Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

Thanks to KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun, Invader Johnny, Guest, SweetestChick, Guest, Dp-Marvel94, Trish, JadeliketheGem, and sharkyskadi for reviewing last time! I can't believe we're nearing the year 2021, and that somehow this lil collection is still chugging along, and that somehow you all have continued to return to and support this collection. I am in awe of that, and so very humbled. It really means a lot and makes me excited and motivated to update stuff. So thank you thank you, as always, for your support with these stories. I might be writing fanfic for other shows, but Dark Gray always holds a special place in my heart and is such a fun place to return to because of you all. I really appreciate this community!

Series Summary: Dan challenges Pariah Dark for the position of Ghost King and loses badly. As a result, Pariah Dark rips out Dan's power core, cuts out his tongue, and tortures him to make an example for other enemies. He then throws a broken Dan to the resistance before claiming the human world as part of his empire. Valerie struggles with what to do regarding their strange prisoner and how to stop Pariah Dark before he destroys them all. Hurt!Dan.

Chapter Summary: Karma Part 11: Amity Park makes it move against Pariah Dark. The attack doesn't go so well, and neither does Valerie's assumptions that she could keep Dan from interfering.

Chapter Warnings: Graphic violence, character injury, non-graphic references to abuse.


Deliverance

Shot 77: Karma Part 11


Ten hours into the battle with Pariah Dark, Valerie was wearing down. Several squadrons of the resistance had fallen, and the infamous and powerful Ghost King had honed in on Valerie Gray as a particularly resilient pest. The graphene armor encasing her absorbed incredible amounts of shock and left her whole.

But her strained body cried out against her.

Her frazzled mind made mistakes.

As she flew by in exhaustion, raising a blaster for a shot, the Ghost King's mace managed to slam directly into her visor, cracking it.

Valerie gasped in pain at the punch, eyes rolling back as she slammed against a wall of the castle. The stone crunched beneath the force. The strong armor around her—so capable of absorbing a direct hit, was beginning to fracture under constant, sustained pressure.

She felt it now.

Her brain scattered at bit in that moment as she slid down white stone, the battlefield a blur around her—

—Her helmet unlatched as she slid, falling down her shoulder—

Pariah Dark's sharp, calculating eye honed on her, and he reached out and grabbed onto her locks of hair, pulling her up hard. She gasped in pain, her hands automatically reaching up to pull his away. His body was so large that he was holding her hair between two fingers, as if dangling a piece of paper.

She hung from his grasp, scalp on fire.

"You are a spirited one," he murmured, his accented voice turning with a bit of amusement. "You remind me of ancient times, when humans were stronger. More violent."

He flung her to the ground, and she lost her breath entirely as she smacked into the dirt once more in a tangle of limbs and a strangled noise.

He stepped forward, his steps rumbling the earth.

Terror filled her. Valerie struggled to her feet, breathing hard as she held her side. Her armor had cracked. She did not want to think about how much force her body had taken. She instead needed to focus on Pariah Dark. Who he was. A distraction. "You," she gasped, voice shaky, "got an accent. Like, Scottish? Irish? Where you from?"

His singular eye narrowed on her. "Why does that matter to you?"

She wiped sweat from her face and stared up at him. She felt like a grasshopper compared to his hulking and large frame, which far towered above her own. "I wanna know," she said tiredly, trying to stall for time, "if you've always been an asshole ghost? Or if you were an asshole human at one point too."

The great king stared at her. And then, of all things, a short bark of a laugh erupted from him. The grounds of his floating lair shook with it, shaking loose a few bricks from the castle walls. "No enemy has ever dared to ask me such." He turned his wrist and grabbed for her. She was small enough to fit in his hand, and she lurched with nausea as he tightly fitted his fingers around her and pulled her up, the world whisking by in a blur—and then a sudden stop, level with his face.

Valerie stared into the eyes of the beast, heart pounding.

"I know what you are doing, little one," he said appreciatively, eyes narrowing. "I see the fear and exhaustion in your face. So tell me—" He opened his hand, and she fell back on his palm— "why do you fight, when you know you cannot win?"

Valerie's eyes were wide as she stared up at him, her body shaking in pain as she leaned against his palm. "I g-got people," she said. "You ever had people?"

He tilted his head. "No."

