit metal torch in her hand, prepared to bash anything—including Phantom—that came too close. "Why don't you shove it up your ass instead," she retorted, her eyes straining to see beyond the flame. The floors of the castle teemed with a strange life, which made her paranoid that they would shift again at any time.
The ghost's sensitive ears picked up her comment. "Why on earth would I do that?" he said dryly. "And what is it with you and my ass?"
"It's an expression," she stressed, voice strained. "And I'm not obsessed with your ass."
"I did not say the word obsessed."
"You implied it."
"And you are being terribly defensive about your assumptions. I am concerned about your repressed desires, Valerie."
She swung the torch as she turned to face him. The lines of her body were tense, the flame's light accentuating the stress on her face. "Listen," she hissed. "We agreed to a truce for now, but when we get out of here, I'll—"
"—What?" he challenged, walking closer to her. "Kick my ass?"
Valerie sputtered, face flaming.
Then she turned around and kept walking. Dan huffed in amusement and moved to catch up with her, nearly prancing. "If we are going to ultimately die here," he said, "either by being squished between these walls or from the monster in the distance, then I demand to know the truth. Admit that you have felt desire upon looking at me."
"No," she said shortly.
His face faulted a bit. "But I have admitted my desires upon looking at you."
"Yeah? And that's your problem, not mine."
The ghost seemed to get more determined. "Then what is your problem? Are you truly so repressed?"
She couldn't take it anymore. "How about the fact that you're a sadistic killer?" she stressed. "Hmm? You think that's attractive? You think I like a body count?"
For a second, Phantom considered it, staring at her with a serious expression. His red eyes were distant. "…So you do think I am physically attractive, then."
Valerie rolled her eyes. "You just missed the point of what I said."
Dan clenched the key in his hand a little tighter as he stared at her.
And then a brilliant smile stretched his lips, and he fell silent, returning to his initial twirling of the key. He felt a warmth blossom within him upon realizing that Valerie was attracted to him in some way, even if just on a physical level.
He hadn't imagined it. That meant something.
"I heard what you did not say," he suddenly hummed in delight.
From the safety of his writing room, the Ghost Writer tapped his chin. "How sad," he murmured, "that the Council has spent countless years attempting to snow Phantom over with enemies, when all they needed was one human woman. And a simple…push in the right direction."
He typed, "The castle's floors began to shift, and it unbalanced them so much that they fell, with the Huntress landing on top of the Rogue."
In the blur of the moment, Valerie barely had time to acknowledge what was happening. The walls responded to the Ghost Writer's command as he spoke, surging up. She tried to regain her balance, only to fall to the side as dust and rock began to rain down.
She collided hard into Dan, who toppled backward in surprise as well.
"Mft!" his baritone voice wrangled in surprise, grabbing onto her arm. Then the walls suddenly collapsed in, and Dan immediately activated his intangibility around them both, just before the walls slammed together with a resounding bang.
Dan and Valerie continued to fall down the stories in a flail of limbs until his intangibility shorted out, and they landed on another hard stone floor. The castle fell silent with the exception of Dan's groan.
Valerie opened her eyes tentatively, half-tempted to squeeze them shut again. She felt Dan's hand on her hip and the back of her head slip away as the moment passed. Then it hit her that she was on top of him. She bolted up on her hands, staring down in a shocked silence atop of Dan, not quite realizing for another second that her legs were straddling his, their hips jammed together. She felt of jolt of sharp emotion storm through her body. She was unsure what the feeling was, except that it made a blush bleed over her again.
Dan's eyes opened with her movements. Like this, his hair was a flickering halo about his head, his gaze still a bit dazed from the fall. "I'm beginning to suspect you think me an airbag," he deadpanned with another groan. "This is twice now I have broken your fall."
The woman froze and then sputtered for a second. "What? It's not my fault the floors moved. Or that you grabbed me."
He moved his shoulder, and something popped. He complained to her, "Will you not even thank me for my accidental chivalry?"
Valerie shoved him before swinging off his body. "You know I can take a hit," she retorted, shakily standing up. "So no more of that hypocritical chivalry crap, Mr. 'I'll-slam-you-into-a-wall-next-Tuesday.'"
"It's Mondays," he corrected. "And without me, you would have been squashed like a bug, even with your armor."
"Yeah? Well, thanks."
He stood up, and his spine popped several times. "You are welcome." There was a dry amusement in him as he stared at her, his eyes softening the slightest fraction.
