All right. The next installment. I won't say much because I want you to find out yourself, but…enjoy.
Chapter 30: Revenge of the Guys In White.
The summer days continued to roll by as if everything had just gone back to normal. (For everyone else anyway.) But the misery of Danielle's absence still lingered with the Fenton's for some time and every once in a while, one of them, particularly Danny, would stop what they were doing and start to mourn for her loss.
Tucker especially had made note of this and had one afternoon, called a town gathering at City Hall. And he asked specifically for the Fenton family to attend.
Danny never liked going to these events because there were always a lot of people who would instantly recognize him, no matter what appearance he had. And his parents, who were always wearing their jumpsuits, were always standing out in any crowd. But Tucker had insisted, even to the point where he made Danny promise that he would be there. And Danny never broke a promise before.
When the young ghost hero and his family had arrived at the gathering, there were already hundreds of people there. There was a statue in the middle of the town square that had been made in dedication to Danny after he had saved the world from being hit by the asteroid. For some reason, however, it had been covered with a large cloth. This made him a bit curious, and when he asked Jazz about it, she didn't seem to have any idea of what it was about either.
As the Fenton's walked through the crowd, The teenage hybrid couldn't help but notice several of the nearest people were staring at him. He had half a mind to turn invisible, but decided otherwise in realizing that Tucker would probably think that he had not come after all. Still, he felt quite awkward as people parted to the sides to let him and his family through to the front as if he was making some grand entrance that he didn't want to do. He had hoped with such a big crowd, he wouldn't be as easily noticed, but apparently this wasn't so. He felt a huge hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his father smiling down at him in understanding reassurance.
A hush suddenly came over the crowd as the mayor stepped up to the podium to speak. "Citizens of Amity Park." Tucker greeted. "It is my honor, and yet to my grief that I stand before you today to tell you of a tragedy that has taken place in our town."
After Tucker had finished saying this, Danny began to understand why the mayor had specifically asked for him to come to this meeting and he looked in the direction of the covered statue before back to Tucker as he began to speak again. The teenage mayor went on addressing the crowd about Danielle almost as if she had gone 'missing in action,' as it were. He put in how he had even witnessed her last great deed himself, but he could not give any details of what had truly happened, for only those who were closest to her would ever fully understand.
But Tucker did say to the citizens that before Danielle's disappearance, Danny had been in a time of great peril and she had battled against all odds to make sure that he could still remain to protect the town and defend its citizens.
"And because of her great service to us, as well as to our own hero, Danny Phantom himself, a new addition to our statue had been made." Tucker gestured for the cloth to be pulled off the giant sculpture and the assigned men surrounding it uncovered the memorial.
As the giant cloth was pulled, the great statue of Danny Phantom was shown. He was standing tall and holding up an orb that was shaped like the planet Earth high above his head. But this was what Danny had seen before. What was new about it, and that he certainly did not expect, was an added figure of Danielle in her own Phantom form standing behind the figure of Danny with a hand on his shoulder and gazing up at the globe with a smile as if she was supporting him as he held it up.
The crowd mumbled and pointed in amazement and Danny looked back at his parents and sister, seeing them just gaping at the new statue in awe. He continued to glance around, seeing Sam and her parents standing amongst the crowd smiling in delight, and a distance further, Danny could see Andrew sitting on his mother's shoulders for a better look and he was pointing at the statue looking absolutely ecstatic to see the gigantic replicas of both his favorite heroes.
As for Danny himself, seeing this new and improved statue of him and Danielle standing together reminded him so much of the time back at Freakshow's train. She had been there, helping to sustain him as he was using the last of his strength to put out the fire that was spreading to his loved ones after he was pulled from the Blood Blossom ring. That was just like her, Danny thought, as he put a hand over his chest: Not wanting to actually take over for him, but always there to help him so he could stay to defend his home and its citizens from the evil that was constantly threatening it.
The reacting crowd's chatter died down as Tucker continued to speak. "Though a duplicate of this memorial already stands in every nation of the world, this addition has only been made to the Amity Park statue. For the cousin of Danny Phantom was a modest heroine who had never wanted her deeds to become publicly renowned. But I'm sure we can all agree to join in and give her thanks for her devotion. And as mayor of the city she had helped our own hero to protect, no matter how temporary, it is my honor to rededicate this statue to, not only this whole town, but to the entire Fenton family who had considered her to be so much more than a close relation."
The town square roared in applause with catcalls and loud whistles at the end of Tucker's speech. As the Fenton's applauded along with the audience, Danny looked up at his parents and saw that his mother was moved to tears. Danny mouthed a "thank you" to his friend at the podium, who nodded in his direction with a smile in response.