Suddenly, the Ghost King clenched his fingers in with a snap. Valerie desperately attempted to jump away, but he caught her by the leg just as she fell from his grasp. Snap. Pop. Her body jerked and stars exploded in her vision. Valerie cried out, her voice ragged as she hung upside in his grasp.

Her leg. He'd snapped her leg.

"You are a fool," the king said simply. "You would have made for a good soldier in my army." But his singular eye burned with interest as he watched her tremble with pain.

Valerie barely managed to hear him over the ringing in her ears. She shakily managed to turn off her link to her father. He did not need to hear this.

Nausea overwhelmed her. Thought began to fragment beneath the pain coursing through her body. In the background, she vaguely heard cries of resistance squadrons, moving to regroup against the Ghost King's skeleton armies. "I—will never fight for you."

"You cannot win, human," Pariah Dark declared, peering at her as if she were a toy or a spider he desired to crush for invading his home.

"I don't—have to win," she gasped, voice pained as she shook through the agony of her broken leg. "I just…can't lose."

Her heartbeat failed in stress for a beat or two, weak in its sluggish attempts to keep beating. But Valerie knew she had enough energy left for one final attempt. She weakly grabbed onto a rod from the forearm of her suit, and in a blur, it shuttered out into a thick, anti-ecto sword. With a cry, she swung it as hard she could—

The next thing she knew, she was falling—with spurting of cold, thick blood across her body, and a loud, monstrous roar of pain from Pariah Dark. Her armor flickered with desperate to recalibrate from a free-fall —her jet sled was gone—

Alert—alert—

She pushed out her arms in panic and hit the ground with a crunch. And everything went black.


The infamous Dan Phantom lay asleep in the office where Damon Gray had left him. His white hair flickered in a daze about him, his chest raising and lowering in a false, sleeping breath—a habit left over from life. The tranquilizing drug that Valerie's father had given him stalled his power core and dulled his senses, such that he remained asleep even as the doorknob to the office began to wiggle.

He was dreaming—all of the images in his mind slipping away before he could name them—

But soon, the door swung open. Little feet pattered into the office. Small, sweaty palms patted his face insistently. "Wake up," came a frantic, high-pitched whisper. It was a child.

Nina.

"Come on," she begged tearfully. "Wake up. Please!"

His sharp face twitched, an elfin ear flicking at the disturbance.

She began to shove him harder. "We're in trouble," she pleaded. "Commander Gray is hurt. Bad."

Gray.

His worn and drugged body fought against him, but the echoing name struck his ears in a way that they flicked again.

Gray.

An image of a woman in black armor—

Valerie.

Bleary, dilated red eyes opened to heaven. Dan's long hair flickered around him in a disjointed wave. For a time, his body otherwise did not move.

The tranquilizing drug was strong.

A little face wavered above his, tears running down dark cheeks. "She's gonna die," the little girl cried. "And so are we. Please help. Please."

The ghost groaned, his baritone voice a strangle from his throat, which felt dry and still yet burned with the taste of the drug. His weak power core stuttered. He managed to turn his head to eye the little human girl shoving his arm, and he blinked at her in confusion.

The last he'd known was Damon Gray catching him from collapsing straight to the floor.

His long fingers twitched against the tile.

His flannel shirt was in a strange twist about him. He recognized that his own braided hair hung off beside his shoulder, half-undone. He blinked again.

Nina's hands weakened against his arm. Her little breath was a puff against him. A hot, salty tear slipped from her chin and onto the flannel of his shirt. "Please," she cried. She awkwardly patted his face. "Please. I know you're strong. You just have to be now."

His lip bared, revealing a sharp fang in a lazy way. And then his face twisted. He began to fight against the tranquilizing drug in his system, his power core attempting to filter it out on will alone—and the ambient energy around him.

The resistance carried great, anxious energy now. As did Nina.

Dan closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his core slipping against the energies around him, attempting to raise himself up with them and filter out the toxins running through his veins. His hand tensed against the tile. And with another groan, he managed to pull himself up.

White hair straggled along his sharp cheek as he rasped for air he did not need, his messy braid slipping down his shoulder. The room spun. "Valerie?" he rasped to Nina, his dilated eyes attempting to focus upon her. "Hurt?"

She nodded desperately. "They carried her back from the fight. She's in bad shape. I—" Her big eyes welled with tears. Nina was afraid that everyone would die.

Shakily, the ghost reached out to her. His movements were disjointed, his fingers twitching with the aftereffects of the drug. "Nina." His baritone voice was halted and strained. His white brows knitted together as he focused to wipe her cheek of tears.

