Chapter 3: Deceit
I don't own Danny Phantom.
"I can't take it anymore!"
Vlad Masters shot up from the chair he'd been sitting in for the last hour and a half watching news footage from Amity Park and its neighbouring cities. Most of it concerned either Danny Phantom or Will Spirit, or both. Heroes. Hmph. Think they can really stop everything they come up against. I think it's time they were taken down a peg or two. I'm going to give them the fight of their lives. And that just might work to my ends too. He grinned. If they want publicity, I'll give them publicity.
---
It started out as just a normal day. The sun was shining, the grass was green, and Danny and Lancer had caught three ghosts before school. As a result, when their ghost senses went off just before lunch, neither halfa thought anything of it.
"Mr. Fenton, I've asked you to stop talking four times this period. Go to the office and wait for me there," Lancer snapped. "Manson, Foley, for encouraging him, you get to go too."
"Yes, sir." They made a show of trudging out of the room. Danny accelerated as soon as he was out of sight of the door, and his friends headed to their lockers for weapons. So far, till strictly routine.
Then it got weird. Technus was in the school library reprogramming the databases.
"Ha ha, now, I, Technus, master of technology, am going to use the confusion about which books are where in this hall of learning to distract everyone until I can access their technology and take over the school!"
Danny smirked, invisible, above him. He's getting smarter. Still not there yet, though. He made himself visible.
"Obviously you didn't count on me showing up so soon, technobreath." Technus whirled around.
"You think you can stop me, ghost child? Behold my newest gadgetry!"
Technus slid open an arm panel and pressed a button. A narrow beam of green ectoenergy appeared, fragmented, and condensed into five nasty looking miniature robots, which began to attack Danny while Technus got back to work. Danny managed to disable them with ectoblasts, but by that point Technus had done his damage. He cackled, and left through the ceiling just as Tucker and Sam burst in.
"Technus," he explained. "Tucker, see if you can reverse the damage he did to the databases. How long till the bell, Sam?"
"Two minutes."
"Tell Lancer to head to the nearest computer store as soon as it rings. I'm going to try to head him off." Danny shot through the ceiling as well, just in time to see Technus make a dive towards the mall several blocks away. Danny followed.
He just had to pick a public place, didn't he?
---
By the time Lancer made it to the mall, Danny had managed to steer the ghost away from the technology stores and into one of the major clothing outlets. He already had several fires blazing as a result of stray ectoblasts.
It turned out that the robots weren't the only new addition to Technus's arsenal. He had also added several high-powered lasers, a ghost-seeking missile, and what looked scarily like a machine-gun for ectoblasts. Somebody had put a lot of time and effort into the latest version of his armour, and judging by the subtlety, it hadn't been Technus.
Lancer dove right in alongside Danny and began fighting. When he'd moved close enough that he wouldn't need to shout, he asked Danny if he needed a break. The boy already looked fairly tired, and it had only been about ten minutes since the attack began.
"I'm not dead yet," he told Lancer testily.
Lancer dodged a round of ectoblasts. "Danny, the two of us can't beat this. He's souped up too much."
"Two of us can't, maybe. Three can!"
Lancer nodded and concentrated. He heard a gasp come from the few people who were brave enough to get close to the fight, and smiled. This was the first time he'd used this power in public, because he'd only mastered it last week. His eyes snapped open and both Will Spirits attacked Technus with vigour. The technology ghost took one look at his third opponent and a brief look of fear flashed across his face.
"He never told me about that one! I thought only he could do that."
"You thought wrong," growled Lancer, directing another blast at Technus's chest, as his double shot one at the machine gun. That "he" had to be Vlad, never a good sign. It was news to Lancer that Technus was in the original halfa's employment, though.
"Why's Plasmius doing this?" asked Danny, who was trying to take out the missile launcher. He didn't want another run-in like the one which had resulted in a large section of the store's back wall being missing.
"Wouldn't you like to know, child? It certainly wouldn't be because he's trying to make you look bad to the public and therefore get you two to turn to the dark side and join him in a life of crime." Technus paused with a look of worry on his face.
"Yup, microbrain, you just gave it away again!" Danny grinned. So that's what Vlad's after. Well, it'll take more than a ruined mall to make us join him.
At that moment, Lancer's faces lit up. His double flew out of Technus's reach and began taunting him.
"I bet that gun of yours can't reach me over here, mullet boy!"