Valerie caught the minute change in his face and looked away, knowing there was something wrong about how, sometimes, the ghost made her feel heart skip—and not in fear.
The Ghost Writer's voice then interjected once more. "As the Rogue and Huntress recalibrated from their fall, the castle shifted again and revealed a room housing a terrible, magical power."
One of the walls on the far side of their current room began to lift up, the stones falling in crumbles to the floor.
Valerie felt an uneasy buzz from her battle suit as she peered through the film of the falling ash, coughing a bit. And suddenly a great fear stormed through her as her battle suit deactivated itself, leaving her in bare feet and her thin pajama shorts and tank top. She looked down at herself in shock. "What the hell…?"
And that was when the draining began.
From behind, Dan leaned his hand against a wall, feeling queasy as he held his stomach. His power core stalled in a sluggish way, his hair losing its flicker to fall against his face. "Ngh," he complained. "What is this?"
"The great power," typed the Ghost Writer, "was an ancient being who fed off energy from others, taking any form it found pleasing to itself."
Valerie looked up at the ceiling and cried, "What? You have got to be kidding me—give me my suit back! Right now!"
But as she spoke, something shifted in the room, and she saw the darkness in the room move—as if it were alive. A great, draconic paw made of shadows slammed against the floor beside her, and then suddenly the walls began to shift once more, rising up between her and the strange beast.
Valerie struggled to catch her balance, only for the stones around her to shift into new walls. She stumbled back, narrowly avoiding the heavy stones as they fell into place. As the walls recollected, she realized she was in a room by herself—separated from not only the monster but also Dan. "Oh, shit," she breathed in panic. "Oh my god. Fuck."
Meanwhile, Dan himself had also been knocked to the side, struggling to remain upright as the castle shifted. His eyes had widened at the sight of the large, shadowy paw that had nearly crushed Valerie. The castle rumbled with the steps of the strange beast as it seemed to back away, and Dan froze for a time. "What the hell?" he whispered to himself, looking around in panic that the castle had separated him from Valerie.
Without his powers, Dan felt a deep nervousness. He did not want to think of it as fear, but his skin still buzzed with the alien presence of the beast. "Is this how you want to end me?" he murmured to the Ghost Writer, knowing he was hearing. "As the fodder for one of your creature's stomachs?" Everything fell silent as he began to move forward, searching for a weapon of some kind. "And if you injure Valerie in any way, then you will have made a grave mistake, do you understand me?"
The Ghost Writer did not respond nor provide narration, which meant that, whatever they were doing, it was in alignment with exactly what he wanted to see—and that he was allowing them to write themselves.
Dan was uncertain if that were comforting or somehow even more foreboding.
Suddenly, Valerie reappeared from the opening of the room, eyes a little wide. "Oh, good," she said, breathing out a sigh of relief. There was something in the lines of her body that was skittish. "You're not hurt."
Dan did not want to admit his relief at the sight of her. Her skin looked a bit gray from the dust that coated her and her tangled curls, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. He declared, "It will take more than moving walls to end me." The floors beneath them trembled a bit as he tried to move forward to her, holding onto one wall tightly. "Did you see the beast?"
She pressed her lips together tightly and nodded. "I think it's playing with us," she whispered. "Like a cat."
"Then that is one ugly, oversized cat," Dan said dryly. "Do you have any ideas for getting out of here? Tell me you do."
The floors shifted again, and Valerie stumbled forward a bit. She stumbled right into Dan, who caught her tightly. Her arms wrapped around him for a moment, perhaps on instinct or in desire for the touch.
Like this, her ear was pressed right up against Dan's muted power core. "I think we're trapped," she whispered.
Dan debated on whether to call out Valerie's odd recent habit of touching him. Upon deciding it was best not to ruin any subconscious action on her part, he then debated on whether to wrap his arms around her as well. He could feel the tense lines of her body, and she was oddly cold. "And where is that world-renowned resourcefulness of yours?"
Valerie pulled away a bit to stare up at him. "This is serious," she whispered, her raspy voice shaky. "I don't know what this thing is. If we don't make it out, then…" She paused for a second.
Dan stared down at her in great interest, intrigued by her vulnerability. "Then what?"
"I don't want to die without doing something," she whispered, swallowing hard. "I should have done it earlier."
And then she raised her hand to the back of his neck and lowered him down, planting her lips against his.
But after their lips touched, Dan panicked. His eyes flew open. Valerie's eyes—instead of closed or their usual teal—were a solid red like his own, her skin turning an even stranger grayish color. Her mouth was like ice. He tried to push her away, but she latched and began to drain him of his life force as a ghost.
