Hello, everybody!
This may be the first ever fanfiction posted from Antarctica! I am updating now from the waters off the coast of Elephant Island where Shackleton had his famous misadventure. It is beautiful and breathtaking here on the Antarctic Peninsula; there's a good chance that this or Ushuaia will make appearances in a future multific, should I endeavor to write another one…
I am also happy to report that I have graduated with my masters degree! (This antarctic cruise is my graduation trip.) Boy was that last month a lot harder than I thought! And then my dad was in town so I've had almost no time to write.
I do now, though. And I know this update is not coming on Friday as typical, but while I do have wifi, it is extremely slow and I have to share the login with my dad (one device at a time). So, here's chapter 17 for your enjoyment. ;) It was a behemoth to write; more than 9,000 words! But as usual, I take longer to make sure it's as excellent as possible for you all to enjoy to its fullest. Y'all better appreciate me, I swear. :p
Let's rejoin the action where all hell is starting to break loose…
General Notes:
"This is dialogue."
"This is alternative dialogue, meaning whispered or spoken from a distance such as on the phone."
'This is thought.'
This and THIS and *this* are emphasis. The *this* emphasis is more along the lines of the snarky or sarcastic.
[This is digital text, such as notifications on a computer or smartphone.]
I do not own Danny Phantom nor Young Justice.
Ch. 17 originally published: Tuesday, January 14, 2020
RECOGNIZED
Chapter 17
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The height was no issue for Miss Martian. The girl swept over the third of five cranes serving the construction site, but to no avail. There was still no sign of any ghost shield generator. She eyed the insanity unfolding at street level in front of Leadenhall before moving on to search the fourth.
A literal punch to the gut from Devastation followed the metaphorical.
"Guys, they're after Aqualad!" Superboy barked over their link as the two super-strengthened fighters grappled for control over each other.
"M-me?" came the Atlantean's uncharacteristically hesitant response.
"So if you want to just back off and let us take the kid," Devastation said, "I'll go easy on ya."
"Not likely," Superboy replied.
"Maybe I'll…sit this one out," Dani commented mostly to herself, watching the pair smash against concrete pillars and crunch sharp power tools without a second thought. She then noticed a thin hose snaking across the ground not far from the edge of the current concrete pad.
With a smirk, Dani darted forward to grab the end of the hose. She picked it up, aimed and tossed it underfoot, waiting for her opportunity. It finally came when Devastation's foot fell into the lassoed hose. Dani pulled hard and tightened it around the woman's ankle. She then pulled Devastation's foot out from under her, sending her to the floor, leaving the woman at Superboy's mercy.
"Happy trails, Hans," Dani quipped.
Dani's personal victory was short-lived, however, since Devastation immediately glared and contracted her leg to her chest. Since Dani still had a strong grip on the rope, she went flying forward and crashed against a pillar.
A pair of tanks attached to the hose sailed past Dani and over the edge of the skyscraper. The tanks' hose tensed and swung the canisters downward like a pendulum, careening them back into the building a couple floors below.
Clank
CLANK
BMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
The explosion had no loud sound to it typical of Hollywood special effects. Instead, it released a deep bass note penetrating everyone to their cores. To the team's horror, a scream of pain immediately followed over their mental link.
"Aqualad, you need to focus!" Maddie insisted, gripping the boy's shoulders.
Aqualad was sluggish to respond. "But…it does not make sense. Why are they now pursuing me?"
"I don't know! It probably has something to do with Black Manta."
"My father…"
"Why does everyone on this team choose today to have a breakdown?" the woman groaned to herself. A loud clanking noise of bouncing pressurized tanks diverted her attention. Maddie's eyes widened and she cried out loud, "Aqualad, get down!"
Maddie leapt out of the way in time, but she was unable to move Aqualad from his frozen state. The pair of pressurized tanks snapped their valves off and exploded, engulfing Aqualad in a massive fireball and igniting the debris littering the room. Maddie, sheltered behind an overturned workbench, heard the boy's cry of pain as he succumbed to the heat.
"Can any of you fight fire?!" Maddie mentally screamed to the team.
Danny and Artemis, stationed a few flights above Superboy and Dani, tensed when they felt Aqualad's cry.
"Can any of you fight fire?!" came Maddie's scream.
"Coming!" Danny answered. He checked for witnesses before momentarily dropping tangibility and phasing through the floors in search of Aqualad.
No sooner had he disappeared than Artemis felt a strike to the middle of her back. She dropped and rolled out of the way, bouncing back to her feet some distance away. A waiting Light goon readied for a fight.
Danny quickly felt the heat of the flames and dropped to the floor. He sprinted around a corner past his mother and couldn't stop himself in time to keep from barreling into the flames. Instead, Danny curled into a ball and somersaulted over the bulk of the flames. "Aqualad, where are you?" he called out loud.
Shifting plywood sheets was his answer, but they were behind a wall of the thickest flames.
"I can't walk through fire!" Danny shouted.
"Heat…weakens…" Aqualad mumbled over their link.
Danny's eyes went wide. An Atlantean? Surely extreme heat would not do his amphibious physiology any good. Danny tried calling on his ice powers, but there was not enough moisture in the air to manipulate. Danny grunted in frustration and muttered, "I'm no better than Frozone!"
To Danny's horror, he realized the heat was starting to impact him as well thanks to his ice core. He hurriedly looked around the room for anything which could help the situation.
A valve.
Danny's focus immediately zoomed in on the exposed piping on the other side of the flames. He grabbed a singed sledgehammer propped against a workbench, brushed his gloved hands along its stem to suppress the flickering wisps of fire, and tossed it to Maddie. "Mom! Water main!" he shouted.
Maddie immediately noticed the valve next to her and reeled back. With a mighty roar, she brought the solid metal head of the hammer down onto the valve and broke it off. Water came bursting forth, drenching Maddie before she could leap out of the way.
Danny felt a surge of both physical and mental relief flood his veins. With a flourish of his hand, he sent out a ripple of his ice power, instantly freezing the spray clouding the air. The room suddenly went from blazing inferno to chilling blizzard as the spewing water continued to convert to ice crystals and compile on every surface in the room. The non-airborne water rapidly pooled on the floor and began to waterfall off the unprotected edge of Bishopsgate, so Danny quickly encased the broken valve with ice so the system could continue to function without spouting water.
