Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and I don't own any rights to Danny Phantom.
GLE – And so, years later – a decade, in fact – I decided to write out the one-shot that my poem had inspired in me! Haha, I never expected to do this! Just goes to show that nothing is set in stone, and circumstances change over time. Please enjoy!
-(x)-
Temporal Touch
An incessant beeping broke her sleep and Valerie grumbled as she reached out for the clock. Her fingers pressed the snooze button, but nothing happened. Valerie's eyes shot open. That wasn't her alarm clock; it was her ghost alarm! She jumped out of bed, called her suit to activate, and was out the window in three seconds flat.
"Okay, let's do this!"
She made a steady and quick ascent into the sky above Elmerton. Everything below her was silent and dark, as expected of this time of night, and the moon's light was covered by a blanket of clouds. It didn't matter if she couldn't see very far; her monitor provided her with excellent directions towards the location of ghostly activity, and she'd be able to spot the spooks right away. They always had an unnatural glow about them that made them stand out. She couldn't wait to fire a blast into their smug faces.
She arrived at one of the highway roads that led into Amity Park, and like everywhere else, there were few, if any, vehicles out and about. She spotted the ghosts immediately. A large, humanoid wolf wearing green was surrounded by a group of ghosts dressed in helmets and uniforms and one white-faced ghost in a white outfit and black hat.
"We've got you cornered," said the ghost in white. "Don't even think about escaping."
"That's my line, ghost!" said Valerie, taking aim.
She fired a shot at the ghost that had spoken and blasted him into the ditch on the side of the road. The uniformed ghosts gasped at her surprise entrance and started firing back at her with baton weapons. Using her jet-sled to her full advantage, she swerved left and right to avoid being hit.
"Too easy." Valerie grinned and landed perfect shots on each and every one of the uniformed guys, knocking them to the ground.
She turned her eyes onto the wolf-man ghost that hadn't moved.
"Guh!" Suddenly, her arms were crushed into the sides of her body, her jet-sled crashed down below her and vanished on impact, and all the air was squeezed out of her lungs.
Valerie craned her neck to see the white ghost's face hovering above her, several times larger than it had been before. His hand was now the size of her body and his grip was tight. She couldn't move.
"I'm sure there are some rules in this world that you've just broken," her captor said angrily. "Perhaps some time in my prison will help to correct that delinquent behaviour."
Who the heck did this ghost think he was? Coming into her world causing trouble and then accusing her of breaking the rules here? Valerie willed her face shield to disappear and she bit down hard on the index finger of the ghost who held her.
He hissed. His grip faltered a moment before tightening around her, and Valerie knew she'd have bruises the next day. More concerning than that, however, Valerie found she couldn't breathe anymore.
"Malamiko de mia malamiko estas mia amiko."
Valerie had no idea what the wolf ghost just said, but he attacked the white ghost who ended up dropping her. She rolled onto her side, coughing and gulping down air. Before she had a chance to get her bearings again, the wolf ghost pulled her to standing. His claws looked extremely sharp as he extended them in front of himself and slashed at the air, ripping it apart to reveal a world of green swirls and dark atmosphere that Valerie was dreadfully familiar with. She was unable to do anything as the wolf dragged her into his world and the opening back to her own world closed behind them.
"Let go of me!" she shouted and ripped her arm out of his grasp.
"Vi estas vundita?"
Valerie raised her arm, pointing a wrist-blaster at his chest. "Leave me alone, spook, unless you want me to blast you." She took a menacing step forward to emphasize her point. "I've never actually destroyed a ghost before – been saving that honour for Phantom – but you seem just as bad as him, if not worse. Opening portals straight into my world? I can't let you get away with that."
The ghost seemed to frown, raising his hands in surrender. "Mi bedaŭras vin sentas ke."
Valerie pulled the trigger before even thinking about it, but the ghost had already taken off. He bounded through the air for several leaps, then disappeared through another short-lived portal.
Valerie lowered her arm and stood still a moment. There wasn't much around her. She was alone. And she was stuck in the Ghost Zone.
"Great. This is exactly what I needed tonight," she said sarcastically. How was she going to get home?
Willing her jet-sled to re-materialize under her feet and her face shield to also reappear, she picked a direction and took off, hoping to find her way out soon. How had she done this before? Right. Phantom had something to do with it. Well that was annoying and very unhelpful.
She passed by floating rocks and goopy green shapes, but not much else, not even a door that may or may not be dangerous to open. Despite the adrenaline starting to ebb away and tiredness from lack of sleep starting to creep in, Valerie stayed alert for any potential threats, eyes darting across the realm. A dark shape caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and she turned towards it. The head-up display on her visor wasn't giving her any warnings, so it wasn't a ghost. As she got closer, it got larger, looking almost like a lighthouse set afloat in the space. When she finally approached it, she could see that it seemed to be more like a clock tower instead, with various gears, a clock face, and a pendulum all working together. It also had a creepy decorative aspect to it, with skulls, bat wings, and scythes in place of gargoyles around the top. It made her feel a bit apprehensive as she hovered at the door.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Valerie decided to go inside. Maybe she'd find a portal back to the real world.