It wasn't Valerie.
It was the beast—reformed, just as the Ghost Writer had warned could happen.
The healthy glow of his body began to dissipate as he cried out against her lips, trying to break away. His muscles weakened. His skin began to streak gray as well.
The being's hand suddenly blurred, and sharp, metallic claws burst from the illusion of Valerie, stabbing deep into Dan's power core. He yelped against its lips, eyes widening even harder as his power-infused blood began to slide down his front. "Mmf," he cried, trying to back away, to no avail.
He felt alien muscles shift beneath the skin of the false-Valerie, its arm pulling back to stab him again. His body tensed in preparation for pain.
He should have known Valerie would never want to kiss him.
Suddenly, the false-Valerie was ripped away by a strong force, its body falling hard to the side.
"Get the fuck off of him," cried the real Valerie. She swung a metal sconce again, bashing it against the creature.
Its image flickered to a dark shadow, then re-flickered back to Valerie. Glowing, blue blood welled from the cuts along its face, image distorted by how it no long quite aligned with Valerie's skeletal structure. "Why?" it hissed in Valerie's voice.
It grabbed onto her ankle, and suddenly, Valerie weakened, her skin streaking with the same odd gray as Dan. Her heart skipped a strange beat as all of her limbs stalled, the sconce loose in her grip.
The beast smiled, its teeth sharp. The distortion of Valerie's features made the real one feel great fear. It added, "Let me drain him, and I will let you go free."
Valerie tried to tighten her grip on the metal rod in her shaking hands. She could feel the thing draining her life force. "N-no," she gasped out. "N-nobody hurts him—but me."
The false-Valerie tilted its head. "But I am you," it said. "Now."
Off to the side, Dan had collapsed to the floor. If the walls and floors moved anytime soon, he would likely be crushed. His hair was a tangled mop that did not flicker, his torso shuddering with odd breaths that he did not need.
Valerie panicked at the small pool of dull, green blood inching out from beneath Dan. She tried to tighten her grip further on the metal rod. The dark gray streaks on her body were climbing up higher, inching past her shaking knees. "N-no," she said again, panicking.
In weakness, she dropped the sconce, and the being draining her suddenly flickered out, letting go of her ankle. The sconce crashed to the floor with a clang. Valerie weakly stumbled back, gasping as a flush of color returned to her body. She looked around in fear that the strange being would return to grab for her again.
The deep, narrative voice of Ghost Writer suddenly reverberated over the castle. "As the Huntress struggled to regain her energy, she reached for the Rogue in fear that he was fading."
"Dan," Valerie gasped out. The ghost had forced himself onto his hands and knees, coughing. Without his powers, he was still bleeding.
He looked up, his face drawn tight in pain as he shakily covered his wound. And then his eyes widened. "Look out!"
Before she could move, Valerie found herself being pulled back by the strange being. It still wore a facsimile of her appearance. "Poor choice," it hissed in her ear, its full lips raising up without humor. It began to drain her of energy once more, and she grabbed onto its arms in hopes of flipping the beast off of her, but it did not budge. "I will drain you both."
For a brief moment, Valerie's wild eyes landed on Dan, completely overwhelmed. The being who had stolen her image was like a battering ram to the senses, as if darkness were closing in from all sides.
Dan struggled to a panicked stand, his front soaked with his blood. "Valerie," he rasped. He leaned hard onto the wall.
And then he blurred into motion.
The next thing she knew, Dan's large hands grabbed onto her shoulders and yanked her free of the beast. She stumbled forward onto the floor, just as the stones began to shift on them all.
"Get out!" Dan hissed to her. The beast growled and grabbed onto him, its dark arms wrapping around his waist. He gasped out in pain, his blue skin paling. "Go!"
The entire castle heaved as the walls fell around them—and she lost sight of them. Valerie covered her head, breathless as she kneeled down to crawl along the shifting floor. For one wild moment, she felt only panic and fear, unable to think.
Dan had pushed her away.
Dan had sacrificed himself so she could escape.
She tried to cover the back of her head as stone and ash reformed around her, her eyes tearing up from either the dust or from the very real threat that she and Dan could die. That creature was strong in an unnatural way, capable of converting power for its own means.
Unless…
"Then the Huntress thought of an idea."