Danny then turned his attention back to Aqualad, who was struggling to push the fallen plywood off himself. Maddie and the Atlantean were thoroughly soaked, so Danny took them one by one and used intangibility to remove the water.
"Welcome to the party, pal," Danny said.
Aqualad couldn't help but chuckle when Danny helped him dry off. "You do recall where I come from, do you not?" the Atlantean asked.
Danny huffed.
Superboy faltered when Devastation forced him closer and closer to the limit of the concrete pad. Another ten feet and he could be pushed off the edge, crashing into the ground and drawing unwanted attention away from the Leadenhall chaos. Dani stood watching helplessly, nursing her own wounds from her collision with the pillar. Then, with a well-placed punch to Superboy's sternum, the inevitable happened.
"Miss M! Air support!"
"I've just spotted the generator on the north crane!"
"Unless you want a giant crater and the attention of the entire military, I need someone to catch me!"
M'gann huffed in frustration and abandoned her approach. "Anyone else close by who can get the shield?"
"On it," Robin replied.
It had not taken long for Artemis to judge her opponent's fighting style. She favored kicks and lower-body-powered strikes; based on the shape of her eyes peeking through the balaclava and the woman's fighting style, Artemis would guess she was a Korean student of taekwondo. She also kept the fight close range and hand-to-hand rather than relying on weaponry, preventing the use of arrows.
Fortunately, Artemis thought she had a small advantage. From what felt like infancy, her mother had trained her in the traditional Vietnamese fighting style of Vovinam. Artemis therefore holstered her arrows in the quiver and gripped her bow at either end with both hands. She fell into a defensive stance and held the bow, ready to use it as a long stick.
"Come at me, bro," she taunted.
The Korean thug leapt forward, spinning into a back kick. This was her first mistake, as Artemis hooked the woman's foot in the bow string. Artemis twisted sideways and pulled the attacker off-balance. She tumbled instantly, but the woman quickly rolled and sprung back to her feet. The next assault came in the form of a faked left high kick followed by a right roundhouse, catching Artemis in the jaw when she flinched left and sending the archer to the floor.
Artemis barely had a half-second to recover before using her bow to divert the coming stomp. She thrusted her legs up and forward to bring herself back to a standing position and immediately dodged right to avoid a front kick to the sternum. Artemis loosed one hand from her bow and swung it up into the Korean's jaw. The thug stumbled just long enough for Artemis to hook her bow string around the back of the woman's neck and pull her face down into Artemis' upward-thrusting knee. The woman dropped to the concrete and tried her best to stand again, but the best she could manage was getting onto all-fours before Artemis kicked the woman's gut and sent her into painful unconsciousness.
Artemis turned to search for some rope. Instead, she was met with a surprise kick to the sternum. Another Korean goon for the Light, this one male, put so much force into his kick that Artemis went sailing backwards through the air. Artemis passively wondered if he had used some diluted Cobra venom for added strength. Artemis landed hard against a control panel, activating a conveyor belt which was installed to carry material from a landing pad at the edge of the skyscraper where the crane would deliver loads.
The Korean man charged forward, so Artemis sprung into the air and caught the man's neck in a flying scissor kick. She contorted to bring the man's face into the same control panel, hitting a button which reversed the belt's direction. Artemis was quick to get herself close to the man so he would not have enough room to get any power into a kick. She heel-struck the man's nose with the palm of her hand then reeled back to deliver a left-hand reverse backfist swing to his left temple; but he blocked her attack and grabbed her wrist hard. With a snarl, the Korean pulled Artemis' arm across his body, spinning her around into an arm lock and pinning her face to the conveyor with his other hand. In an instant it began to rub aggressively against her cheek since the man held her into place. She cried out and kicked helplessly behind her, but the man managed to avoid all of her attacks.
"Guys? A little backup would be nice…" Artemis asked the team.
The thug made an error, however, when he pulled back on her hair to slam her face against the belt and knock her unconscious. Artemis used the opportunity to arch her back, twist sideways and powerfully remove herself from his grip. She dropped to the floor free of his control, but the twist had hyperextended her left shoulder to a painful degree. From the ground, she trapped his ankles between hers and contracted into a ball, toppling him to the ground, catching the edge of the conveyor belt's metal support as he went down. He shouted some expletives in Korean—which Artemis had learned years ago as a joke—and pulled his legs free of Artemis' grip. They both stood, each worse for wear, and immediately rushed each other.
This time, the member of the Light had the advantage with Artemis practically only able to use her right arm to control the bow as a combat weapon. He blocked a strike from the bow with his left leg before hopping into a right front kick which sent Artemis reeling onto the conveyor.
The girl was horrified when she realized her good arm had been pinned beneath her, and the strap of her quiver had caught between one of the divisions of the modular metal belt, trapping her as it carried the archer towards the edge of the building countless floors above the ground.
"Um, guys?! A little help! NOW!" she called out.
"I'm coming!" Danny answered immediately.
The second Danny left, Maddie was ambushed from behind. Her aggressors forced her to her knees before slapping a pair of handcuffs onto the woman's wrists. Aqualad made to help, but more minions appeared behind him and slammed a helmet over his head, its face a transparent mask. Maddie recognized the technology from her time as a liaison to Atlantis. It would deprive him of moisture, rendering him almost completely impaired. A small hiss was heard as an airlock engaged. Aqualad weakened and, gasping for air, collapsed.
"We got him!" one of the minions present reported into an earpiece. "Bringing him to the roof now."
And with that, he and Maddie were dragged away.
Maddie knew it was futile to fight against her restraints. The Light used a model of handcuff with far more robust properties than those used by the police. So, she merely went limp in protest, forcing the Light's soldiers to work as hard as possible to restrain her until she could formulate a plan.
"What about the dame?" one goon asked into his earpiece as they boarded a cargo elevator. He paused a moment, then nodded. "Understood, sir." To his compatriots, he ordered, "Throw her into the re-pour on 48."
"Yes, sir!"