There were more gears in here, and a couple of large, circular windows that were dark and didn't seem to be on outer walls. Other than that, it didn't look like there was an exit for her.
"Valerie Gray," said a calm voice behind her.
Valerie whirled around. A blue ghost with a purple cloak was just floating there. Her suit suddenly started giving her warnings about the ghost being nearby. How the heck had he snuck up on her like that?
She took a defensive stance. Her heart was pounding from the shock and she stumbled over her words. "H-how do you know my name?"
The ghost's red eyes seemed to pierce right into her soul as he regarded her. His face was nearly impassive, though a slight incline of his lips could be interpreted as a smirk. His form shifted unexpectedly, and instead of the adult ghost she'd been looking at before, he became a small child, though his voice was the same when he spoke.
"I am Clockwork, Master of Time. I know everything."
The ghost was seriously unnerving her, but Valerie wouldn't let him know it. She scoffed. "About what? The best ghost hunters in Amity Park?"
He didn't respond, instead reaching out with a gloved hand to adjust the clock on top of his staff. As he did this, his form changed again, and now he was an old man with a long beard that covered the pendulum in his chest.
Impatient and more intimidated than she wanted to admit to herself, Valerie narrowed her eyes and called a blaster onto her shoulder, firing it at the ghost in front of her.
"Time Out."
"About what? The best ghost hunters in Amity Park?" Valerie paused, bringing a hand to the side of her head. "Huh? Woah, that's a really weird sense of déjà-vu."
The ghost had somehow transformed into an old man with a white beard in the blink of an eye, unlike the previous shift in form. His penetrating gaze was upon her, but he didn't speak.
Not letting the strangeness of the situation get to her, Valerie felt more frustrated than anything else, and when that happened, she did what she did best. She channeled that angry energy into an attack. With both wrist rays targeting the spook, Valerie let loose several consecutive blasts.
"Time Out."
The ghost had somehow transformed into an old man with a white beard in the blink of an eye, unlike the previous shift in form. Valerie broke eye contact with him, dropping her gaze to her hands by her side. The wrist rays that she knew she could bring up at will were dormant as normal, but she got the strongest sense of having just been blasting them at a ghost. Maybe even this ghost. She raised her head to stare at those haunting red eyes and frowned.
"Are you doing this to me?" she asked heatedly. If he was, he'd know exactly what she was talking about. And if not, she didn't care if she confused him by the question.
"Perhaps," he responded vaguely, his form becoming an adult again. "You may want to elaborate on what 'this' is."
Oh, he knew alright. Valerie stepped forward and took a swing at him, intending to punch his smug face in. "Stop messing with me!"
"Time Out." Valerie's body froze in place, though her eyes darted back and forth as she tried to work out what was going on. The ghost's face was an inch from her knuckles. He floated away from her, reestablishing the distance between them.
Valerie couldn't move or speak. Her suit wouldn't obey her, no matter how much she tried to command it to do something, anything, to attack this ghost. She struggled to yell, but her voice just wouldn't come out. She was completely powerless. Catching sight of the scythe hanging halfway up the wall, her stomach flipped. For the first time in a long time she was intensely afraid.
Her opponent's body became that of a child once more and his free hand made its way towards the top of his staff. Valerie dreaded what that would do. He pressed a button on the clock and it gave a little chime. "Time In."
Valerie suddenly stumbled forwards as she followed through on the punch. Her fist sliced the air, the momentum carrying her too far, and she landed on her hands and knees. She remained staring down at the floor for several seconds, still quite shaken from having been completely at this ghost's mercy.
"What…" Her mouth was dry. What did she even want to ask him? What was it he'd just done to her? What would that accomplish? This ghost was a lot more powerful than she'd originally given him credit. It would be better for her to cut her losses and escape from here as quick as possible. In a quiet voice, she finally asked him, "What do you want with me?"
"It's not what I want with you, but what you want with me," he replied. Then he prompted, "What are you here for?"
She lifted her head quickly, briefly noting that he was in adult form again, and argued, "It's not like I want to be here, you know! I'm just trying to get home!" This ghost's way of answering without answering was aggravating, and even though she'd just been terrified of him moments ago, she couldn't help but let the frustration come out in her voice.
He nodded. "Of course, but I believe that you are here for more than that."
Valerie got to her feet and crossed her arms. "Why the heck would you believe that? Or is it because I'm a ghost hunter you're expecting me to try to destroy you now that I'm here?" Not that she had any intention of actually doing that, but he didn't need to know.
He stared at her a long moment before replying, "Are you the type of ghost hunter that destroys ghosts?"
His expression told her he already knew the answer, and that put her on edge. There was no way he could know what she really felt.
"What do you think I've been trying to do ever since I got into ghost hunting? You don't even know me!"