The little girl's lip quivered.

Then, he pulled away, slamming his hand onto the tile with a groan. "Where—is she—?"

Nina began to pull at him, trying to help him up. "They're taking her to the infirmary. She's hurt real bad." She hiccupped in distress. "Please help."

Memories began to return to Dan. He recalled the foreboding worry he'd felt as he'd gazed upon the fully suited Valerie Gray, knowing that this battle would decide both of their fates.

Suddenly, his muscles tensed, and his eyes locked in on Nina with full awareness.

"Take me to her," he demanded.


At the door of the infirmary, one frazzled Damon Gray stood, having relinquished battle command to a secondary officer while he spoke with Kwan over the state of his daughter, who was being carried in on a gurney. Her body was still, strapped down beneath bloodied blankets.

Dan appeared around the corner, being guided by a little girl. The instant his red eyes caught the sight of an unconscious Valerie, his movements began to sharpen, his white flyaways flickering in distress.

The father turned around at the sound of nearing footsteps and stopped short. His expression tightened in great anger, disgust, and fear. "What is he doing up?" he demanded, looking down immediately at Nina. "Get him back in the office, and away from my daughter."

The little girl shrunk under the man's gaze, and so Dan sidestepped closer to protect her.

His vision was still slightly blurry from drugs, but his form towered over the human man. He bared his fangs in displeasure and worry. "I am not—disobeying," he snapped. And then he turned back to the gurney as various soldiers rolled it into the infirmary.

Valerie looked strange within her fragmented battle suit. More frail or human, whereas he had always found her imposing. The bandage across her forehead hid her wild locks back, further dampening her liveliness.

He feared she was dead, but he saw the sluggish rise and fall of her blood-splattered chest.

Tears burned behind his eyes at the sight of her, an impending doom sinking his heart. He knew this was a potential outcome for the battle. No doubt, Amity Park was losing now—and the only reason it still stood was because Pariah Dark liked to toy with his food. Which meant they were on a time limit.

All of them.

He looked back at Damon Gray. Tears had misted his red eyes in longing for Valerie to wake up. His deep voice halted. "How far did she make it?"

The older man was hesitant, still suspicious of him. "She removed the king's Ring of Rage by cutting off his hand. The ring's in our possession now, but we're losing numbers fast. Pariah's beginning to carve a way here now, and he's regenerating his body. I've not ejected you out to the Ghost Zone yet, because we might still win."

Dan swallowed hard. Despite the pain in his throat from disuse, he snapped, "Or you may still lose." If the resistance lost this battle, then Pariah would ensure that the human race could never again build a resistance against him. He looked back at Valerie in horror that she might suffer a fate as bad as his had been under Pariah Dark. If that were the case, then she was better off dying now.

Pariah would have no mercy on her, especially considering she had already received a warning—

He began to breathe unevenly, swallowing hard. He had a few choices. With her already unconscious, he could slit her throat and save her from Pariah's wrath. Then, of course, he would have to kill Nina and Vlad too, as he could make it quick and easy for them with a strong snap of the neck—the others, he didn't particularly care if they were tortured by Pariah.

Or he could go to the battlefront himself, and distract Pariah from the resistance entirely.

He knew that the second option was the one Valerie would approve, because it involved taking responsibility and not killing innocent people.

Neither option was particularly safe.

He glanced away in pain, realizing that this might be the last time he would ever see Valerie Gray alive. But if he did not rise to the occasion, then Pariah Dark would torture her to death, along with everyone else. He could not stand the thought of Pariah stringing an already injured Valerie up like a doll and then breaking her body slowly until she broke.

And she would, eventually. Just as he'd broken.

His face twitched in pain as he glanced down at the fearful Nina beside him.

Dan decided would make Valerie proud. He would pay for everything—all of the deaths, all of the pain, all of the frustration he had caused, and he would use Valerie's gift at a second chance to save them all. Even if it meant the end of his own existence. It was the least he could do. Then maybe he could fade out in peace.

Whatever peace was.

He began to seethe with power, the sockets of his eyes beginning to glow blue. The air around him warped strangely, his half-regenerated power core suddenly glowing brighter and brighter in a mix of self-preservation and greedily sucking in the available ambient energy around him.

He turned to Damon Gray, his features distorting with increasing power, his ecto-signature spiking hard. He allowed himself to feel rage, unfettered. "I will destroy him," he rasped. "Valerie will not die. And neither will your people."