The elevator halted a few floors later. Three of the men broke off from the group to drag Maddie to a section of the concrete floor which had recently had to be re-poured. There were a few construction workers present, but a simple glare and cocked assault rifle discouraged them from speaking out.
"So long, lady," one of the men said with a measure of sad resolution. The man shoved Maddie face-forward into the concrete, hardly giving her a second to draw as deep a breath as possible.
Silence.
Darkness.
Compression.
Pain.
The man's combat boot dug between her shoulder blades. Maddie didn't panic; she had had ample training in avoiding death by drowning given her previous posting, going far beyond the basic training of how to resist the discomfort of waterboarding. The former Marine faked a struggle for a few moments before letting it die out with a few final twitches, intending to play dead early and hope for salvation.
And, surprisingly, it came. Not moments after her lungs first started to burn and long before she could play dead, she felt movement in the boot on her back. There was a muted struggle before the boot was torn away and she was ripped free of the fresh concrete. Maddie gasped for fresh air and fell to her side as she was still in cuffs. Seconds later, the restraints merely fell off her wrists without a single mechanical protest.
"Hey, Mom."
Maddie looked up at Phantom who, despite a small smile, looked to be in incredible pain as he kneeled. He fought a cough and sat back onto his calves while Maddie pulled herself to a seated position. "Danny, what about Artemis? And what about your secret?" she asked.
Phantom shook his head. "Oh…the real me went after her. I'm still showing my face as Phantom so Fenton and Phantom are seen together as much as possible to divert suspicion. I'm just-"
"37," Maddie finished, and the boy nodded.
"All things being equal," 37 panted, "I'd rather be in Philadelphia."
"And your powers? Your…constitution?"
37 waved a dismissive hand. "I'll be fine. It was worth it to save you. Oh. Here." 37 struggled to his feet and helped Maddie to stand. He then focused and made the woman intangible, allowing the remaining concrete to fall harmlessly off of her. The second he let go, though, he grunted and collapsed.
"Sweetie, you have to stop this until we can stabilize you!" Maddie insisted and knelt beside him.
"Anyone got a 20 on Aqualad?" Miss Martian called over the link.
37 looked straight into Maddie's eyes. "Sh-shouldn't you go h-help Aqualad?"
The woman frowned. "What about you?"
"Don't worry, I'll be fine," he insisted. "Everything will be…as it sh-should be." He winced and gripped his stomach.
"I don't trust you…"
With a glance down at his glowing ghost form, he quipped, "What else is new?"
Maddie let out a sad huff of a laugh and hesitated. She knew what he was doing; she knew what was coming. Maddie pulled 37 into a hug and said, "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back with help."
"I won't move, I promise."
With one final glance over her shoulder, Maddie left the clone slumped against a column near where he had saved her.
Artemis felt a small electric shock and spasmed. The sudden, uncontrolled locking of her muscles broke the quiver strap and allowed her to roll free of the belt mere feet before the edge. She whipped around in time to see the Korean man seizure before collapsing to the floor next to his partner, a sparkling arrow protruding from his uniform. Artemis turned to see an identical arrow embedded into the control panel. The belt's motors whirred to a halt as everything fell silent. The girl strode forward to remove the arrow to compare the heads.
"Roy," she realized.
Artemis glanced out the open side of the skyscraper. There, on the top floor of Leadenhall, a flash of red pulled a window shut.
"I'm here!" Danny's voice boomed behind her. He stopped, though, after appraising the situation. "Um…I'm here?" he tried more calmly.
Artemis looked him in the eye. "Red Arrow. He's in Leadenhall."
"He is?!" Danny asked, incredulous. He saw the arrows in her hand. "Why? I thought he's not on the team, really."
With dawning realization, she asked, "Did you see any signs of another containment pod in Leadenhall?"
Danny suddenly recalled the conversation he'd had with Kid Flash in the air ducts in Kansas. "He's looking for his original."
"He's looking for his original," Artemis affirmed, and she continued over the link, "Has anybody seen signs of a THIRD containment pod?"
All the responses were negative.
"Damn it. Poor guy." Artemis looked back at Leadenhall which was now surrounded by news and police helicopters investigating its prior disappearance.
Kid Flash hated to admit it, but he was having fun, having been given express permission to distract the Light and give as much free reign to the shield disablers as possible. Amorpho's parade through the building as another Robin ended with him coming across Kid Flash and the pair wasting no time in causing chaos.
Perhaps the pair went slightly overboard with the amount of wires being crossed and traps being set, but the goal was indeed internal disorder within Bishopsgate. Level seventeen of Bishopsgate was in shambles, though with little damage to the finished elements.
The first trap triggered when a small squad of Light soldiers came to investigate the motion detected on the sensors. A tensed ethernet cable tripped a guard and released the restraints on a large pyramid of PVC piping, sending them tumbling across the floor of the empty office. More soldiers approached and fell victim to the pipes which escaped their notice in the subdued light of the space, the only illumination coming from beyond the tinted glass cladding the finished lower third of the tower.
Amorpho saw his opportunity and transformed into Lex Luthor. "Stand down! I have restrained Kid Speedy."
Kid Flash cringed. "That's just painful, man," he said. Seconds later, the guards had all been hog-tied and gagged with wiring.
Robin readied himself hidden behind a pillar. He could see the painted metal structure of the crane peeking through the mess of construction on the unfinished fortieth floor. Between him and it were a solid concrete core, mazes of loose wiring and debris, and a few dozen Light goons. With one final deep breath and a nod to himself, he withdrew a birdarang flash grenade and threw it on the opposite side of the core from his planned route.
The guards, their attention successfully diverted, abandoned their posts and gave Robin a straight shot across the first leg of the building. Other guards further along spotted him, and they hustled to stop him. Robin, though, was too fast for their stun grenades and tranquilizer darts.
He zigged around a workbench and zagged between hanging wiring, letting his pursuers get tangled in the mess. Robin approached a T-junction with a concrete roller blocking his path. He back-rolled over it, using his momentum to tumble forward under plywood on sawhorses.
"He's after the shield!" Robin heard one of the goons shout, the man's voice repeating roughly over their walkie-talkies.
"Stop him!" came Luthor's barked reply.