"Valerie Gray, a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in Elmerton outside of Amity Park with her father, Damon, who works at Axion Labs. You are a student at Casper High School and you have very few friends. Amity Park's mayor, Vlad Masters, has employed you as his personal ghost hunter. Shall I go on or will we discuss more important matters?" The ghost grew into his old man form. "Are you the type of ghost hunter that destroys ghosts?"
She huffed, tightening the arms across her chest. "I just answered that."
How had he known all that stuff about her? And what was so important about her hunting habits? Entirely uncomfortable, she shifted her weight onto the other foot.
"You did not," he responded simply. "You deflected the question."
So what if she did? Valerie pressed her lips together and said nothing.
"Perhaps you are not ready for that question. A different one then. What kind of ghost hunter do you want to be?"
Valerie gave him a confused look. What kind of question was that? She couldn't imagine any of her prey wanting to know how she liked to hunt them. This was seriously one weird ghost. And the fact that she couldn't do anything against him made her feel very disconcerted.
When she continued to remain silent, the ghost nodded and said, "You will know the answer one day. But first, you must ask yourself the question." He floated over towards one of the dark windows. "Trust yourself. And—"
She scoffed, interrupting him. "No duh. I can handle anything that any ghost throws at me!"
He gazed at her patiently before continuing, "I was going to say, don't forget to trust your friends. It's okay to rely on others sometimes."
Valerie lowered her arms. This conversation kept getting weirder and weirder. As she stared at him, she had the sense of speaking with a literal 'wise old man' from fairy tales – wrinkled face, long white beard, fancy staff that could be used as a walking stick, and all. If only he were human, she might actually take some of his advice.
She shook her head. This ghost was talking her in circles and she needed to put a stop to it. Defensively, she argued, "Like I need to know that! You wanna talk about trust? You're a ghost! You're probably trying to trick me, like how Phantom is always tricking everyone! Seems to me like you two would be real good buddies!"
His form shifted again back down to the adult version. "Any relationship I may or may not have with Danny Phantom is none of your concern." A little quirk in the corner of his lips gave Valerie the strong impression that he was smirking once more. "But why should my being a ghost matter on the point of trust? It is true that not all ghosts can be trusted, just the same as not all humans can be trusted either. But there are those – both among ghosts and among humans – who are invaluably trustworthy and on whom you may depend, if you'd allow yourself to do so."
"I'll believe it when I see it," she huffed.
The ghost merely smiled at her before turning his attention back to the empty window. The top of his staff glowed and an image popped up on the window as if it was a tv screen.
Valerie's eyes widened and her pulse started racing again. "Hey! That's my building! What kind of game are you pl…?"
Her voice died in her throat as she watched herself on the screen, flying out the window and up into the night sky. The camera remained on the building.
"That was earlier tonight," said the ghost. "You can return there now and get almost a full night's sleep."
"Huh?"
What was he talking about? That didn't make any sense. Was this some kind of time manipulation? Did that mean she'd be in two places at once? Valerie took a step backwards. Why would he do this for her? Was this a trap?
"You said you wanted to go home, so go." He gestured towards the screen. "You can use this as a portal to get back."
She took another step backwards. "I-I don't understand."
Was it that he wanted her out of his lair? Maybe that's why he was doing this. It wouldn't be the first time that her goals had aligned with those of a ghost and they'd been forced to work together to resolve it.
He smiled, shrinking down into child form. "It is just as I said."
Valerie clenched her hands by her sides and gulped. She stared into the ghost's eyes for a long moment, then glanced over at the portal again. Opening her palms and stretching her arms out for balance, she jumped into the air, materialized her jet-sled beneath her feet, and dove forwards through the portal.
The sky was cloudy above her, just as it had been when she'd left. Her building was dark, the occupants asleep. Her window was open. She flew into her room and landed on the floor, retracting her suit. A quick look at her clock confirmed that it was only a few minutes since she'd left … and she found that really weird. But hadn't the ghost introduced himself as the Master of Time? Maybe it was true. She didn't want to think about it anymore. She was back home and she still had a few hours before she had to wake up for school.
Crawling back into her bed, Valerie clutched her covers to her chest, trying to ease her mind from everything that had just occurred. Despite her efforts, the last thought she had before falling asleep was the ghost's voice echoing, "What kind of ghost hunter do you want to be?", and that made for restless dreams the rest of the night.
-x-
"You're sure you'll be fine on your own?"
Valerie rolled her eyes. "Yes, Danny, I'm sure. I was pretty much on my own from the beginning. I can handle a couple weeks without you."
Danny stared at her for a few more seconds before caving. "Yeah, I know. You really are a great ghost hunter."
Valerie frowned and hurriedly glanced around the park. No one seemed close enough to hear them.
Danny sighed and ran a hand back through his black hair. "I don't get why you're keeping it a secret anymore. You did an awesome job last week saving Amity Park from Nocturne and everyone knows it. That was all you. Sam, Tucker, Jazz, my parents and I were all just as helpless as the rest of the town. They're not going to crucify you for being a high school student."