And suddenly, his form dematerialized, wisping out in a storm toward the battle, leaving a dropped-jawed Damon and a weak, sniffling Nina—who glanced around in fear that she would now lose him too.


The battlefield at the castle of the Ghost King bore evidence of great destruction. The humans had blown half the castle away with charges. Dismembered skeleton soldiers lay in the dirt, mixed with the bodies of fallen humans.

The stench.

Dan's weak power core stalled as he breathed in the smell of metal and smoke and death. The smell did not delight him as it may have, long ago in the past. Instead, he bared a fang in fury and fear. He could hear the unsteady heartbeats of dozens of human soldiers, their voices strangling up as they attempting to slash through a never-ending barrage of skeletons, with the Ghost King himself floating back, far from such front lines, occasionally peering at the combatants and shooting one down for play.

True to Damon Gray's words, the Ghost King was missing a hand, his stumped wrist buried against his side as he attempted to regenerate.

Pariah Dark's singular red eye suddenly snapped to him.

Dan Phantom set foot down in the middle of the battle, raising up his arms. A black barrier stretched out from him, its lines seething with his own natural red energy, his core revving up with great effort. Grimacing, he pushed out the barrier, expanding it around the battle-worn human soldiers around him, including even a dirty and bloodied Dashiell Baxter.

The Ghost King lifted his chin, his singular eye focused upon him. "Ah," he boomed out, his voice rumbling like thunder. "A cockroach appears. One I thought I'd squished long ago." He raised out his remaining hand, and great power stormed from his fingertips.

Lightning crackled against Dan's barrier.

His bare feet slid into the dirt, his arms jerking back with the force of the hit. A strangled noise escaped him, and cold sweat beaded at his brow.

But his core did not stutter.

The barrier held strong.

His ecto-signature sky-rocketed as he forced the barrier to stretch over more human squadrons—knowing that Valerie would prefer for them all to survive.

The Ghost King frowned. "How did you regenerate a core?" he demanded. Now, instead of a lazy amusement, a strain appeared in his voice.

He was threatened by Dan's resistance.

The younger ghost looked up, the flyaways of his braid whipping against his sharp cheeks. He smiled, and with it, came the slightest tendrils of insanity that had once so driven him before. "Nervous?" The smirk split his wide mouth a little too wide and gave him an unsettling, demonic look, despite his terribly human clothes.

But his red eyes carried with them a weary calculation.

Pariah Dark grumped. "I fear nothing!" He still held his stump of an arm close to him, an irritation in his brow. He began to move forward, beyond the wave of skeletons he'd called forth to exhaust the humans. And then he shot out at Phantom once more.

This time, Phantom held even stronger, his core revving hot within him, intaking enough energy from around him to make his chest glow beneath his clothes. The winds of his barrier whipped around him. He turned to the dazed and alarmed humans who had lowered their weapons. He snarled, "Get out of here, now!"

The resistance members lowered blasters, backing away. Lieutenant Baxter—his face splattered with ghost blood and dried blood from a comrade, glanced at Dan Phantom in utter consternation. He held onto another soldier, helping them to limp back.

Dan's red eyes tracked them. And then he looked back up at Pariah Dark, his braid whipping around him. All of his pain and rage was bubbling up. His eyes misted in anger. "You did not consider—I could grow more powerful from it." His voice roughed. "Like a broken bone. Rebuilding stronger."

The Ghost King tilted his head. He was low on power without the Ring of Rage combined with the Crown of Fire, but he was yet formidable even without them. The crown still flickered atop his head. He suddenly tensed his hand, compiling his own ectoplasm. "You will regret facing me again, worm," he boomed in warning. "I removed your core once, along with your tongue. I can do it again. And leave you for my vassals once more."

The king's accented lilt carried over the whole of the dimensional lair with a warning.

Dan faltered briefly at the word vassals. His sharp cheeks flushed in fury, his eyes narrowing. And then the instant the last human had escaped the blast radius, he stormed up into the sky—a small flash of light in the darkness.

Pariah Dark was a giant, but Dan was faster. More agile.

Motivated.

He stretched out nimble, scarred fingers, every vein in his body glowing with a need for vengeance. He shot at the king's crown.

The King swiped outward, grimacing. He then called forth his own barrier to ward off Dan. And then the barrier spiked out.