Robin saw goons closing in from left and right, so he had no time to ready his grappling gun to help him cross over to the thin metal tower. So, he leapt out off of Bishopsgate, arms and legs pinwheeling to stabilize his arc through the air. The guards behind were not quite so brave, barely gripping the nearest concrete pillars to stop themselves before they fell.
After a tense moment, Robin slammed hard against the steel structure of the crane cantilevered off of the tower. His lack of proper nutrition from his containment meant his aim was slightly off, so his glove slipped off the truss he'd grabbed. Robin yelped and barely managed to hook a leg over the next one down. He swung upside down for a moment and had to rush to right himself. He climbed inside the center of the truss to find some shelter from the guards who had opened fire once more.
Lex Luthor hurriedly holstered his gun and grabbed his briefcase. Mercy collected a number of spare radios and stored them away in various pockets on her person.
"Confirmed sighting of Robin on the north crane, sir," one of the Light's guards reported over Luthor's current radio.
"Close in! We cannot lose that shield!" Luthor ordered.
"Sir, confirmed sighting of Robin assisting Artemis," another guard reported.
Luthor's anger subsided in the wake of confusion. He shared a look with Mercy. "...What-?"
Luthor shifted the radio in his grasp to respond but was interrupted by a third employee: "Confirmed sighting of Robin assisting an unknown woman, sir."
Luthor sighed. "As far as I'm aware, he does not possess the power of duplication. Find the real Robin and the real Danny Fenton and capture them! It cannot possibly be this difficult!"
"Um, sir?" a fourth goon spoke up.
"If you provide a report of another confirmed sighting of Robin, I assure you your future with this organization is limited, to the extreme."
"...We have seen...a teen resembling Robin...on level seventeen…"
Mercy cleared her throat to interject, "Royal Air Force is incoming, Mr. Luthor."
Luthor grit his teeth but took a deep breath before calmly instructing, "Get Aqualad to the jet as soon as possible. Mercy and I are on our way."
Robin rushed to ascend the crane from within, but he had only managed to go up a couple of floors before various guards started to climb onto the crane as well. He was surrounded from above and below.
With a sigh, Robin removed an eskrima stick from his back and held it like a bat. The first guard to approach came from below, so with a hard smack on the skull and a stomp on his hands, the goon went tumbling, loosing two more guards as he fell into safety netting far below.
Robin leapt up to the next bay of the truss. Another guard dropped down opposite him, so Robin hooked the eskrima stick into a rung of the ladder ascending within the truss and swung around to plant both his feet in the guard's sternum. Robin was then choked from behind, so he pulled his knees to his chest and tossed the goon over his head.
The boy used the brief moment to clamber back through the truss to the side of the crane facing away from the tower. He finally had a clear shot to the top of the crane, so he aimed his grappling gun and fired. The grip locked onto the underside of the operator's cabin, and Robin pressed the retract button to race up the crane. Unfortunately, the guards coming from above used it as an opportunity to more quickly drop down to Robin.
Robin, ever the acrobat, twisted his body around so he was perfectly upside down and parallel to the cable. He locked his core and leg muscles and simply plowed through the men trying to rappel down the wire to intercept Robin. Seconds later found Robin with his feet planted firmly on the bottom of the crane cabin. He gracefully hooked his foot onto the last rung of the truss and swung himself to the structure moments before his grapple had been stomped loose from above. The grappling gun and its broken anchor went sailing down to the safety netting far below.
Robin went cross-eyed staring at the foot which had so easily ripped apart the steel. He instantly recognized the boots from his multiple encounters with their owner.
'Devastation…'
The over-muscled woman had rushed from a few floors below when Robin's destination had been figured out. Her strength enabled her to leap to the top in a single bound, and a lack of armed resistance provided a clear path for her.
With a gulp, Robin monkeyed around the cabin and rushed to get out onto the arm of the crane. He could see a strange machine at the far end with a barely-visible energy field surrounding it, so he scrambled to his feet on the gangway leading out to the tip of the crane.
Shattering glass and ripping metal behind Robin alerted him that Devastation had broken free of the cabin and was now hot on his tail. He sprinted, but Devastation tackled him from behind. He slammed hard against the gangway, its diamond-cut metal surface cutting into his forearms crushed beneath him. He struggled against Devastation's weight to no avail, so he pulled a small smoke bomb from his suit's breast pocket and broke it.
Robin and Devastation both coughed violently, and the boy was able to break free. He clambered forward and sprinted to the machine.
"Dr. Fenton? How do I turn it off? Now!" he called.
Devastation seemingly recovered from the smoke and stood.
"The 'off' switch won't be enough," she replied. "You have to break some of the wiring to disable it."
Robin ripped a panel off the side and saw a glowing microchip labeled 'REGULATOR.'
"But don't cut the wires supplying the regulator because the whole thing will-"
With a huge spark and flash, the ghost shield generator exploded. The air rippled green before going transparent once more, signaling the death of the ghost shield. The explosion loosened the crane's forward pulley and snapped the cable. A palette of collapsed scaffolding broke free of the crane hook and went tumbling down to the concrete deck below.
Robin had shielded his face with his forearms in time, but the force sent him flying backwards. His skull slammed against the crane cable's pulley and Robin fell into temporary unconsciousness, his eskrima sticks falling away into the mess of construction below. Though Devastation was also thrown back from the blast, Robin was not free and clear. His unconscious form slipped off the edge of the gangway and began to fall to Bishopsgate's unfinished concrete core beneath the crane.
Danny, fortunately, had just reached the top of the tower with Artemis after hearing the clatter of the scaffolding. "Robin?!" Danny called. It was abundantly clear that Robin was unresponsive, so Danny crouched and sprung upwards with as subtle a use of his flight powers as he could muster. He bear-hugged Robin mid-air and waited for them to be only a yard above the highest finished part of the stairs before turning them both intangible.
They dropped multiple floors at a time, the staccato whump whump whump of the changing air pressure being the only sign they were passing through levels and levels of concrete. Danny finally managed to slow their descent around the 40th floor and turned them tangible again just in time to slam into the floor.
The impact jolted Robin back into consciousness. He grunted, coughed and jumped to his feet before realizing he was alone with Danny once more. "What just happened?" he asked.