With a look of rage, Technus began to prime his gun again. The real Lancer prepared a fistful of ectogoo, and fired it at the last second. It clogged the barrel of the gun and the ectoblasts had nowhere to go. The pressure built up until the rivets of the longwinded ghost's armour began popping and pieces began falling off. Danny quickly dove behind the sales counter, and Lancer turned intangible in preparation for the explosion that was sure to follow.
When the smoke cleared, Lancer reunited with himself, Danny got what was left of Technus into the Thermos, and the two halfas headed back to the school. They touched down in a bathroom just as the bell rang to end lunch. It had been one of their shorter fights. They breathed two sighs of relief and headed off to their classes.
---
Danny's parents were parked in front of Casper High when school let out, and by the time Danny, Sam, and Tucker had climbed inside, Danny had endured taunting by every member of the popular clique on account of the GAV and was a bright red. His mom turned to face them as his dad pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
"Hi, kids, we're just coming back from the mall and we thought we'd give you a ride home. There was a ghost attack, but Phantom and Spirit took care of it before we could make it to the scene. Unfortunately, the attack made a little mess, like ghost attacks always do, so we stayed to help clean up. It's the least we can do to help Phantom. Which reminds me, Danny, when is he coming to visit?"
"Dunno," Danny answered sullenly. "Sometime."
Jack's father piped up at this point. He didn't sound or look like his normal cheerful self, and the GAV was careening wilder than ever as a result.
"Want to know the funniest thing? V-man was there! He kept mentioning the damage and saying how our 'little ghost heroes' maybe don't deserve that reputation if all they do is wreck things. Heck, Maddie and I make more mess sometimes and just look at our reputations! Well, I just told him that those ghosts deserve the respect of everyone in Amity Park and that they're being as careful as they can be. He just wouldn't let it go. Well, if that's his attitude, maybe he doesn't deserve to be invited to my birthday party this year. If he's not a friend of Phantom's, he's not a friend of ours."
Maddie nodded along with her husband. Danny blinked.
Huh? My parents are starting to turn against Vlad? Bet he didn't plan on that.
"Hmm, I wonder what he was even doing in Amity Park?" Jack's mind wandered off on that tangent for a few seconds before the cries of "Truck!" reached his ears. He swerved.
"How did everyone else react, Mom?" Danny asked with what he hoped was casual curiosity.
"Same as us. The whole town's behind Phantom and Spirit, especially after that party a few weeks ago. We're not going to tolerate anyone slandering their name, and we're not ashamed to let them know it."
"You can stop right here, Mr. Fenton. I can walk," Tucker quavered. Jack pulled over, disregarding the opposing vehicles, and a very carsick Tucker lurched out.
"You know what, Mr. Fenton, he doesn't look very well. I think I'm going to go with him." Sam took the opportunity to escape Jack Fenton's erratic driving. "Thanks for the ride!"
The rest of Danny's trip home was occupied by his father's ranting against Vlad, and the ranting didn't end even after Maddie provided her husband with milk and fudge in an attempt to get him to stop. Danny, who never thought he'd hear such words out of his father's mouth, was surprised at how long Jack kept going, and had to fight back the urge to drop hints about Vlad's more sinister nature. He was on shaky ground with his parents at the moment when it came to ghosts.
---
Meanwhile, the halfa in question had collapsed on a park bench and was rubbing his temples. That ruse with Technus should have worked. That section of the mall had been almost completely destroyed. Jellybeans, even the fire department had to be called in. This was a standard ghost attack, as far as the residents of the city were concerned. They'd always reacted negatively in the past. Sure, they were looking at Daniel as a hero now, but that sort of negative publicity should have worked.
It hadn't helped matters that Jack Fenton seemed to have switched over from Phantom's enemy to his best friend and had actually begun arguing with Vlad over Daniel's hero status. Of course Vlad hadn't planned on Technus being blown up like that either, but how was he supposed to know that William Lancer could duplicate himself? How had he managed to keep that one hidden from Vlad's spies?Well, he could always hope that the "anonymous secret footage" of the attack that had appeared outside the local newsroom door would have a better effect, but at this point, somehow he doubted even that. Vlad was just going to have to try something else. He stood up definitively.
"Well, I suppose it's time for Plan C." He strolled off amiably yet purposefully. His grin caused a nearby puppy to cower.
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