Dan narrowly avoided the spikes, his eyes widening. He split into various clones, his core holding strong with four.

One fell the instant Pariah Dark swiped at it, crunching it within his grasp.

Dan realized then how much Valerie had sacrificed to cut off Pariah Dark's hand. She'd had to get him to lower his guard. No doubt, she had cut off his hand at the height of her own weakness. His heart pulled strangely at the thought.

"You are just like the humans," the Ghost King snapped at him. "Deviant tactics, dishonorable in the rite of combat." He pulled his stumped wrist away to reveal it was actively regenerating with skeletal tendrils warping into solid bone. "Slight of form and weak." He reached out to grab a clone of Dan with his skeleton hand. "It is no wonder you were a favorite among the court."

The younger ghost felt it as another clone dissipated, and he winced. He snarled at Pariah Dark as he shot at the barrier around him once more, trying to break through to grab for the crown. For in his palm, he held the Ring of Rage. "I am not weak."

Pariah Dark watched him, narrowing his eye. "The court mourned when I took you away. But I will return you to them. For extinction is too merciful for you!" And then he surged forward, his barrier warping around him.

A sharp mace blurred forward, and Dan evaded it only narrowly once more, his core straining with the power needed to keep up with the Ghost King's reflexes. His voice roughened. "You will not succeed again. I will end you this time."

The Ghost King barked in a rough, unamused laugh. "You are child."

The term child made Dan snarl. His fingers trembled as he shot out at the king in full prejudice, his ectoplasm hardening into binds—like ropes. "You have no idea what I am capable of."

Pariah Dark quickly backstepped, slashing through the bonds. His hand continued to regenerate, and his sharp eye focused upon Dan's hand, knowing that the powerful relic once again remained in sight. "You are little more than an insect, feasting off scraps," he boomed back, snarling. "The energy of the girl swarms around you yet. I sense it."

He paused, his eyes widening.

And then suddenly, the king's sharp claws sliced into him. A skeletal hand wrapped around him, and a strangled noise of pain escaped Dan's throat. "But she was more formidable prey."

Dan's form fizzled out into an odd, green smoke, save for his red eyes. He slipped through the king's grasp. But when he reformed away from the other ghost, he was holding his side, where he'd been sliced. "Ngh." Precious green ectoplasmic blood seeped from between his fingers. His smokescreening had cost him dearly, for it altered his entire being in ways that most ghosts could not sustain.

It affected his ability to heal immediately. And so he continued to bleed, and for a brief second, he was back on his hands and knees on the castle floor, bleeding out as they pulled his chains—

—Pariah Dark slammed him back.

His entire body surged backwards in a disjointed flail, crashing hard to the ground, where skeletons heeded their master. They closed in on him, grabbing for his flannel shirt and tearing it with their bony fingers, grabbing onto his braid—

—the chains, the dungeon—

Dan snarled weakly, attempting to wrench away from the minions. But he weakened under the stress of reliving his torture at the hands of Pariah Dark's court. He unstuck in time, his core flickering in fear, same as his racing thoughts. The battle rang in his ears but fell silent within him. Several more skeleton warriors grabbed for his limbs in the midst of his psychological distress, trying to tear the Ring of Rage from his hand.

One skeleton surged forward, raising a sword. The sharp edge glimmered green shearing down—


Back in the battered Amity Park, Valerie Gray awakened. Weak and disoriented, she pulled off her mask, attempting to stumble forward, her bruised fingers seeking out in the fluorescent light above her.

Kwan quickly moved to her side. "Valerie," he breathed, voice straining. "You need to breathe and relax. Do you hear me? It's okay. You're safe."

She made a strangled noise, even more confused by Kwan gently guiding her back down on the pillows of the infirmary bed. She wore only half off of her armor. Her leg was in a splint. Her head felt as if her brain had swelled in her skull, her neck was stiff, and her tongue felt thick.

But fear. She felt fear.

She tried to speak, only for words to catch in her dry throat. "D—"

"—It's okay," Kwan interrupted kindly, but his face was tight with stress. "You just need to lay back down and—"

Valerie was sweating hard, her eyes alit with a feverish terror. With a strength she should not have, she reached out and clasped onto Kwan's arm. Her half-broken armor crunched around her, fragments falling off onto the bed. "D—Dan."

"You need to focus on yourself," Kwan pushed, voice straining. "He's—he's fine. But you aren't."