"You fell off a crane and I grabbed you," Danny said, standing. "We gotta find the others first and make sure everyone's okay. I was running after Aqualad to free him when I saw you running up the crane."
"Aqualad's been captured?!" Robin asked. "Why him?"
"Beats me! But I think they're headed up the tower for whatever reason."
Robin frowned. "Why would they take him up the tower? It would be easier for us to bring in the bioship and…escape!" The boy wonder ran to the edge of the concrete pad to look up, Danny hot on his heels.
One of the police helicopters approached Bishopsgate, circling around Leadenhall. As the others watched, the helicopter suddenly distorted.
"What's-?" Danny began, but he was cut off.
There was a massive crunch of metal overhead, and the helicopter and surrounding sky pixelated. It immediately became apparent that there was some sort of aircraft perched on top of Bishopsgate equipped with camouflage technology. The system malfunctioned under the impact of the helicopter, and the top of the skyscraper was cast into shadow as a massive jet materialized as it pulled to a hovering halt over the tower.
"Well, if the military didn't know something was up by now…" Danny began.
Robin sprinted for the stairs again, and Danny beelined after him.
"Why the hell wasn't anyone with Aqualad?!" Robin asked.
"Mom and Miss M were! But why would he have been the target? Oh my god! MOM!" Danny shouted mentally, "MOM! You okay?!"
"I'm fine, Danny, with Miss Martian! 37 rescued me from some fresh concrete."
Robin continued to stampede up the stairs with Danny just behind. "Amorpho, this is your chance. Thank you for your help."
"Anytime," Amorpho said. And with that, he was gone.
"Where are you, Dr. Fenton?"
"We are on 45, and 37 saved me on 48. They were taking Aqualad further up the tower."
"They're going to escape by air," Robin answered.
"37, you there?" Danny asked.
Silence.
"Mom, how was 37 when you left him?"
"Not too good…"
Danny stopped when he saw a spray-painted 48 at their current level.
Robin paused, and they shared a look. The Boy Wonder said, "Go ahead and check. I'll go for Aqualad. Kid Flash: backup; you'll get there quicker. Superboy, Miss M: cover Mrs. Fenton and Dani-with-an-I!"
"On it!" the others chorused.
With a nod, Danny sprinted across level 48 looking for recently-poured concrete. He finally found it, but there was no sign of anyone.
And then he saw a large puddle of ectoplasm.
"37…" Danny fell to his knees, touching his glove to the puddle. A single drop of the horrid liquid rolled down his finger, each millimeter of its path fueling a growing fury within.
"Over there!" a distant voice shouted.
Something inside of Danny snapped. He slowly looked up at the approaching squadron of members of the Light. There was an emotion in Danny's face that unsettled them. A domino mask shielded his eyes, yet the pure anger and hatred radiating from behind it made the men pause. The mask-his eyes-were glowing.
Danny's core may have been ice, but his spirit was fire.
The boy raised, not quite standing but instead hovering. He extended his arms at his sides and, with a full-body thrust, allowed the transformation to ignite his gloved hands and turn him into a very infuriated, very powerful Danny Phantom.
"Holy shit…" one of the men murmured.
All hell broke loose. The guards tried to shoot Danny, but he was too quick to swap dimensions and drop his tangibility to be hit. He would become tangible just long enough to grab the barrel of a guard's gun and melt it with an ectoplasmic charge. The guards haplessly shot themselves with both bullets and tranquilizer darts alike. Fortunately for them, their Kevlar-laced uniforms provided protection from most of their shots, but it wasn't long before the whole group lay unconscious or disabled around Danny Phantom's panting form.
Another group came charging, so Phantom charged a massive ectoplasmic blast and shot it at the front one's grenade belt. The explosives—simple flash bombs, fortunately for the Light goons' sake—burst, disorienting them immediately and sending their closest victims burnt and smoking to the floor.
The cargo bay door was just beginning to close when Robin got to the top of the tower. Kid Flash was grappling with the goons restraining Aqualad inside.
"Clear for takeoff, over," came an announcement over the aircraft's intercom.
Robin grabbed the lip of the door with his gloved hands and pulled himself inside with an acrobatic flourish. Kid Flash went sailing over Robin's head and yelped in surprise as he caught the lip of the door as he fell out of the craft.
"Copy, over," came the pilot's reply.
"Guys, Threat Level Midnight! They've got Aqualad AND Robin!" Kid Flash's voice rang in Robin's head. Any further discussion amongst the group evaporated in his mind as Luthor's aircraft rocketed out of Miss Martian's range.
The cargo door sealed, leaving only the orange industrial lighting to illuminate the space. The aircraft lurched forward at instantly-high speeds before its cargo bay descended into total chaos. Robin ripped a fire hose from its holster on the wall and swung the nozzle over his head. It careened through the air over the soldiers' heads before dropping and catching under one of their weapons' straps. Robin yanked hard and tore him from his grip on Aqualad. Two seconds later, though, another had taken his place.
Robin then snapped a broom in half and charged forward, wielding the pieces like eskrima sticks. He scissored one of the troopers' throats, sending him gasping to the floor for air. Robin used the stick to block an incoming baton strike before using the other to jam hard into the aggressor's gut.
After ensuring his targets had been rendered unconscious, Robin noticed an axe leaning against the wall next to where the fire hose had been kept. He jogged to it and took the weapon in his grasp before noticing a bright yellow pipe just above him.
WARNING: HIGH-PRESSURE HYDRAULICS
"This looks important," the boy remarked before swinging the axe back and striking the pipe with all the force he could manage. Fluid immediately gushed out, and an alarm sounded while pulsating red lights washed the space of color. Robin glanced around looking for what he might have impaired until the cargo bay door slammed open again, casting a cool blue glow into the orange pit of airborne hell. The aircraft lurched again under the sudden change in aerodynamics.
"What the hell is going on?!" Luthor's voice demanded over the intercom.
"The aircraft is depressurizing. We have to descend to inhabitable altitude and close the door before going ultrasonic, over," the pilot barked in frenzied reply.