But just after, the ghostly teenager was starting to get the feeling that something was terribly wrong. A feeling that was making him gradually stop his applause and listen. A strange sound was mingling in with the crowds cheering that sounded distant and yet it felt like it was close at hand: and coming in fast. He started looking around, searching for the source of the noise when he felt a sort of compulsion to look up, where he then realize the noise was coming from.
Suddenly, he gasped in seeing what it was and looked back down in Tucker's direction, who was still waving at the applauding audience. In fully realizing what was happening, Danny started pushing his way through the crowd, running towards the podium.
"Danny?" Jazz called after him in confusion when she noticed her brother taking off in a hurry and Going Ghost.
Danny jumped into flight as soon as his transformation was complete and soared above the crowd that was now starting to murmur in question. "Tucker, heads up!" He shouted in earnest warning as he sped towards the podium. He tackled the now completely startled mayor, forcing them both at least ten feet back before the podium was unexpectedly hit by something that made it go up in flames.
Danny and Tucker both hit the floor hard as the crowd suddenly began to rouse in panic. Security teams quickly jumped in and started leading the crowd to evacuate the scene as two of the guards hurried over to Tucker and Danny.
"Nice save, Mr. Phantom." One of the guards congratulated as Danny hoisted himself to his knees.
"Are you all right, Mr. mayor?" The second guard asked, bending over the two boys in concern. Tucker was breathing heavily, but he nodded as he was helped to his feet.
Jazz and her parents came running up the steps of City Hall to make sure that both of the boys were all right as the last of the crowd was fleeing, under the escort of the security. "Man, that was way too close." She said.
Sam soon joined them, skipping every other step, to get to the top. "What was that?" She asked, completely flabbergasted, as she reached the others.
Danny answered by glaring up at the sky where two white, flying objects were closing in. "Stay with them." He told the security guards, regarding this family and friends. Then, he stepped forward to face the Guys in White as they came hovering in on their Aerial Chasers.
"Knew you couldn't stay in hiding if a friend was in danger." Operative O. said with a smile of satisfaction down to the teenage ghost.
"Attacking the mayor in the middle of a town meeting? Just to get at me?" Danny shouted back up in angered disgust. "You guys must be getting really desperate."
Just after he finished saying this, some automatic blasters came out of their vehicles that shot red beams of energy and hit Danny right on target. His family gasped as he was thrown back from the force of the blast and hit the wall of the white building behind him. But surprisingly, Danny's back hitting the wall was the only thing he really felt. He brushed off the front of his jumpsuit as if the laser blast was nothing and looked up at the Guys in White with a bit of a confused look.
The men who hat shot him were also looking perplexed. But they shook it off and fired another one of the beams at Danny, which again had no effect, aside from forcing him up against the wall again. Once more, they fired, but this time Danny was able to just swat the blast away as if it was just an annoying fly.
"Okay, you guys have made lame stuff before, but that is by far the worst thing you've ever come up with." Danny announced, giving them a disappointed look.
"It should be breaking the very essence of your being down to nothing." Operative K said, standing up in his vehicle. At this, Danny cocked an eyebrow and gave a side-glance to his friends who just shrugged. So Operative K continued, in a frustrated tone. "We found a component in the ghost-girl's DNA that was the main source of her stability. If removed, her entire genetic structure would fall apart."
Danny scoffed, shaking his head after hearing this. He knew full well that the component was the substance he had used to stabilize Danielle when she was being melted down. And these two lunatics thought that Danny would be the same.
"This new weapon was supposed to be the means of removing that element." Operative O. put in. "But it's not working on you. Why?"
"That's what made Danielle special. Even amongst us hybrids." Danny explained, folding his arms in a taunting manner. "We may have similar ecto-signatures, but the building blocks that make up our spectral structures are completely different. So anything you've made from experimenting on her is completely useless on me."
The Guys in White glared at the boy through gritted teeth in reaction to what he just informed them of.
"We should have known that there was some trick behind her quick surrender to us in the woods." Operative O remarked to his fellow agent.
Then they resorted to using their older weapons and started firing them at Danny in pure frustration. Danny dodged the blasts, leaping to the bottom of the steps of City Hall to completely avoid them. However, his family was still up at the top with the only two security guards that were left in the area and as soon as Danny was separated from them, Operative O had taken out a gadget that looked like some kind of remote, and pressed a button on it.