She grimaced at the sound of the Ghost Writer's voice, which was becoming increasingly irritating. "No fucking shit I just thought of an idea," she hissed under her breath. There was an undertow of panic in her voice. It was the only idea she had now. And she had to hurry, or else Dan would be gone by the time she returned. "And why the hell did that shadow dragon thing take my face, huh? You trying to say something?"
The Ghost Writer did not answer, but instead continued to watch the story plot he'd built unravel. Unbeknownst to Dan or Valerie or even the beast, the Ghost Writer was munching on popcorn from the safety of the real universe, fully delighted by Dan's sacrificial pain and Valerie's panic. The two had a Shakespearean way of showing love to each other, he thought.
Meanwhile, Valerie cried out as the floors shifted in another direction, scraping her knees as she slid to avoid being squished to death. But the farther away the castle pushed her from the power-sucking beast, the more she could feel her battle suit begin to awaken. Within seconds, she was able to activate it again. Smooth, armored panels locked over her body just as stones fell on top of her.
She activated her jet sled, and it revved hard under the rain of the castle walls, her flight pattern disjointed. "Come on," she begged the tech, "give me a path back to the dungeon."
The technology responded her to command, the visor of her helmet lighting up with a suggested path for avoiding the falling stone walls. The jet sled kicked into a higher gear, and she shot off. Her heart pounded as she flew through the shifting castle.
She needed to get back to that dungeon. The one with the chains that negated power—and with any luck, the creature's power too.
Dan crawled along the floor. The shifting castle had upheaved him from the grasp of the strange beast wearing Valerie's visage, but he knew it was prowling only a few walls away. Its touch had sucked away more of his energy, leaving him a shaky, gasping mess. "Why not," he moaned quietly to the Ghost Writer, "just put me out of my misery?"
He did not understand how the castle shiftings worked, except that they were as finicky as the Ghost Writer himself. Surely, this was revenge for destroying the nerd's keyboard—some kind of slow, humiliating death.
"But why involve Valerie?" he rasped, even as the floors moved again. He'd noticed that Valerie had not returned. Which meant she'd likely found some kind of escape, or was at least far away from the grasp of the strange creature that had taken her image. Unless this was all, again, some twisted way of tormenting him—the real-Valerie abandoning him, the Valerie-wannabe eating his power core alive until he crumbled to dust…
It was then, in the midst of his existential crisis, that he saw Valerie run into the room, dragging along…chains?
Dan tensed up in fear that it was the beast. "Get away," he rasped. "Or I'll vomit on you."
Valerie's face twisted. She had sweat rolling down her temples, her hair frazzled down her shoulders. "Don't you dare. I'm here to save you, jackass. Can't you tell it's me?"
His bleary, red eyes narrowed on her, trying to decipher if she were the real Valerie. "Tell me something no one but Valerie would know."
She huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Okay? Sometimes I share my lunches with you because you're less violent when you eat," she said as she dragged the chains closer, her arms straining with them. Her battle suit had deactivated again, leaving her in her dirty pajamas. "You blackmailed me into getting underwear for you. And I swear to god if you try to kiss me, I'll kick you."
He coughed, a few speckles of blood coating his lips. "And my underwear size?"
"You are bleeding on the floor right now, and you want to talk about that?"
"Answer," he demanded, eyes narrowing.
She rolled her eyes, then said in a hushed tone. "Medium because your waist size is thirty-three inches, and you made me measure you."
This woman was certainly Valerie. "So why come back?" he demanded in a rasp. "If you so despise me?"
"Because the narration of my life in here is shitty, and I'm not leaving you behind. Now grab onto these chains. We need to wrap ourselves in them, and I think it'll cloak us from that thing's sight—as long as you don't let it kiss you again." She began to wind the chains around herself.
His brow furrowed, and for a time, he grew suspicious once more. This Valerie wanted to touch him. "Wait a minute—"
Just then, they heard footsteps. The woman quickly kneeled down and pushed him to the floor, clambering on top of him so the chains covered them both. She hissed in his ear, "Don't move."
He nearly did in panic that he was being attacked, but then a second shadow appeared.
It was…Valerie again.
The second Valerie peered into the room with narrowed eyes and looked over the corners, seeing nothing but the walls. It huffed, its eyes suddenly turning red in irritating before its features distorted further into something draconic. Its gaze seared straight at them, but it did not see them. Then it disappeared.
The Valerie atop him flinched in the chains as they both heard the sound of an angry shout.
Meanwhile, Dan struggled to collect his thoughts that the real Valerie was willingly straddling him while wrapped in chains—and that her elbow was digging into his wound. "Get off," he begged with regret, voice straining, squeezing his eyes shut. "Please."