She disjointedly pulled herself from the bed, rasping. "No." Sitting up, her long, matted hair fell over her shoulders. An armored joint creaked. Her heart was pounding madly as she reached for the oxygen mask. She shakily inhaled, her dilated eyes wild.

Pariah Dark.

She still felt his eyes upon her.

Kwan raised up a scanner to her eyes. "You have head trauma, likely a concussion from your fall. You need to sit back down and—"

She shoved the oxygen mask to him, her eyes narrowing. And then she made a noise of pain as she fought to stand. "I have to—get back." She winced hard. Her leg caught beneath her, the cast on it taking the brunt.

Her friend began to panic. "Ah, you can't—"

Valerie glared. Despite the sweat growing on her brow from the pain and the pressurized ringing in her ears, a fire lit within her, hiding her fear. Her black armor creaked as she began to limp away. Her weaponry had been largely depleted, but she had one more trick up her sleeve. "I—heard him," she bit out, voice straining. "Dan—"

Kwan moved quickly, grabbing for a needle with a tranquilizer medication. "You can't be moving yet."

Every inch of her body burned with fire. But she limped onward. A large weapon began to materialize in her grasp, glowing green with the code underlying her modified suit. Her bruised hand tightened around the trigger. "H-he…won't win. Without me."

And before Kwan could move in, Valerie called her half-broken jet sled, which materialized beneath her, trembling from an imbalance and an malfunctioning engine. She whimpered as she moved to jump onto the sled.

Then, she was gone—

—the walls of the resistance blurred together in a quick flash of gray to black to green as she tore out toward the surrounding Ghost Zone once more, her breath hitching.

The link between her and this more subdued Dan Phantom had heightened.

"I will destroy him. Valerie will not die. And neither will your people."

The weapon trembled in her hand as she struggled to hold it. "Oh god," she breathed. Her dilated eyes blinked several times as her heart began to sluggishly pound. Her armor was whining with multiple alarms.

Dan was a powerful ghost, but his core had not fully regenerated. His mind was still fragile.

He had weaknesses she could barely hope to understand.

But his voice—"Valerie will not die—and neither will your people"—reverberated through her with a hope.

That the battle could still be won.

That Dan was fighting for good.

That together, they had a chance.

She blinked rapidly through her pain, forcing her body to streamline against the mists of the Ghost Zone. The sounds of battle soon reached her ringing ears, as did the blurry sight of fallen bodies, humans retreating while fending off skeleton warriors, the clashing of sword against blaster and shield—

—And the sight of Pariah Dark.

He stood over Dan, who now lay on the ground, held down by the ghost king's minions. His flannel shirt had been torn—but she realized in horror that he was missing a hand, with a stump that bled a bright green upon the dirt. Above him, Pariah Dark had reclaimed the ring, inspecting it between the fingers of his own regenerated hand while Dan rasped in pain, nearly blinded with it, weakly thrashing against the warriors.

"You see," boomed the king, "you are what you are. A jester for the court."

Valerie's breath caught. She made a noise of a pain as she moved to raise the high-powered weapon in her. A fear and an unadulterated fury swept through her.

She pulled the trigger.

The weapon's barrel began to light up, forming a ball pure energy that hummed. And then it shot off—

—And hit the castle behind Pariah Dark. A tower exploded in a rain of bricks, and the king looked back at it in initial surprise—

—just as Valerie swept by, leaning down to grab on hard to his crown, displacing it.

The crown of fire fell.

The king turned back, reaching out to it with a roar of consternation, only for Valerie to shoot again, and this time, straight in his eye.

He backstepped, swinging wildly, dropping the ring as well.

This close, Valerie could not avoid the mace, and she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for impact.

Snap.

Her battered armor fragmented further with the blow from the king's mace, her head snapping back with a flare of dirty, matted curls—

—she felt a strange sense of peace in that moment—

—all things felt too fast, and too slow, and she could not tell up from down anymore—

"Valerie!" Dan cried, voice rough with pure fear.

Her head smacked into a castle wall with a sickening crunch.

Limbless, she slid down the wall, leaving a harsh streak of red.


Dan Phantom lay in pained defeat on the ground for all of a second. And then, at the blurry sight of Valerie's fall, he cried out, his overstretched core throbbing in his chest. His eye sockets lit a hot white.

Pariah Dark had hurt her.

Again.

All because he'd failed to end Pariah Dark on his own.

