Chapter 13

Danny

I feel the heat in my eyes intensify unwillingly as my full-ghost receptors receive this approach as a threat. Which it undoubtedly is, knowing Valerie. But I don't want to fight her, and I don't have a clue why she would want to fight me. I mean, I still looked like goofy Danny Fenton, not Phantom.

I facepalm as I realise that although I looked like the human me, I was still technically floating three feet off of the ground.

"Don't worry Danny, I'll get that Phantom out of you!" the amount of venom with which she spat out the word 'Phantom' makes me cringe and I turn myself intangible as she gets closer. She zooms right through me and just manages to stop herself before she can crash into a well-placed tree just behind my translucent figure. I'm impressed. She's gotten better with that hover-board thing of hers, which ultimately doesn't bode well for me.

"You get out of him, Phantom!" she hisses through clenched teeth as she charges up her wrist-ray. I tense up as I prepare an ectoplasmic blast myself. At the last moment though, a flicker of something I can't read crosses her eyes and, to my utter astonishment, she lowers her hand.

I hold up my own hands in surrender, not wanting to provoke her, although it's unfortunate that I can't do anything about my fiery gaze at the moment.

She looks thoughtfully from me, to Sam and Tucker, then back to me again and I can almost see the well-oiled cogs turning in her intelligent mind.

"Why are these two here?" she asks me, her voice menacingly soft. I open my mouth to answer her, but she doesn't give my words a chance to leave my lips.

"Some of your ghost pals must have overshadowed them too," she sneers at the expression of horror on my face at her train of thought, "Or maybe, this isn't Tucker or Sam at all."

Too late I see her aim her wrist at my friends and I try to dive in front of them, forgetting that I'm still intangible. The hot pink ray glides through me and plants itself straight into Tucker's chest, sending him flying into the bandstand directly behind him. He flops to the ground, and I hope with all my heart that he is only unconscious. Sam rushes to his side, freeing me up to deal with the girl who dared to mess with my friends.

"You can pummel me, blast me, thrash me to within an inch of my after-life," my voice shakes with the anger that warms up my body.

"But you will never," I whisper threateningly, "I repeat NEVER, touch my friends again."

The Red Huntress' bravado falls from her face as she looks at Tucker, who is still not moving, doubtfully. Realisation pales her chocolate skin.

"B-But," she stammers in confusion and horror, "If he isn't a ghost, th-then why did you try to protect him?"

That was a good question. The fire rapidly spreads throughout my body as I consider this. Everyone I try to protect, spent the last year protecting, always ends up either in danger again, or seriously hurt in some way or another. I feel my expression darken as this truth crosses my mind. Why should I try to protect them when they end up worse off than if I simply hadn't tried?

My friends would be better off if I'd never defended them in the first place. Maybe then, it would be me crumpled lifelessly beneath the bandstands on Casper High's football field, and not Tucker.

I guess I have always been the monster I thought I'd promised I'd never become. Everyone, myself included, just hadn't realised it.

The heat had been steadily growing and every pore feels as if it is on fire now. Valerie looks up at me in terror, as if she can feel the energy waves radiating off of my body. I glower at her. If I couldn't protect my friends, I would avenge them instead.

I will not fail at that.

Valerie

I watch the boy I have always known as Danny Fenton as his expression, which had been one of poignant, heart-breaking sadness, slowly morphs into such intense hatred that it chills me to my bones.

The goofy yet cute, lopsided grin that my knees had come to grow weak at was nowhere in sight. I glance at Tucker's body again and breathe a sigh of relief as his head moves slightly, turning in Sam's arms that have been thrown protectively over him.

I try to gesture at the delusional ghost that has taken over Danny's body, no doubt that Phantom kid, who for some reason considers Sam and Tucker his friends. He doesn't seem to have noticed though, and it looks as if he's staring right through me, his steaming red eyes hard.

He doesn't even turn to Sam when she yells to him that Tucker appears to be alright, "Danny! He's okay! Let's just leave!"

Then it hits me, and I cannot believe I had never seen it before. I mean, the guy hadn't even tried to hide the similarities. Danny Fenton. Danny Phantom.

I gasp at the icy reality that I'd been hunting the person I would consider to be one of my best friends, never mind my ex-boyfriend, all along.

"D-Danny?" I try to get out. I know I must be disgusted with myself somewhere in my subconscious as I crumple to the floor, tears streaming down my face. But I am more disgusted at the fact that I have been fighting, and have very nearly captured the boy I knew I loved.

"I am so sorry," I sob and hear Sam gasp as she realises that I've figured out the truth, which she's obviously known all along. Tucker only groans and yet, I do not hear one sound from the ghost boy who I assume is still floating above me.

I attempt to dry my face and keep what shreds of my dignity I still have intact as I look up at him.

My heart sinks as I see the cold, insincere smile on his face and I sputter at this surprising sight, forgetting all about my pride in my incredulity. I have never seen Danny look so menacing. Heck, menacing isn't even a word in his dictionary, along with sinister, terrifying and ominous. And yet, right now all of those words, and many more like them, could easily cover the expression on his face.

His voice when he speaks sends shivers down my spine. It is deep, and husky and definitely not the voice of a teenaged boy. But, that is not what sets off the warning bells in my brain, or what raises the hairs on the back of my neck, or even what sends the icy fingers through my body to chill my core, but rather the tone of his voice. Dangerous and positively dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes, it's me. Hello, Valerie," he says in a mock friendly greeting. His face contorts into an expression that I suppose I would probably find sexy if it weren't for the hatred in his eyes as he lifts his arm towards me. To my horror, I see the faint green glow in the palm of his hand as he charges up an energy blast, "And goodbye."