Danny braced himself, but the trigger wasn't for him. He heard Tucker and the others behind him cry out and he spun around to see that a series of blue walls of transparent light were surrounding the landing at the top of the steps, between the pillars that held up the roof of the white building. They started pounding on the blue walls, but though they were as thick as a sheet of paper, they were incredibly strong and unable to be bypassed. They were trapped.
How could Danny not have seen this sort of thing coming? The Guys in White were only shooting at him just now to get him to leave his family's side so they could trigger a trap they had probably rigged some time ago. And Danny had no doubt that they had programmed it to block him from going through as well.
Just after the full realization of this event had come to him, something hit him in the back and attached itself there, giving him a painful surge through his body that made him cry out and collapse to the ground. He had never felt this draining feeling before, but something inside him was saying that he knew what was causing it: The spectral-diffusion-device. The electric patch that The Guys in White had used to drain Danielle of her powers for over half a day.
"Well. Our new weapon doesn't have any effect, but it looks like that still works pretty well." Operative K. said with a triumphant look to his partner. They landed their vehicles in the town square and dismounted them as Danny nimbly got to his hands and knees, trying to remove the device that was stuck on his back. But it was in a place he couldn't reach.
"What do you guys think you're doing?" One of the security guards shouted, pounding against the force field.
"And how low can you guys get in hitting him from behind like that?" Tucker added to the protest.
"Nevermind that." Operative K responded as he and his partner started walking towards their fallen pray, looking quite dignified as they did so. "Now to take you back with us and figure out how you survived the poison."
"You two stay away from my boy!" Danny's mother yelled, as they were getting closer to him.
Then, they stopped unexpectedly, not at the mother's demand, but in seeing that Danny's body was starting to let off smoke. Why? No one knew. But because of it, the spectral-diffusion-device seemed to be burning out. And to everyone's utter astonishment, including Danny's, it eventually just slid off of the side of his back and clattered onto the concrete next to him. Now the flat, rectangular gadget was completely charred black and letting off smoke, as Danny's body seemed to cool down.
"Danny, what did you do?" Jazz asked her brother as he was looking at his hands in confusion.
"I didn't do anything." He turned to her with a shake of his head, but then he looked to the side and back down at his hands. "I…I think." He added in uncertainty.
Was that him? As soon as the device had hit him, he had felt himself suddenly grow really hot inside, but he thought that was just another effect of the device until it seemed to burn it right off of him. Now he felt just fine.
But as Danny's mind was preoccupied in trying to figure out what had just happened, the Guys in White had recovered from their own surprise and made blocky, metallic gloves appear over their original black ones. Danny's family tried to warn him, but by the time he looked up to see them coming, Operative K. grabbed him by the collar of his jumpsuit and yanked him from off the ground.
The young boy tried to go intangible and escape the man's grasp, but this turned out to be impossible. A closer look at the gloves he was using helped him to understand why. "Ghost-Gauntlets?" He said, astounded, after instantly recognizing the design of the gloves. "How did you get those? My parents brought them with us when we moved."
"Found them at Mr. Master's old place." Operative K. said. "To think, that a ghost could make something so effective against his own kind." He then looked behind them at Jack Fenton. "You were right about your parents you know, kid." He said with a malevolent smile. "They aren't as mindless as we thought. Wasn't your own father the one who first came up with the idea for these?" Danny's parents looked at each other regretfully from behind the force field.
Danny growled angrily at the white-suited agent that was talking about his father like that and he raised his fist to shoot a plasma ray in his face and get him to let go of him. But before he could release the energy, Operative K used his other metal-gloved hand to grab his fist. "Ah!' Danny cried out as this happened. The anti-ghost energy from the gauntlet made his own power backfire back into his arm, causing a numbing and unbearable pain to go through it. Operative K let go of Danny's jumpsuit, as he fell to his knees holding his hurting arm.
"But that's not the subject right now." Operative O said, walking up behind his partner who was standing over the injured hybrid. "How did you survive the poison? Did that heat-wave have something to do with it?"
Danny glared defiantly up at the two men, still holding his aching arm by the wrist. "If my cousin wouldn't say anything to you, even with you constantly zapping her, what makes you think I will?"
Operative K grabbed the ghost-boy by the back of his jumpsuit, lifting him off the ground again before delivering a powerful and solid punch to him that threw him back, making him hit the blue force field that held his family and the two security guards back. The force field shocked him on contact he dropped, hitting the staircase, and rolling down the steps a ways before he could stop himself.
"Your constant interference has left us ruined, ghost kid." Operative K said as he and Operative O walked up the steps towards their victim. "And so did your girly look-alike."