Shaking her head, Valerie said, "It's different for you than it is for me. You're half-ghost. It's not like you can stop being that. I'm still human, so if someone thinks I should be banned from hunting, I can't say that it's in my blood and keep doing it." A small smile crossed her lips. "And besides, I don't have a statue of my likeness in cities all over the world."
Danny grinned and bumped his shoulder against hers. "Yeah, but you were there too."
"Not the same way that Sam and Tucker were. They were part of the development team, I was just support and only allowed to be there 'cause of my dad's work with ghost technologies. And your family is your family. I'm nobody." Danny opened his mouth to protest, but Valerie waved a hand and continued, "I get to enjoy a relatively normal high school life this way too."
Before either of them could say another word, two kids approached them with nervous looks on their faces.
"H-hi!" one of them stuttered. "Um, Danny Phantom, c-could we get an autograph?"
Danny smiled and jumped into his autograph routine. When he was done, the kids thanked him ecstatically and scampered off. Valerie put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at him as he turned his attention back on her.
He raised a finger. "Okay, I'll give you that one. But it still doesn't mean my life isn't a bit easier now that everyone knows. For one thing, Lancer wouldn't give you detention anymore."
With a helpless smile, Valerie just shook her head. "Not to bring this riveting debate to a close, but uh, don't you have to get to the airport soon? Your flight's in a couple hours, isn't it?"
"You're right!" Danny exclaimed, looking at his watch. "Wish us luck!"
"You don't need it, but, good luck. I'm sure your world conference tour will go well."
Danny smiled and transformed, lifting up a few feet from the ground. He hesitated a moment longer. "And… just think about it while we're gone. You look like you've been a little stressed out recently is all."
"Fine." Valerie waved. "See you when you get back."
Danny saluted to her and took off into the sky. Several people in the park cheered when they saw him. Valerie smirked. As she turned away and walked towards a more covered area, her expression slowly fell. She ducked behind a tree and looked around. No one could see her here, so she donned her ghost hunting gear and shot up into the air herself.
She started a large loop around the city that would take her a while to complete, getting lost in her thoughts. Really, what it came down to was who exactly was she as a ghost hunter? She was happy to help Danny and Team Phantom out, and to be considered part of the team now too, but she didn't really feel like she was one of them. She still felt like a lone hunter. An outsider. And pretty unnecessary next to them.
The whole thing with Danielle and Vlad and then the Disasteroid, it all happened so quickly that Valerie still felt like she was reeling from some sort of invisible whiplash. Everything had gotten muddled up. She'd tortured Danny, and despite how much she'd apologized and Danny had forgiven her, she still didn't feel like it was enough. She'd held so much anger towards him for most of her ghost hunting career. And even just before the Disasteroid, when she felt like maybe she could possibly forgive and trust Phantom, all that hatred just transferred to Vlad as the new focus of her grudge. Fueled by the desire for revenge, it frustrated her that she'd never even been able to confront Vlad about what he'd done. Those feelings had nowhere to go anymore.
She'd told Danny during the Danielle incident how she wanted to be the best ghost hunter in Amity Park, and how she wanted information on ghosts so she could better seek them out and destroy them. After spending time with Team Phantom, she learned so much about real ghosts and she couldn't imagine actually destroying one. The idea made her feel sick. All that anger and hatred she felt towards ghosts, giving her a reason to fight them: was that who she really wanted to be? Without the anger and hatred, Valerie just felt empty.
A soft alarm signaled to her that it was time to get to work at her other job, the one that earned her money. Valerie made a beeline towards the Nasty Burger and let her previous thoughts drift away again for the time being.
-x-
During English on Monday, Valerie's wrist alarm vibrated lightly, alerting her to the presence of a nearby ghost. She made a quick excuse and escaped the classroom to go find it. A little imp ghost had managed to borrow some supplies from the art room and was currently painting the hall walls with some indiscernible graffiti.
"As much as I think these old walls could use a new coat of paint, I don't think that's what the school board has in mind," said Valerie as she activated her suit.
The imp turned to face her, startled, and bared its pointy teeth in anger. The paints and brushes gained a light green glow as they levitated into the air and started launching at her. Valerie dodged and they sailed by her, hitting the opposite wall with a juicy splat. She shot a couple ectoblasts at the imp and landed one on its stomach, knocking it backwards. It hissed and launched in her direction, claws extended. Valerie called her jet-sled up and it blocked the attack. The imp tried to get around it, shooting some small ecto-eyeblasts in her direction. Valerie avoided them and hit the ghost with another good shot. She uncapped her thermos and aimed it at her target.
Out of nowhere, a second imp jumped onto her front and clawed through the armor on her chest.
"Ouch!" cried Valerie. It stung. "Get. Off!"
She grabbed the back of the second imp and flung it into the air, catching it in the thermos instead. The first one had disappeared. Valerie switched her visor's mode to look for invisible entities, and sure enough, the ghost was preparing a sneak attack on her. Unfortunately for the teen, the ghost tossed the contents from a bucket of paint onto the ceiling above her head and several drops rained down on her.
"That's it!" Valerie said angrily. She nailed it with an ectoblast and followed up with the thermos for good measure.