Robin felt his stomach lose touch with gravity. That unsettling floating feeling as one begins to fall gave the boy a rush. Inspired by memories of his days on the high wire, Robin gracefully embraced weightlessness and grabbed the fire hose for support. He used it to swing himself closer to the wall and springboard off it to get closer to where Aqualad laid on the floor.
"Sorry about this, Kaldur," Robin muttered. He reeled back and struck the transparent mask with the butt of one of the sticks. The material shattered, and Robin heard an immediate rush of air as the pressures equalized. Aqualad gasped in the humid air.
Superboy sniffed the air as he walked. "Does anyone else smell copper?" he asked.
Oddly enough, it was a cry of disgust which caught Dani's attention. She grabbed Superboy's arm to stop him and M'gann from advancing further to find Mrs. Fenton. They all paused in silence while Dani listened and looked. At her signal, they diverted from their path to the stairs and found the cargo elevator sitting open.
It was a gruesome sight. There was ectoplasm…everywhere. It coated the guards' arms and parts of their faces where they'd wiped the sweat from their foreheads with the backs of their gloves.
In the middle of them was Danny Phantom's slumped, ectoplasm-bleeding form.
Dani sparked with fury. The only thing to stop her from charging was Miss Martian's steadying hand on her shoulder. Instead, they watched and waited. Phantom was in terrible shape. His limbs seemed…loose, as if their state of being went beyond battered. When one guard lifted the boy's elbow, his arm simply stretched like taffy.
Dani's eyes widened in realization. Before Superboy or M'gann could stop her, she went invisible and seemingly disappeared. The two members of the protégé team shared a look before Superboy engaged his infrared vision. He gasped when Dani's lithe form leapt at a guard and then…disappeared.
The guard in question startled momentarily before clearing his throat and stepping back from Phantom. "Aw, come on, guys, let's just leave 'im," he drawled in a South London accent.
"Are you daft? The boss'll murder us if he gets away again!" one of his colleagues protested.
"He's just gonna melt anyways! Look a' 'im!"
"Eh, fair enough," one of the others answered.
"Please!" the first colleague protested. "As if I'd go against Mr. Luthor's orders just because the kid's melting faster than a summer ice cream! You're mad, you are!"
The first guard hesitated for a moment, and then suddenly he was grappling with the other guards trying to carry Danny away. Superboy and M'gann took that as their cue and sprinted to join the fight. M'gann extended her arm, and her eyes began to glow. All the guard's guns levitated and rushed to compact themselves into a hovering ball of firearms. The guards who had been dragged along by their shoulder straps bumped heads and fell unconscious to the ground.
Within seconds, only the first guard remained. He stared awkwardly at the two protégés before raising his fist and punching himself square in the face. He dropped, and Dani materialized beside him a second later.
"Well, I tried," Dani said. "Too bad the others wouldn't play along."
When the squadron sent to subdue the true Danny Phantom was nothing more than moaning remains on the floor, Danny took a deep breath and looked around.
The building site was more or less abandoned; the construction workers had scattered for their own safety, and the rest of the Light's forces were now apparently absent. Sirens echoed through the glass-and-concrete canyons surrounding him. A gentle breeze tousling Danny's hair carried murmurs and shouts from the bewildered crowds and military below. In the distance, the roar of approaching fighter jets could be heard.
"Guys, Threat Level Midnight! They've got Aqualad AND Robin!" Kid Flash told everyone connected via M'gann's mental link.
"Where?" Danny demanded.
The sounds of thrusters firing temporarily droned out the sirens and crowds.
Kid Flash hesitated and said, "…There."
The team rushed to the south edge of whatever floor they were on and watched the Light's aircraft take off with Lex Luthor, Aqualad and Robin inside.
"Guys, take care of Mom and Dani. I'm going after them," Danny said. He sprung forward, legs dissolving into an aerodynamic tail, and rocketed off.
It didn't take long for Danny to realize he was losing them. Though his speeds had improved, Danny was far from reaching the supersonic pace achieved by the aircraft. He could feel tears in his eyes, finding himself helpless once more in helping his family.
It was then that he remembered a concept forgotten by many and ignored by all when studying physics: air resistance. Danny slipped into intangibility and rocketed off faster than he'd ever thought he could go. It was incredible, faster than any person had ever gone without an external propellant.
M'gann, Superboy and Artemis knelt beside Danny who was bleeding ectoplasm profusely.
The boy shifted and scrunched his eyes. "Why is it s-so hot?" he whimpered.
"37, you need to focus," Dani said. "I can try to cool you down, but you have to keep control of your core until we can get you to Dr. Fenton's lab."
The disintegrating clone struggled. "M-mom?"
"She's fine," M'gann said. "Don't worry."
"Attention, team," Zatanna announced, "I am back in range with the bioship in stealth mode."
"Thank god," Artemis said.
"Let's get 37 together and get out of here," Superboy grunted.
"I've got him," Miss Martian responded. Eyes glowing, she raised a hand towards 37 and levitated him safely out of the space.
"Are you alright?" Robin shouted over the roar of air.
"I have…felt better," Aqualad replied.
"We have to get you off of this jet! For whatever reason, you're the new target."
A new group of masked Light goons wearing respirators stampeded into the cargo bay. They dodged around their unconscious colleagues littering the floor, two making a beeline for the cargo door to close it manually with the rest swarming Robin and Aqualad. Robin marveled at how easily they were able to walk despite the inclination of the craft until he heard the metal clanking. Their boots must have been equipped with some sort of electromagnetic grips allowing them to remain in contact with the floor and instantly disengage to allow for their next stride.
Robin realized his opportunity. He leapt and bounced off the wall on the balls of his feet, re-gripping the hose in lieu of a rope. The former acrobat sailed through the cargo bay in a graceful arc and ran along the wall. He pushed off once more and looped around a couple soldiers, restraining them within the hose. Two well-placed punches dropped them to the floor, but the Light goons were far from being overpowered. The rest had totally restrained Aqualad, and Robin was quickly subdued when he tried to wrestle him free.
Both boys were brought to their feet, Robin facing the open door with Aqualad standing in front of him with his back to it.
"These two have been enough trouble. Throw them into some storage closet for now and bomb it with sleeping gas until we've contacted Black Manta," Luthor ordered over the intercom.