Valerie raised up a bit, lips in a tight line. His blood had soaked through the side of her shorts and tank top, and she knew it was not his fault, but something about it made her irritated. "How about a thank you?" she whispered harshly to him. "I just saved your sorry ass."
Dan was beginning to feel sedated from the blood loss, and so he could think of no good comebacks. "How?" he asked blearily, one of his hands weakly grasping around a chain. He could feel it dampening his powers, just as the creature had.
"That thing feeds on energy," she whispered, "but these chains cancel out energy. Get it? It's like a shield." There was an odd, conniving glint in her eye. "And I think we can trap our friend with 'em."
She started touching various areas on his suit, her eyes narrowing in concentration.
Dan's eyebrows weakly flew up as he lay there limply while she felt him up. "The hell are you—?"
"—You better still have that damn key," she interrupted, unzipping one of his pockets. "And no, I'm not enjoying this, so shut your thoughts up. The key."
A half-pained huff of amusement escaped him. "To what? Your release?"
"…To the chains," she clarified. "Good god. The chains."
"L-left side pocket."
Valerie's face blushed as she unzipped his other pocket, realizing that the pocket locations were somewhat low on his hips and that, if he had not been a victim of blood loss, he would have teased her further. She pulled away with the key and chains, then stood. "Now you stay here. You'll be the bait."
He weakly raised a hand. "Very well."
"And…I guess I'm gonna take that thing down while it's distracted."
Dan closed his eyes again. Cold sweat had formed over his skin as his power core struggled on, still dampened by the house of horrors that was the Ghost Writer's little universe. "Please do," he rasped out. "Claws are not a good look on you."
After a time, the creature returned, its form wavering between Valerie's image and the shadows of its true self. Its ringlet hair was a floating void of darkness, the eyes just as black. "Enough games," it called, Valerie's voice now distorted by several other octaves and by its fangs. "I feel the presence of the male now."
It appeared into the room. Its black eyes landed upon Dan's limp form, where he lay in a half-delirium on the floor. Vulnerable.
Then it smiled, but nothing existed beyond its brilliant white fangs. "There you are." It walked forward, reaching out its hand. Valerie's slim, dark arms stretched out in unnatural ways, fingernails lengthening into draconic claws. "My best meal yet."
Dan's eyes twitched.
Before the creature could reach him, Valerie swung out from the chains, revealing herself to the creature. It turned around just in time for Valerie to swing the chains its way. They struck the creature hard with a hiss, and it panicked as the chains wound around it.
"How many times do I have to tell you," Valerie huffed. "He's mine." She grabbed for the lock and quickly turned the key in it before the creature could swipe at her.
The false-Valerie struggled against the chains and tried to shapeshift back into some kind of dragon form—but it only managed scales down its body before it hissed in pain. Its illusions began to unwind as the image of Valerie disappeared fully from its form, leaving only a strange, humanoid outline without a face.
"The chains fully negated the creature's power," narrated the Ghost Writer, voice dramatic. "Completely cut off from all sources, the creature could not exist. It began to fade away until nothing was left."
For a time, its odd-looking body turned gray as it tried to move its pinned arms. Its voice was a combination of all the beings it had absorbed energy from before. "No," it cried in a cacophony of tones, Dan and Valerie's voice only two of the many.
Valerie blinked, disturbed at the sound. She pressed her hands to her ears, her eyes wide. "Come on," she whispered. "It's gotta die—it's gotta die."
Then, slowly, it crumbled into dust. The chains fell to the floor in an odd clank atop an ash pile that faded after a moment.
"And thus the Huntress rescued her wayward ally," the Ghost Writer said. This time, his voice was muffled, as if he were eating something delicious.
Valerie looked up at the ceiling, eyes wild. "Stop narrating my life!" she called. "God dammit—just...get us out of here!"
Off to the side, the limp Dan groaned, his glassy eyes opening. His injured power core had begun to rev again with the immediate dispatch of the creature. Now, all he could hear was Valerie yelling profanities at the ceiling as she activated her battle suit, this time without her helmet.
He found her curses somewhat comforting and moaned again in hopes of gaining her attention. It did not quite work.
The Ghost Writer decided to help him out. "But the Huntress soon realized that her companion was not yet out of danger."
Valerie's face twisted. "Why the hell wouldn't he…" Her voice trailed off as she turned to Dan, eyes lighting in panic. "Oh no." She dropped down beside him in a hurry, turning his chin to face her. Her armor clinked in soft ways against the stone. "The hell you doing? You're supposed to be getting better now!"