The bell for lunch rang.
"Shoot!" Valerie retracted her suit in panic, wanting to get out of there quickly. A huge sploch of paint fell from the ceiling onto her head, and she only had a moment to notice that her shirt had actually been ripped open enough to reveal her bra.
Students flooded into the hall and stopped to stare at the mess where Valerie stood.
A snicker was quickly followed by a comment from Paulina. "Green's a good colour on you, Valerie. Does it represent your envy in the fact that Danny left you behind?"
Dash chuckled, "It looks like you lost a fight with a paintbrush!"
Taking notice of her ripped shirt, Paulina added, "It doesn't matter how much you throw yourself at him, he won't want you. And, by the way, the whole 'ripped clothing' thing was so five years ago!"
Valerie crossed her arms. She opened her mouth to retort, but a loud male voice overrode her.
"Color Me Calm, Miss Gray!" exclaimed Mr. Lancer. "What happened here?"
Keeping her arms crossed, Valerie's shoulders dropped a little. She really had no explanation for this.
"It was a ghost," she mumbled out eventually.
"Hahaha! Since when do ghosts draw graffiti?" laughed Dash.
By the look on his face, it was obvious Mr. Lancer was inclined to agree.
"Detention," the teacher informed.
Valerie's fists clenched. "But Mr. Lancer, it really was a ghost!" she protested.
"That may be, but you skipped a great portion of my lecture on the topic of your next assignment, therefore I expect to see you in detention after school." Looking at the state of the hall, he said, "Clean this up before the end of lunch and I might let you leave early this afternoon."
Another drop of pain fell from the ceiling and landed on her nose, punctuating the perfect disaster that this had all become. The students laughed and dispersed as Valerie was left to do something to clean the place. She sighed and turned away, heading for the locker rooms to take a quick shower and find her gym shirt to change into. She grabbed a mop and bucket from the janitor on her way back.
Grumbling, Valerie filled the bucket with water. Paulina was still jealous of her for often being included in Danny's group while Danny had declined all of Paulina's advances and bids to keep him company. She probably thought that Valerie was just sucking up to him and his friends so she could get back together with him. As if! That was never going to happen. Besides, Sam was Danny's girlfriend and they really were a great couple together.
She scrubbed at the green on the linoleum floor and lost herself in thought. Well, she wanted a more normal high school experience, and she was kind of getting that now, wasn't she? If Paulina and them knew she was actually an excellent ghost hunter and beyond friendship, she was an ally of Danny's in his Phantom form too, Paulina would probably be a lot more respectful. Especially since she'd see how much Valerie kicked butt every day. Although, since Paulina couldn't say anything bad about Sam around Danny, she might turn more of her pettiness on Valerie instead and berate her over the fact that she'd hunted Danny for months before the Disasteroid Incident. And Valerie really had no rebuttal for that. She'd hated him with every fibre of her being. That wasn't easily forgiven.
-x-
School seemed to drag on forever, but finally Lancer let her go from detention and Valerie bolted from the building. Even if she wouldn't admit it, she was sort of hoping for another ghost to attack just so she could vent some of her frustration. Danny, and even his sister Jazz, had said that it was therapeutic. Soaring through the skies above Amity Park, Valerie felt good for the first time all day. Maybe she didn't even need the ghost.
Beep-beep-beep-beep!
Well, a ghost was what she'd get!
"Axion Labs?" said Valerie as she followed directions to her target.
Sure enough, her father's workplace was under attack. Why hadn't the ghost shields worked? Valerie quickly found the cause. The ghost had frozen the shield generators with ice. She followed a trail of icicle stalagmites down the hall. People were screaming and diving for cover when Valerie arrived at one of the largest testing labs in the building.
"No one wants to be my friend!" bellowed the ghost as he covered the walls with ice.
"Klemper," murmured Valerie. She'd managed to avoid any encounters with this particular ghost so far, but Team Phantom had told her all about him. "Hey! Klemper!" she yelled to get his attention. "I've got a couple of friends for you right here!"
She held up the thermos that still housed the imps and waved it in Klemper's direction.
"NO! I don't want a friend like that!" Klemper's voice carried a frigid wind that knocked Valerie backwards into the wall.
"No!" her father's anxious voice shouted over the panic of his co-workers.
She pushed off the wall and nodded firmly in his direction. Just a minor bump, nothing to worry about.
Going on the offensive, Valerie launched several ectoblasts at the ghost. He blocked them with a shield of ice, and retaliated with an attack of frozen snowballs. Valerie dodged and closed in on him. She caught his wrists with her hands and pushed him back against a machine. He frowned and whined, sending ice up her arms and the machine behind him. Valerie yelped and let go. Her suit's thermal controls kicked in and heated the affected area, extending it to the machine just beyond her reach.
"That's dangerous!" her father yelled frantically. "The chemicals in that experiment need a consistent temperature!"
Just as he finished saying that, the lights dimmed, a red light began flashing, and an alarm sounded.