"Cargo bay is now manually operational, sir!"one of the minions announced.
"Close it, and bring us back to altitude," Luthor said.
"Right away, sir, over," the pilot replied.
It was then that Robin saw their opportunity. As the aircraft banked back into an incline, he saw out the door at the back of the plane that they were now just off the coast over the English Channel, a few hundred feet in altitude at most.
'It could hurt,' Robin thought, then he shrugged. '…He'll thank me later?'
Robin suddenly gripped the men restraining him from behind for support and pulled his legs up to his chest. With a kiai shout for added abdominal power, he kicked directly forward into Aqualad, sending him and his two restrainers reeling backwards. The three tumbled along the floor before plummeting out the back of the craft towards the water below.
All the remaining men turned on Robin in anger.
"Well…I didn't think about this part…" Robin said.
The scene devolved into all-out battle with weapons firing and martial arts moves dislocating joints and breaking bones. Just as the boy had defeated his last opponent, a door swung open and banged Robin's head, disorienting him once more. The crew dragged him away from the cargo bay towards a waiting storage room where he could be contained for the time being.
"Somebody close the door, god damnit!" Luthor barked. "Are none of you cretinous apes sentient enough to realize this?!"
Danny rapidly overtook the Royal Air Force jets pursuing Luthor without appearing so much as a blip on their radar. He was nearing the Light's aircraft when it suddenly lurched and began losing altitude. The rear cargo door dropped open as it fell. Worried, Danny looked ahead and traced the craft's path straight into the approaching English Channel.
Before Danny could intervene, however, the aircraft banked up, narrowly missing the surface of the water. Three figures fell out the open door, one of which he recognized.
'Aqualad!'
Danny saw that the Atlantean would fall straight into the water, and while he could survive, the impact on the water's surface would definitely hurt Kaldur'ahm. So Danny temporarily abandoned his pursuit to catch Aqualad.
The Atlantean blinked and looked at his rescuer. "Danny?"
"That was gonna hurt," Danny responded. "Can I drop you in the water and then go after Bird Brain and Chrome Dome?"
Aqualad nodded his agreement, so Danny dropped within a few feet of the water and released the Atlantian. Then, once more, Danny Phantom found himself in intangible pursuit of the aircraft.
Much to his surprise, though, he slammed full-speed into an invisible barrier. He reeled back but righted himself just enough to see a green energy field ripple around the aircraft before becoming nearly invisible once more, flaring into visibility when a particularly rough bit of turbulence struck it as the craft blasted through the air.
Danny Phantom realized what he had to do.
The boy shook his head. 'Robin better appreciate me.' Danny accelerated once more, aiming for the now-closing cargo door. He arced upwards just slightly and hoped his estimate would be correct. When he was about to hit the ghost shield once more, he activated his detransformation and curled into a ball. Just as the tangible Robin uniform replaced the intangible hazmat suit, air resistance began to affect him once more. Danny barreled past the ghost shield and narrowly missed catching the edge of the cargo door as he tumbled inside the aircraft. Still curled into a ball, Danny barreled into the remaining goons and brought nearly the entire group to the ground in a heap. And with a deep metallic whump, the cargo door shut and locked, sealing the space from the outside once more.
Danny leapt to his feet, but Mercy came running into the room. She gasped then, raising her cybernetic arm cannon, called over the radio, "Mr. Luthor, he escaped again!"
"Impossible! I'm staring right at-oh, shit," Luthor uncharacteristically swore. His cool was far from kept. "Cuff the protégé to a pipe and knock him out. I'll take care of this."
Danny went invisible and dodged Mercy's instinctive blast. He ran along the perimeter of the room and used the hollow room's echoing acoustics to his advantage. Mercy was unable to track his movement sonically, so Danny was able to kick the back of her right knee, making her kneel. He grabbed Robin's discarded axe on the floor, knocked her unconscious with its handle and then severed the arm cannon halfway up the forearm, rendering it useless. Danny dropped the axe at the sound of a door slamming open behind him.
"Daniel James Fenton."
Danny glared with hot, fresh, angry tears streaming down his face. "Lex Luthor," he snarled, falling into a defensive position.
Luthor bristled. "I thought we had already met in person back in Axion, thanks to Mr. Masters' misdirection. Manifestly not."
"You kidnap my brother, you kill my clone, you kill his clone letting me think it's him. I'm getting sick of you playing 'God,'" Danny said, then changed tone to something less furious and more confident. "It's over, Luthor. I don't know why you want Aqualad, but he's escaped; your criminal activity has been exposed thanks to the shit show we left back in London; and I will be leaving here with Robin. As for us being stuck on this aircraft, well…you'll probably want to take us back into custody for more cloning and whatever other creepy plans you have. But I'm sure you can guess by now that will only happen over our dead bodies."
"That can be arranged." Luthor subtly flicked back his blazer to reveal a holster on his hip.
Danny scoffed. "Guns. We're surrounded by people with superpowers, for Pete's sake."
Luthor smoothly withdrew the weapon. "All the more reason to arm oneself with ectoranium-based bullets. Just in case."
Danny froze in momentary fear.
"I don't know what I pay those fools for," Luthor said, his gaze searching over the scattered unconscious Light troops. "Such an extensive employee pool, yet it seems only *I* am capable of accomplishing anything of measurable success. Now, come quietly, son, because I would rather not waste money having a doctor remove this bullet."
"Assuming you actually manage to shoot me with it yourself."
"You have grown tiresome," Lex stated as a simple matter of fact.
"And you are tiring," Danny quipped. "So how about you just let me take Robin home and I promise to stop bugging you?"
"Expertly trained forces have been unable to subdue you," Luthor continued. "I've no idea what lets you be far better equipped than the believers of the Light, but it is time for you to be contained and re-programmed. I recommend you come quietly."
"And if I don't?"
"Damon Gray sends his regards."
Danny saw it coming; the way Lex Luthor's face twisted with fury was more than enough warning to let the boy become intangible. The actual firing of the bullet was lost in the warping of time and space when transparent aquamarine silhouettes replaced the world around Danny.