The skeletons around him began to grow uncomfortable with the light emanating from Dan—and the strange, unnatural heat. His fire core flickered around him. Pure emotion transferred into pure energy. His stump of a wrist regenerated into long fingers.

With his renewed strength, he wrenched away from the skeletons, grabbing desperately for the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage—both of which had fallen to the dirt, resizing down in wait for their next master.

Streaked with blood and mud and sweat, glowing with exertion, the younger ghost's fingers wrapped around the powerful relics, just as Pariah Dark recalibrated from his blindness, his healing pupil focusing in on Dan—

And Dan swept the ring onto his finger and set the crown upon his head, seething in hatred for Pariah Dark. "You've hurt her," he snarled, his lips trembling. So overwrought with emotion for Valerie, he did not realize that he in fact now held unfathomable power. "You swine. You—!"

His flickering white hair began to raise around him, his sharp cheeks tightening as his quickly regenerating power core warped, intaking the energy of the cosmos.

Pariah Dark raised his mace in fury, but a fear had tensed his muscles. "You will return my relics to me, and—!"

Dan stood on trembling limbs, slightly overwhelmed by his own maddening rev of his power core. His skin had cracked with tendrils of light, his form barely containing the relics. His baritone voice echoed in a harsh snap. "—You do not command me! And you will never hurt Valerie again!"

And then he reached out, and with the power of a thousand armies and the weight of a million planets, he shot straight at Pariah Dark's torso, right at the location of his core. Pariah Dark jerked backwards from the hit, stumbling with a strangled roar. The giant fell to the dirt, shaking the entire castle, cracking its foundations.

Under the influence of the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage, Dan Phantom's aura expanded. It was a palpable glow, burning at the whites of his eyes and the ends of his hair. He was as sunlight, glowing hotter as he blasted Pariah Dark again and again—thinking of Valerie, of the Court, the chains—

His hands trembled.

He felt it, the moment that the great and terrible Pariah Dark's power core stuttered to stop, the giant's limbs relaxing into the dirt. Even after Pariah Dark's power core stuttered to a stop. But Phantom pressed on, his eyes glowing whiter. He would burn Pariah out of existence. He would ensure the ghost could never return or regenerate.

Pariah Dark, the dreaded Ghost King, destabilized, slowly faded into nothing at Dan's feet.

And instead of dark triumph and delight in death, the young new Ghost King merely inhaled shakily. His eyes welled with tears as he lowered his hand, the glow around him dampening. He turned around to Valerie, who lay in a crumple in the dirt by a castle wall.

Faster than ever, Dan blurred forward to her, dropping on his knees into the mud. Despite his ring and crown, he reached for her as if she were his only true tether to reality. "No," he whispered, gently turning her on her back. She was not breathing, her black armor falling in fragments from Dan moving her. "Valerie?"

He gently turned her cheek. Her sunken eyes were closed, her body still against his hands.

And then he heard it. His elfin ear twitched at the sound.

A weak, little heartbeat.

Dan strangled out a cry, pulling her to him, cradling her bloodied neck. A pain and a relief came over him as he held her. "Valerie," he whispered to her, his deep voice tight. "I've got you." He awkwardly raised up, carrying her in his arms, his flannel shirt in torn threads against her cracked armor. "You will not die—I will…get you back to your people."

And it was then that Dan realized all of the skeleton warriors had fallen to the dirt so that their head would not be as high as his own. That the entirety of the battlefield and the fate of the human race and the Ghost Zone now rested within his hands.

For he bore the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire.

…as the new Ghost King.


A/N: Hi, everyone! Happy October…and Ectober…and whumptober as well! Which is perfect for the Karma thread, I think, and all the angst and whump it entails, oof.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during these ongoingly stressful times! Apologies for my extended absence here on this website as well. Although I'm stretched between a few different fandoms, I have in fact been updating my E-rated dark gray story, The Exchange, on Archive of Our Own. It now has two additional chapters since the last Deliverance update. So my dark gray attention is also kinda split between two fanfiction sites. But I'll admit I've felt a bit disheartened over there. I'm not sure if that story is of interest to the remaining Dark Gray community since its latest update hasn't garnered much feedback. I guess if you would prefer I remain focused on M-rated or lower-rated stories here on , please let me know!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this chapter to the Karma thread despite the length of time it's been since its last update. Please review with your thoughts, questions, constructive criticisms, or ideas/requests for what you'd like to see next! Thank you!