"Warning! Warning!" alerted a computerized voice. "Project K258 in critical condition! Reset temperatures immediately! Warning! Warning!"
"Argh!" Valerie turned her attention to the machine. How could she stop this? Parts of it were frozen along the side. She dropped to the floor and sent her jet-sled to thaw the ice.
"Will nobody be my friend?" Klemper cried. He started freezing the desks and lab benches that the workers were using for cover.
"Not on my watch, ghost!" Valerie ran to cut him off, shooting ectoblasts at him.
She hit him in the arm and chest. Klemper threw more snowballs and used his eyes to send a frozen wave of energy at her. Valerie rolled to avoid it. The energy blast hit the sensitive machine behind her. Her jet-sled tried to counter it with heat. Valerie came out of her roll and locked onto Klemper with the thermos.
"Warning! Warning! Project K258 in terminal condition! Evacuate immediately! Warning! Warning!"
Valerie capped the thermos. One problem down, one to go. She sought out her father with her eyes and spotted him running towards her while all of his coworkers headed the other direction. Valerie called her jet-sled and it came. The machine exploded.
"Ugh."
Valerie was disoriented. She was lying on a hard surface, face-down. Where was she? Why was she here?
"Daddy!" she exclaimed, opening her eyes and pushing up.
Her father lay a few feet away from her, unconscious.
"Dad! Are you okay?" Valerie hurried to his side and crouched next to him. She gently prodded his shoulder, but he didn't react. Valerie moved to turn him over, but then she spotted the blood. "No, no, no, no, no…"
A large piece of metal was protruding through his back and the blood was pooling underneath him.
Valerie shook her head as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. This couldn't be happening. She looked around. Black smoke was everywhere. There were a couple of small fires across the room. The electricity was out except for the emergency lights. The fire alarm was ringing. The sprinklers were on, but she and her father were shielded from them by a huge side of the machine which had toppled above them and covered them in a slant. Her visor gave her readings on her surroundings; several people were exiting the building while several more were entering it and heading her way.
Valerie disengaged her suit and wiped her eyes. This was no time to panic. She leaned over and grabbed her father's wrist to check his pulse, and tried to listen for his breathing at the same time. The pulse was there, but she couldn't hear if he was breathing or not over the noise of the sprinklers, fires, and alarms. Her head shot up when she heard voices across the room.
"Over here!" she shouted. "Hurry! Please!"
The next several minutes were a confusing blur to Valerie. From the firemen to the paramedics to the ambulance, she couldn't seem to follow anything anyone was saying at all. When they arrived at the hospital, a nurse held her back while her father was wheeled straight to an emergency operating room. There was nothing more she could do but sit in the waiting room, wringing her hands and worrying.
Other people came and went. Family, friends, soon-to-be patients with non-life-threatening ailments, whoever – they showed up in the waiting room, sat around for a while, and eventually got a prompt from the receptionist or a doctor to get up and go elsewhere. Valerie didn't spare any of them a glance. Nothing would be okay until she knew her dad was stable again.
On the words "one of Amity Park's ghost hunters", Valerie's ears couldn't help but tune into the news report playing on the tv.
"…'may have done more damage than good,' said an official representative of Axion Labs. He added that 'she recklessly attacked the ghost and aided in unbalancing the temperatures surrounding the reactor.' The explosion caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in damage, injuring several employees of the labs. One man was taken to hospital in critical condition. Some people are wondering whether or not this ghost hunter can handle the pressure while Danny Phantom and his family are out of the country on their World of Ghosts Conference Tour. Others believe that since Danny Phantom trusts her, she's doing the best job she can. For now, she's the only ghost hunter Amity Park has standing between us and any malevolent ghosts that decide to attack.
"On a more positive note, we take you now to Ottawa, where the first day of the World of Ghosts Conference Tour has concluded…"
Valerie's mind wandered off again, the rest of the newscaster's words blurring into the general hum of conversation from the others in the room. Would things have been this bad if she hadn't intervened? Had she really just made everything worse? Because she'd been there, was her dad going to d—? She couldn't even finish the thought.
After the Disasteroid, her father had warily resigned himself to the fact that she was going to hunt ghosts no matter what, but at least with the entire support of Team Phantom – including Mr. and Mrs. Fenton – he felt that she wasn't in as much danger as she was before. So with a tentative blessing, he allowed Valerie to continue to hunt ghosts, as long as she let him know all about it and which other Team Phantom members were involved, if any. He wasn't thrilled that they all had to leave for the world tour, but he hoped that perhaps there might not be so many ghost attacks while they were gone.
And the ghosts that had attacked weren't even all that hard. How had Valerie allowed for such failures today? Sure, she captured the ghosts in the end, but at what cost? She'd give it all up in a heartbeat if it would make her dad okay. He just had to be okay.
As the hours drew out, well beyond evening, the waiting room quieted down and slowly decreased in number of occupants. Valerie had briefly been taken to an open examination room for her minor injuries at some point, but had long since returned to waiting, and waiting, and hoping, and waiting. When her name was finally called, her stomach leapt in both dread and anticipation. This was it.