Bleary, red eyes stared up at her. His face still glistened with a cold sweat, even as his thin lips stretched in a shaky way. "You worried?"
"Yes," she admitted, voice rushed and harsh. She looked down at his wound and the glow of the blood that coated his jumpsuit. "The thing's gone, so you should be healing."
A bit roughly, Valerie pulled the front zipper of his jumpsuit down to his belly button to unceremoniously inspect his wound. He winced when she pulled the material back. "I've imagined," he rasped, "being undressed by you. But this—isn't what I had in mind."
"Shut up," she retorted, narrowing her eyes at his wound. She could see the puncture wounds the creature had bored into him, the blue flesh swollen and green with inflammation. She wiped away some of the blood with her armored hand, and he winced. Her voice grew incredulous. "You big baby, it isn't even that bad."
His glazed eyes widened at her. "What?" he cried. "I'm b-bleeding out."
"No, you're not. Or at least not anymore." She grabbed one of the cleaner edges of his suit and gently pressed the material against his wounds. He hissed in pain. "You're scabbing over. You'll probably be fine in a few minutes, knowing how fast you heal."
Dan huffed at her, caught between enjoying the attention and feeling ill as she pressed his wound. "It hurts, dammit."
"Yeah? Well, maybe next time you're in a room with a strange being, you shouldn't kiss the damn thing. It was hanging off your mouth like a—"
"—It kissed me," he complained. He winced again. "And your bedside manner is atrocious."
"You're atrocious." She softened her touch against him a bit, trying to wipe away the blood.
Dan struggled up onto his elbows. As his power returned, his flattened hair began to flicker, then lift up. A healthy glow slowly stretched out from him, a flush of color returning to his body. His voice strengthened. "And you saved me," he said.
Valerie's lips pressed tightly together. "We saved each other. Group effort."
But there was something in his expression that was merrily haunted—an understand that, for all of his power, he had natural weaknesses. And for all of her weakness, Valerie had natural strengths. "Do you even realize," he said slowly, "you held the key to my destruction in your hand? If I'd not been tied to you in that dungeon, I might have faded out in those chains, just like that creature."
Valerie's eyes searched his. "What?"
"Do you not see? Those chains negate power from the outside," he said, "but your living energy must have sustained me because you were tied with me. Ghosts can survive off human energy as well. That is the only explanation I can find…" He narrowed his gaze at her. "So what keeps you from ending my existence with those deadly chains?"
For a time, it seemed the woman did not quite understand. She stared at him, her hand stalling against his bare stomach, the hard muscles now fully healed and suit beginning to dematerialize the blood stains. Her face flushed a bit. "Because we're still stuck here together? And I don't wanna die in some stupid story?"
He stared at her for a bit, measuring how genuine her words were. "…Valid point," he said. His head tilted a bit. "But yet you defeated the beast with only a few scratches, an event I would have marked as the climax of the Ghost Writer's story."
Her face twisted. "C-climax?"
Dan forgave her of her literary ignorance and added, "The point at which a conflict reaches its peak. Not unlike sex—a very stimulating moment, if done right. By deduction, I therefore do not believe our narrator wants to annihilate us, or else he would have done so when we were most vulnerable."
"Then what does he want?" she whispered.
"I do not know," Dan admitted, his cool breath brushing against her face. "Except that he tested the strength of our truces. Our will to survive together. Perhaps I am overthinking it. To be honest, I thinking about climax again, but in the sexual connotation. I cannot unthink it."
Valerie began to realize that she was actively touching a now fully healed Dan Phantom. She looked down and then suddenly wished that she hadn't. His jumpsuit, now clean of blood, was still unzipped to his belly button, the symmetry of his muscles naked to her eyes in a vulnerable way. She felt her jaw drop a fraction at the sight of him.
"Oh," she said, a bit dazed. An odd spike of energy warmed through her. She didn't dare to admit it was attraction.
Dan's long fingers lifted up on her chin, clicking her mouth shut. "My eyes are up here," he murmured.
Valerie's face tinged a beet red, knowing she'd been caught. "I w-wasn't—I—"
His lips raised as he sat up more, the opening of his jumpsuit widening further. "I believe heroes of a story receive a kiss for their good work?" The loose material slipped down his broad shoulder, revealing his muscled arm and the full expanse of his chest. Then he reached out to her, gently grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her forward.