But then, the bullet jumped. It was not trapped within the human dimension; instead, it pierced through into the same plane of existence as Danny, pulling an acidic green energy trail behind it into the aquamarine dimension like ink drops in water. It easily phased through Danny's bulletproof vest and embedded itself in Danny's lower-left abdomen.
Color and tangibility assaulted Danny upon his sudden return to the human plane. He knelt on the concrete floor in pain, not so much from the impact as from the sudden sting of the bullet's ectoranium core.
Of course: ectoranium. Luthor knew what Danny could do. He had apparently known all along.
Lex engaged the safety on his weapon and hid it away, striding instantly across the cargo bay to tower over the boy who had caused so much trouble. He grabbed Danny by the collar with one arm and hefted him to eye level while the boy cried out in pain.
"See what you made me do? We could have been civilized. You and your brother are coming with me now, so we can have you enthralled." With his free hand, Luthor struck Danny's midsection. The pain was so great that the boy couldn't even draw a breath to scream. "Stay down, you dog. You are mine. You belong to me now."
"Beating…a teenager?" Danny rasped. "Isn't that…a bit low for a…CEO?"
"Not when the teenager stands in the way of my organization's success."
"Are we talkin' about the farmers, the cloners, or the terrorists? It's hard to keep up."
Just as the goons had finished handcuffing the nearly-unconscious Robin to a joint in a pipe, the sound of a gunshot rang throughout the craft. It sobered Robin, clearing his mind with its horrific implication. "No…" he whispered. He glanced up and saw a Light soldier rearing back with a club.
Robin released a furious roar and ripped at the handcuffs restraining him to the pipe. The pipe's joint broke and severed the electrical wires inside, sending the aircraft wobbling along its course.
"All navigation controls are compromised, sir!" the pilot announced over the intercom. "We are unable to divert our course for an emergency landing, over!"
Robin sprinted down the hall and came to a balcony overlooking the cargo bay. He could see Luthor straight ahead restraining Danny.
"Then let this godforsaken craft take us to Byalia!" Luthor shouted in reply.
"Stay away from my brother!" Robin screamed. He spring-boarded off the railing and leapt onto the man's shoulders. Luthor stumbled but remained standing, but Robin's monkey-like grip on the man's torso allowed the boy to wrestle Luthor to the ground. The Boy Wonder then somersaulted and stood protectively over his brother's slumped form, as ready to attack as a protective guard dog.
Robin realized with every passing second that they were getting further and further from their team in London. They had to at least be over northern France by this point. Robin would have to act quickly, despite Danny's incapacity.
And that's when he saw it.
Its gentle pulsation was almost inviting, drawing his attention like an innocent fish to its deep-sea predator. They had to be thousands of feet back in the air by now, and Robin couldn't be sure whether Danny was Phantom as he'd suspected. But…
Robin side-glanced at Lex Luthor.
Why else would the Light have wasted ectoranium bullets on the boy? It was daring, spontaneous, and possibly stupid given Danny's current condition…but, damn it, Robin was tired, he was hungry, he wanted off this ship, and he had that gut feeling. And how did Danny catch up with and get onto the aircraft in the first place?
A mad plan began to form. A slow smile crept onto Robin's face.
Luthor suddenly noticed what had captured Robin's attention. "Oh, my g- If I were you," he warned, "I wouldn't even think about-"
"Think about what?" Robin parried, extending his hand to hover over the side door's release button.
"Pilot! What's our current altitude?" Luthor shouted.
"20,000 feet, sir, over," the unseen man replied.
"Well above the limit of inhabitability," Lex added. "Regardless, you can't even actually fly! I'm surprised I find myself needing to remind you that you're not a real robin."
With a determined glare, Robin hefted Danny onto his shoulder and smashed the release button with his fist.
"Tweet tweet, motherfucker."
Will Robin really jump out of a moving airplane without a parachute? Will Danny be able to save them despite being shot with ectoranium? Will Lex Luthor take up competitive embroidery as an outlet for the stresses from work? Find out next time on Keeping Up with the Graysons!
HaHAAAAAA! EVERYONE got what they want for experiment 37! I pulled another little switcheroo on ya there so you THOUGHT he died but he actually lives! The angst you desire with the happy ending you deserve. Though what his *exact* future is remains to be seen ;)
Lots of references in this chapter!
- "Threat Level Midnight" (Kid Flash's exclamation as Luthor's jet is getting away): the title of Michael Scott's hidden screenplay in an episode of The Office
- "Damon Gray sends his regards": You might remember back in chapter 6 that Damon Gray stopped Danny Phantom and Kid Flash inside Axion Labs. He had a bullet of ectoranium-cored bullets.
- "Manifestly not" (Luthor's quip at Danny when they have their climactic confrontation): One of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE lines from Netflix's The Crown (spoken by Tommy Lascelles to Martin in season 1)
- You'll notice each "Danny" (Danny himself, 37, Dani and Robin) individually reference Die Hard as another expression of their great resemblance to one another in appearance and attitude. Dani says, "Happy trails, Hans;" 37 says, "All things being equal, I'd rather be in Philadelphia;" and Danny says, "Welcome to the party, pal." Robin's is more paraphrased in that he says "Tweet tweet" rather than "Yippie-ki-yay," but I actually drafted this scene before adding the other Die Hard references (after rewatching the movie for Christmas a few weeks ago).
- "Tweet tweet, mofo" is a double-hitter because it's also Robin channeling his inner Samuel L. Jackson
A bit of mixed-emotion news: There is only two more chapters of this story! What a journey it has been to write and publish, with all of the excellent assistance I've received from my betas in addition to the fantastic feedback and response you readers have given along the way! I love and appreciate you all, and I want you to know that you helped me stay motivated to finish this story not just for my sake. That's why, in fact, it has sometimes taken me extra time to update; I am often not quite yet satisfied with the quality or content of the chapters, so I take a couple days more to make it near-perfect. So thank you for bearing with me!
I do have a couple other ideas of stories to publish. One of them has a majority of it already drafted, actually; but, I wrote it before this story and my writing has improved so much since then, so I might have to rewrite it almost in its entirety. It's also much darker in tone (I was going through a summer of depression when I started it). Well, we'll see.