The doctor led her down a couple of halls. Valerie glimpsed the sign that indicated she was entering the recovery wing, and her heart skipped a beat. The doctor showed her to a room with five recovering patients, explaining to her about the complications of the operation on her father and how ultimately it'd been a success. Relief flooded Valerie so strongly that she lost her breath for a moment. He was okay.
Valerie pulled up a chair by his bedside and took his hand, watching over him as he rested.
-x-
An echoing sob in the night reverberated off the walls. Valerie did her best to cover it, but she couldn't stop the tears. Everything had just been so overwhelming and it was finally hitting her.
There was a shuffle from beyond the curtains. Maybe one of the other patients had heard her? She tried to muffle her uneven breaths, but the more she covered them, the more pronounced they got. She grabbed the extra pillow off the shelf next to her father's bed and buried her face in it. Why was she crying so much? She was stronger than this.
"Val…erie…"
At the whispered voice, Valerie froze and looked up. Her dad's eyes were fluttering behind their eyelids and he whispered something else that was too incoherent to understand. He was still fast asleep. He didn't know she'd been crying.
Valerie let out a long, shaky breath and sat back. She had no intention of going to sleep herself until she could properly talk to him. She just wanted to tell him how much she loved him and how sorry she was for nearly costing him his life. This ordeal really put everything into perspective.
Maybe her dad had been right about ghost hunting this entire time. She wasn't a half-ghost like Danny. She'd only been stumbling through this whole ghost hunting thing for minutes compared to the generations of ghost hunting history the Fenton family had behind them. When it really came down to it, was this really what she wanted to do for the rest of her life? And even if she did continue to hunt ghosts sometimes, what kind of ghost hunter did she really want to be?
Valerie inhaled sharply. It had been a while since she'd thought about that strange encounter before summer break. She'd talked to Danny about it once when he was telling her about all the good ghosts out there. The question had haunted her for a couple of days afterwards, and had pretty much been forgotten by the time she started hunting down Danielle.
"What kind of ghost hunter do you want to be?"
Clockwork, the Master of Time, had asked her that, and now, she was asking herself the same thing. Hadn't he predicted that from the start?
Valerie stared long and hard at her father's face while a thought she probably shouldn't have been entertaining bounced back and forth across her mind. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands before she stood up, leaned over, and kissed her dad on his forehead. Uncertainly, she promised herself she'd be back before he woke. She just had to be.
She walked briskly down the nearly empty hospital halls. A couple of the night staff glanced at her before returning their attention to whatever tasks they were dealing with. She avoided eye contact with anyone and hurried outside. Once she was far enough from any onlookers or cameras, her ghost hunting suit enveloped her and carried her into the sky.
It was dark like that night she'd met the mysterious ghost, but not because of cloud cover. The moon was nearly set, just barely visible as it dove into the horizon. She beelined it for home.
Entering her room felt strange. What kind of person had she been when she'd left for school yesterday morning? What kind of person was she now?
She dropped to her stomach and began reaching under her bed for something quite particular. It was something she hadn't wanted to think about. Something she'd buried. Something that made her feel so much disgust for herself. Had she really been that kind of person back then?
Her fingers closed around a box and she pulled it out, the contents inside rolling lightly and the sound of glass tinkling as it was jostled about. She only needed one. Grimacing, she removed the lid and grabbed the first vial she spotted. It still had a faint, eerie green glow. Her skin crawled just holding it. How could she have been so blind?
"Argh!" she started to shout but quickly covered her mouth with her free hand.
She felt the inkling of tears threatening to make another appearance and she restrained herself. Since when had she gotten so weak?
Her dad was okay. Danny was great. She was fine.
Standing abruptly, she abandoned the box on the floor and headed back outside with the single vial.
The FentonWorks sign was off for once as she approached the building. They'd given her a key to their place so that she could unload any ghosts she captured, and also check up on things to make sure no one had broken in. She made her way to the lab and straight to the Portal. She'd been given access to the Thermos Release Panel and to the Fenton Flush, but not to the Portal itself. That was strictly locked and only able to be opened by Fenton DNA.
She wasn't sure if this would even work, but she had a strong feeling that it would, which just made her early days of ghost hunting even more misguided than she'd believed. Off a nearby workbench, she snatched a fresh medical syringe plunger and used it to draw a little of the green liquid from the vial she'd brought. Maneuvering it carefully, she managed to land a couple drops onto the Fenton Lock DNA scanner. A confirmation beep and the Portal doors opening proved that she was right; even the "samples" she taken of Danny in his Phantom form were still recognized by the Fenton Lock for who they belonged to.
Valerie quickly set up one of the Fenton's mini ghost shield generators in front of the Portal and turned it on. If any ghost came through, it would have nowhere to go but back where it came from. She walked straight through the shield herself. On the other side, her jet-sled materialized beneath her feet and she entered the Ghost Zone.