The unbalancing pitched her forward a bit until her lips crashed against his. "Mmf!" Her eyes flew open in shock as her armored hands pressed against his broad chest for balance.
Dan's fingers wove into her thick curls as he kissed her.
Something—attraction—dropped hard through Valerie. The taste of Dan Phantom was something between ash and snow, his lips lighting a fire down her spine. It was an overwhelming sensation, her brain shutting down. The last of her will left her. She grabbed onto the back of his neck, weaving her fingers into his fire locks. Her battle suit deactivated, leaving her in only her thin shorts and tank top.
"And so the Rogue's heart was slain by the Huntress, and the Slayer's heart was slain by the Huntress."
"I'm going to murder you," she breathed against his lips, gasping for air. "Then the Ghost Writer. Then you again."
He huffed and pulled her forward until she was straddling his lap. "Murder later." Then he kissed her once more. His lips stretched hers open, and he deepened their kiss. Her hot breath was a swirl in his mouth, her skin radiating with the heat of her lust. His hands grabbed at the small of her back, running lower. He pressed her flush against himself, their hips jammed against each other.
And the Ghost Writer blinked, watching words appear for themselves on the screen. He sat up from his chair. "Oh dear. I was not expecting…this."
Valerie made a noise of pleasure as she kissed Dan, her scarred fingers sweeping down his naked sides. A thrill ran through her at the feeling of his body—that this was all so wrong and felt so real.
With her strength, she pushed him until his back rested against the floor. "Damn you," she whispered shakily against his lips, closing her eyes at the feeling of straddling him. "We h-have to s-stop."
He looked up at her with eyes dilated in lust, now understanding the full breadth of the tension between them. "Yes," he begged. He'd lost all thought of anything else but Valerie. "Put me out of my misery."
Then he pulled her flush against him, his hands digging into the taut muscle of her rear, fingers bunching into the fabric of her shorts.
Valerie gasped at the feeling of him pressing up against her. "Oh."
The Ghost Writer laughed nervously and began to fan himself as the words became naughtier. "I fear this is—wow, guys, people are going to read this!" he called out to them. "Perhaps I should…create a scene break? Yes, a scene break! That'll do nicely."
Dan and Valerie suddenly realized they were being pulled apart, their world blurring around them. The next thing they knew, they were staring at each other from a short distance, a sunny, tree-filled valley around them.
"And so the Rogue and the Huntress returned to the human world. Having faced great danger together, the Rogue felt he could not attack the fair lands that the Huntress protected. And the Huntress could not slay the Rogue who had so betrayed her kind."
The two looked at each other uncertainly. Valerie's clothes were still somewhat displaced. Dan's jumpsuit was still partially open. He zipped it up with as much grace as he could muster.
"What the—? Do you still hear his voice?" Valerie whispered. Although an indefinite amount of time had passed, her lips were still bruised, her body still tingling from Phantom's touch.
The ghost cleared his throat and looked away. "Surely we've earned passage from his stories," he said. But his vocal inflections were strained. "Perhaps this is just the dénouement."
"…The what?"
The narration cut in again. "It was loneliness, you see, that had born the Rogue's insanity." Then the Ghost Writer frowned. "Oh no. That rhymes, and this isn't a Christmas poem." He tried again. "Loneliness was the cause of the Rogue's insanity, and now the Rogue saw that he was not alone. He realized the Huntress fulfilled the emptiness within him that had existed since the death of his family and friends."
Dan gave the sky a look of frustration—on several levels. "The end of the story," he stressed to Valerie. "A dénouement is the falling action, the conclusion, of the story. After the climax."
"After?" Valerie repeated dumbly. She crossed her arms, her body feeling terribly as if it were just getting started. She activated her battle suit to hide herself. "What the hell."
The radar on her suit suggested the ectoplasmic power of the Ghost Writer was subsiding. But Dan's energy—it was a sharp pulse that encompassed even her.
Dan's face was tight with need as he stared at her. He was beginning to realize what the Ghost Writer had done. "The little snot wanted this to happen," he said, voice strained. "If this is the end of his story, and he is releasing us, then it was never about the castle or the beast. It was about…you and me."
It suddenly hit Valerie that her moment with Dan had not been unwitnessed. Her cheeks bled a strong pink as she looked up at the sky. "You've gotta be kidding me," she said. "That would mean he'd had to know about—uh—about—"
"—Us?" Dan suggested.
"Not us," she argued frantically. "There's never been an us. I mean, this." She waved between them.