"Well maybe that wouldn't have happened if you had just left us alone." Danny commented, struggling to get up with his still tingling arm. In the next instant, Operative O used his own ghost-gauntlet to grab the teenager by the throat and slammed his back against the force field. The blue wall started sending mild shockwaves through Danny's body, making it impossible for him to focus his own power to resist the grip of the ghost-gauntlet.
"What antidote was strong enough to cure you of an internal Blood Blossom injection?" Operative O demanded forcefully. Danny only gave him a skeptical look. "Answer the question, spectral punk!" He raised his voice as he squeezed Danny's throat even tighter with the metal glove. "Or you'll find yourself never seeing the light of day again."
Danny would have laughed, but the ghost-gauntlet being so tight around his neck, he was too short of breath to do it. But he did manage to reply back, "I may be less than half your age, but I'm not as stupid as you are." The vice grip around his neck got suddenly worse from his insult and he tried in vain to pry the metal fingers off. "You'd kill me either way."
"All the more reason to get rid of you right now then." Operative K. said with a grin as he took out a very large anti-ghost weapon. Operative O tightened his grip on Danny's throat, and he started choking, as his partner took aim at him. The force-field the operative had Danny pinned to continued to give off painful surges and he tried again to peel the fingers off of his throat as he began to gasp for breath.
His friends and family pounded on the other side of the wall, begging for the Guys in White to let him go, but they only mocked their protests.
However, after a second, they noticed that Danny's body was beginning to glow with a golden light. The Guys in White looked surprised in seeing that the palm of the ghost-gauntlet on Danny's throat was sizzling. As the light Danny's body was emitting grew brighter, the heat it was giving off grew stronger to a point where it was getting to Operative O.
Suddenly, the light shot right out of the white Phantom logo on Danny's chest. This completely surprised Operative O, making him drop the teenager and stumble backwards all the way to the bottom of the steps. At the same time, the golden mass of heat and light sped at Operative K, hitting his anti-spectral weapon.
"Dah!" The operative cried out as the weapon suddenly became too hot to handle. He fell backwards, accidentally throwing the weapon into the air behind him and it hit the ground with a surprisingly large explosion.
Danny gasped and coughed, rubbing his neck where it was sore from the ghost-gauntlet clinging to it. Behind the blue field, his friends knelt down in concern.
"Danny, are you okay." Tucker asked.
"Yeah." Danny said weakly with a gulp of air. He looked up where the Guys in White were now at the bottom of the stairs and their weapon was in flames behind them. "What happened?"
"You tell us." Sam said, looking quite stunned, and then she said in a whisper, "That thing just shot right out of you."
Everyone was looking around as if trying to find some outside explanation and by this time, the Guys in White had gotten back up, now looking quite infuriated.
"No matter. We have plenty of other weapons to spare and we still have these." Operative K. said to Danny, holding his metal-gloved fists up. "You're peers can't help you now because of the force field, all other security has left to attend to their own business and by the presentation of the new statute, your little guardian angle double is no longer here to protect you."
They started advancing on Danny again but as they were doing so, Danny saw behind them that the flames the destroyed weapon was in suddenly jumped into the air and swirled into the same golden ball of light that had come out of him. It was as if it had a will of it's own as it sped forward, moving in front of the white-clothed agents, and circling Danny, almost crating a sort of fire shield around him that prevented the two man from even daring to take a step closer. Then the ball of fire left Danny, moving between him and the Guys in white and shot down to the ground, hitting it with another explosion of blinding light and intense heat. Everyone shielded their eyes, but surprisingly enough, the explosion only went in the Guys in White's direction, throwing them off their feet and sending them backwards several yards.
After the brighter part of the flash was over, one by one, Danny, his peers, the two security guards and the Guys in White dared a look, to see that the actual source of the light was growing steadily larger and everyone gazed at it as it began to morph and take on a particular shape. A humanoid figure that was crouched down to the concrete ground and slowly standing up as the shape became more definable.
The lighted silhouette was still pulsing with the golden light and giving off heat waves as the figure came into focus and stood to it's full height. It was a young girl with long ponytailed hair, facing the two white-clad ghost-hunters. Her eyes snapped open, glowing golden-yellow.
"You want a bet?" She said with a shockingly familiar and unwavering look.
You'll understand what the hot energy was all about in the last chapter. But let me know what you thought of this whole idea here. I know I really liked it when I fist envisioned it and so did Blackjay when I first presented it to her. But our opinions don't count for all. I'll understand if you think this was a bit…how shall I say it…questionable. I probably envisioned this happening a lot better than I actually described it here, so it's not as exciting as some other chapters I've written.