On her visor, she pulled up the map of the Ghost Zone she'd copied from Danny when she became an official member of Team Phantom. Setting the course, she followed the virtual path on her visor to her destination, flying fast enough through the Ghost Zone to ignore any and all ghosts she may have passed by.
It was a quick enough trek, and soon she was back at the place she'd once wondered if it hadn't all been one crazy dream. The dark clocktower with its death theme stood before her; Clockwork's lair.
She headed inside cautiously, disengaging her hunting gear immediately. She couldn't see him anywhere, but that didn't mean he wasn't listening.
"Hello? Clockwork?" she called out tentatively. "I've finally asked myself that question that you said I would."
"I know," he replied, appearing before her. He was in his child form. He smiled. "It was time."
Valerie wanted to smile back, but found she couldn't. If everything hadn't been so serious in her life right now, she might've actually enjoyed interacting with this quirky ghost who was one of Danny's most trusted allies.
"Then you know why I'm here?"
He nodded, doing that strange shift he always did into adult form. "I do. But, I can't answer the question for you."
Maybe it was because she was emotionally exhausted, or even just plain exhausted, or maybe it was because her father was still back in the hospital and – though it was very unlikely tonight – could wake up not to find her there, but in any case, Clockwork's denial to help her seemed to be the last piece that finally broke her. Valerie sunk to her knees. Her eyes stung and her chest hurt, but she refused to shed any more tears.
She cleared her throat a couple times before she asked, "Is it because I'm human? Is it because I'm not Danny?"
Clockwork gently shook his head. "You misunderstood me. I can't answer the question for you since it is yours to answer." He shifted into old man form and smirked. "That doesn't mean I can't be of assistance at all."
Valerie looked up at him but said nothing.
He nodded again and floated over towards the window-viewscreen-thing that Valerie had exited through last time. His staff lit up and several images began streaming across the screen. Valerie watched, feeling odd to see herself from third person point of view. These were a compilation of her many ghost hunting missions. Chasing the Box Ghost. Being hunted by Skulker. Fighting Danny. Saving Amity Park from Nocturne. Flying through the sky just for the sake of it. Being embarrassed at school after fighting the imp ghosts. Rescuing Danielle from Vlad. As each memory played out in no particular order, Valerie's feelings seemed to get more complicated and confused. She felt guilt, pride, defeat, success, anger, elation, and a whole myriad of other emotions. She felt raw and exposed. She watched her face, the determination set on it as she went after a ghost, the glint in her eyes when she knew she was about to win, or during the rough times, how her eyebrows scrunched together and her lips drew down as she tried not to let anyone see just how upset she really was or how low she really felt.
She watched for a long while, revisiting some events she'd nearly forgotten about. Clockwork remained silent the entire time, shifting forms occasionally but never distracting her. When it was over, Valerie stared at the now blank screen for a long moment before finally looking towards her host. She used a hand to brush away a hair on her cheek, felt wetness there instead, and realized she'd actually been crying. Clockwork didn't seem to be judging her for it, his old man form providing her comfort more than anything, and Valerie was grateful.
"Forgiveness is one of the most powerful emotions there are," he told her. "It heals all wounds, freeing one and all from any burdens that weigh them down."
Valerie slowly got back onto her feet. Watching all of that, it brought to light the real question she'd been struggling with: to continue ghost hunting or not to continue ghost hunting? And now, for the first time in weeks, she felt much calmer. Maybe this was exactly what she needed. With her entire ghost hunting career laid out in front of her eyes, with all the ups and downs, the good and bad times, she felt confident in her next decision.
"Thank you."
Clockwork smiled. "The answer was always yours to find."
"Yeah," she said. "I know what I'm going to do from now on."
And she did.
-(x)-
GLE – So, this was a heck of a lot longer than I expected it to be! Yeah, all this from a poem. I was reviewing my old works, doing some tiny edits here and there to clean them up a bit, when I was re-inspired by this one and decided to write the one-shot. Yes, it was always going to end open-ended like this.
A couple quick notes. The first part of this story is set shortly before "Claw of the Wild". Obviously, everything after that is set Post-PP. I hope that I did justice to all the characters involved. The part of this story that reflects the poem starts with the same line "An echoing sob in the night…"
Here's the esperanto for those who are curious about it:
"Malamiko de mia malamiko estas mia amiko." = "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
"Vi estas vundita?" = "Are you hurt?" (or probably more like "Are you wounded?")
"Mi bedaŭras vin sentas ke." = "I'm sorry you feel like that." (shortened from "I'm sorry you feel that way" because it seemed to translate as "I'm sorry you feel that manner" and that seems off to me).
On an unrelated note, Happy Thanksgiving weekend, fellow Canadians! Also, I am working on more stories! New stories! Most of them for Danny Phantom! Not sure when I'll be posting them yet, but just wanted to let you know, they're coming!
So, uh, what did you think of this addition to the poem? Good? Bad? Made it more confusing? Made it clearer? I've never done anything like this before (adding onto something that's already complete, 10 years later), so I'd really appreciate any feedback you have for me on this! Thank you so much!