He tilted his head, unable to see the difference in the meaning of the phrases. "Perhaps the Ghost Writer has spoken to Nocturne. Or he has witnessed our fights."
For the last several weeks, ever since Nocturne had given them both an oddly romantic dream, their fights bordered on some weird form of flirtation—mostly initiated by Dan.
Valerie put a hand on her hips, still blushing. "But why?"
"He is employed by the Ghost Council, who despise me. Maybe they desired to see the depth of our connection, given the nature of the castle's tests."
"We don't have a connection," she said immediately.
Dan's thin lips stretched. "Oh, I believe we do." In a quick blur, he suddenly appeared before her to murmur in her ear, "Next time, let us indulge in our lusts fully so that we may embarrass them—they are a prudish bunch."
"What?" she hissed in horror. "You mean even more saw what we did?"
His large hand swept down her waist to her armored hips. "Not yet," he said. Then he nuzzled his nose against the curls of her hair. "But I fully intend to give them reason to never spy again."
It was all she could do to push him away, her body desiring the very end he insinuated. "No," she said, a bit breathless at the way her heart was racing for his touch. "We don't know what game they're playing. I don't wanna wake up and find my family dead because of your enemies."
"That would suggest you are a weakness of mine," he murmured. "But you are a strength to me, even without your battle suit. I see that now."
Valerie looked up at him, face flushed with a level of vulnerability. "I don't care what you think I am," she whispered. "We're supposed to be enemies."
"Enemies with benefits?" he suggested, tilting her chin up. "Do not tell me you have never thought on Nocturne's dream, when we danced and I kissed you." He leaned in, his lips inches from hers. "Or that you would not mind finishing what we started in the castle."
"It was a dream and a story," she whispered. "Those things aren't real."
"They can be." There was a vulnerability in Dan as well as he pulled away from her, his hand slipping from her skin.
"And so the Rogue and Huntress agreed to an impasse. He was, after all, known as a destroyer and murderer—and she was known for her hatred of him. But they held onto the hope that they would be reunited again. And in secret, they would love. The end."
Sometime later, Clockwork sat his in favorite chair beside the fireplace in his tower. The clocks ticked in a delightful symphony of clicks and clacks as he perused through a manuscript in a bored fashion. It was a transcript of all that had transpired while Dan Phantom and the human woman, Valerie Gray, had been under the Ghost Writer's control.
He rolled his eyes halfway through. He had known what to expect, but the particular detail of it left him with a twitching eye—partially out of disbelief that the Ghost Writer believed he had literary talent, and partially out of exasperation with Dan's blatant sexual appetite for Valerie, which seemed to be increasing as of late. Clockwork feared the behavior was right in time with the instinctive ghost mating season that affected the younger generations.
The old ghost eventually set his hand to paper to write to the Ghost Writer.
Dear Ghost Writer,
Your "masterpiece," as you say, left much to be desired in plot and taste. I expected as much. Please ensure that your next installment of the Rogue/Huntress series is appropriate enough to submit to the Ghost Council for review. I fear they will not take this script as a legitimate attempt to rewrite Dan Phantom's destructive habits, but will see it simply as a poor attempt at writing romantic fiction. We need Phantom to fight for us against greater enemies looming on the horizon—not be distracted by love for a mortal woman. You have potentially endangered us all.
Sincerely,
Clockwork, Master of Time
Then Clockwork reread his letter. It sounded stuffy and rigid. He added a final sentence.
P.S. Should you continue to entertain stories featuring the Rogue and Huntress in a romance, at least have Technus update the Huntress's battle suit so she may fight at Phantom's side when the time comes.
A/N: Wow, this plot got significantly more complicated as it went along. Should I apologize for writing this, haha? I've never written a story inside a story inside a fictional review before. O_o; But anyways, the idea of the Ghost Writer writing a story with Valerie and Dan in it was again a request from Silverstone007. Hope you enjoyed! I had a lot of fun writing it. You may have noticed it references another story in the Deliverance collection, titled Masquerade.
Also, a quick note. I've been updating more slowly as of late. This is because I am officially back in school! I am pursuing a master's degree! So you might find, instead of every two weeks, updates are every three weeks or once a month. But if you're craving more Dan/Val in the meantime, there are officially other people besides myself actively writing Dark Gray! Be sure to check out content from tvip11 and Lady Audentium to support our small Dark Gray community!
Please let me know your thoughts, questions, ideas or constructive criticisms for this chapter! And would you prefer a new one-shot or a Karma update next?
