Chapter 6: Freedom
I do not own Danny Phantom or any character therefrom, nor do I own any of the real books I mention in this chapter. I do own all the fake ones though, but am still not profiting from them.
"Maddie, I sure hope we don't run into any ghosts here. We're completely defenseless."
"I agree, Jack. Not to mention that we're completely lost and Phantom isn't here to save us."
"I don't know what I would do if I ran into a ghost right now."
"No, Jack, neither do I." The adult Fentons were talking slightly monotonously, as if reciting a script. They slowly wandered the halls of the dark mansion, trying to look scared. Their hard work quickly paid off, as a green-haired suit of armour dropped through the ceiling and grinned.
"Well, well, the Fentons. We didn't expect you to come too. The master will be pleased."
Skulker shot a net out of his arm, but Jack and Maddie rolled out of the way. Maddie came up out of the roll into a crouching position and fired a gun back at the ghost, who deflected the blast through a window. Maddie continued to attack him until Jack managed to get out the Fenton Thermos and locate the right button. (Danny had shown him how to work it during the trip to Wisconsin.) Eventually, Jack managed to activate the device and suck Skulker in, and the husband and wife continued on their way.
Danny was right, Maddie thought. Plasmius's henchmen are idiots.
The sound of the fight with Skulker had attracted the rest of Vlad's security team. After a few injuries and a massive firefight, they too had been either sucked into a Thermos or tossed into the Ghost Zone courtesy of the Fenton Bazooka. The two adults stood in the room they'd ended up in, panting.
---
Meanwhile, the three teenaged girls were navigating the corridors with the help of Tucker's floor plans and Jazz's memory. They walked in silence so they wouldn't alert anyone to their presence. After about five minutes, the sounds of a battle began on the floor above them. Five minutes later, they arrived at a bookcase. Sam rolled her eyes.
"Talk about originality."
Jazz began examining the titles of the books. If I were an evil billionaire half-ghost who wanted to hide someone in a secret room behind a bookcase, what book would I use as a trigger? Get Rich Quick Schemes Hostile Takeovers for Dummies Psychology for the Modern Ghost Legends of the Ghost ZoneLittle House on the Prairie
Sam began examining the tiles on the floor. Valerie, trying to be useful, began moving towards the next bookshelf down, but tripped over the edge of a rug. She caught her hand on a nearby table as she went down. Something clicked.
"Good one, Val! Come on, before someone comes to investigate!"
Valerie turned around and noticed that a narrow column of books had slid back. She followed Jazz and Sam inside, wondering slightly why they used her name so readily. The door slipped back and they were shut in complete darkness.
"Got any gizmos on your suit that could help us here?" asked Sam in a deadpan voice. Valerie pressed a panel on her wrist and a soft light shone out of a number of small bulbs that neither of the other girls had noticed before. They were standing in a narrow passage with damp walls and rotting floorboards. Sam groaned.
Vlad's flare for the dramatic strikes again.
The three girls walked in silence for several more minutes until they came to a steel door.
"This is it," announced Jazz.
---
"I know you're here, Plasmius. Too chicken to fight me in the open?"
Danny flew up and down the hallways and levels of Vlad's New Mexico home throwing out taunts, insults, and challenges. He was trying to draw Vlad away from the others so that they could continue on with the "real work." If anyone was going to be mortally injured, he had announced, it was him. He heard his parents' battle begin and end, and still there was no sign of Vlad. Danny was beginning to wonder whether the halfa was even there when he heard a maniacal laugh coming from where he knew his parents to be. He dove down through the floor and headed in the direction of the noise.
Oh man, I hope I can get to them in time.
---
As Jack and Maddie were trying to get their breath back, Vlad Plasmius appear above them, smiling devilishly.
"So, the mighty ghost hunters of Amity Park are no match for a couple of weakling ghosts? Poor Jack, too tired to even lift that gun. Such a shame."
"Plasmius," whispered Maddie, readying her gun again. She glanced over at Jack. He wasn't doing much better than she felt.
"I didn't expect either of you to come with Daniel, even with your recent change of heart. Protecting the town hero after you spent a year trying to destroy him? A little hypocritical, don't you think?"
"I'm not going to let you harm my son." Jack had aimed an ectogun at the ghost in front of him and was staring him down determinedly.
"Your son? So that's why you came. When did he tell you?" Vlad smirked. "You know what? I don't care. I'll get that from him later. Now, I feel like a little fun and games, don't you?"
Vlad aimed two beams of energy out of his eyes at Jack, who managed to leap to his feet just before the beams hit the ground and burned a hole in the floor. Maddie fired a gun at Vlad while his gaze was elsewhere, and it hit him side-on, making him slam into the wall.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Vlad spat as he picked himself up again. He laughed violently as he primed two ectoblasts, then flew straight at Jack while releasing them. Jack reacted by falling to the ground and rolling to the side. Vlad continued on the offensive for another minute, never giving the two humans a change to rest or plan their next move. His attacks, strangely to the humans, never seemed to hit Maddie, though a high percentage made contract with Jack.
Then a green ectoblast hit him in the back.
"Bad move, Plasmius," said a low voice from behind him. "Nobody attacks my parents and gets away with it. Even you."
---
Surprisingly, the steel door was unlocked. Sam signed for Valerie to help her guard the door while Jazz slipped inside. She felt for the light switch and turned it on. It was another of Vlad's secret labs, although this one had a pile of ashes in the middle of the floor. William Lancer, not Will Spirit, was lying on the ground, bruised and bloody, but conscious. He was chained to the wall. Jazz ran over to him, pulling an ectolaser out of her pocket as she did so.
"Spirit? I'm going to get you out of here." Jazz slid the laser through the first set of chains.
"Jazz Fenton? What are you ..."
"Rescue mission. Danny's here too, and our parents. Are you okay? Can you go ghost?" The second set of fetters fell to the ground. The man rubbed his wrists and got stiffly to his feet.
"I should be able to. Vlad didn't hurt me very badly." Lancer smiled weakly. "Ghost World."
The rings of light appeared and changed Lancer into his ghost self. Then he registered what Jazz had called him and he shot her a hard glance.
"How long have you known?"
Jazz shrugged. "About two months. And before you ask, no, Danny didn't tell me."
"Jazz! Hurry up in there. I think Danny's found Vlad!" Sam's voice rang out into the room. Lancer made a move to fly through the ceiling, but Jazz shook her head.
"If you go, we're stuck down here." She raised her voice. "Sam? Val? Get in here. He's okay." The other two girls ran into the room.
"Grab onto me. I'll fly us all up through the ceiling." They did so, and Lancer headed off towards the battle.
---
The room the fight was in looked like it had been hit by the ghost attack of the century, probably because that was actually what was going on on its floor at the moment. Vlad and all three of his doubles were aiming ectoblasts and eye-rays at Danny and his parents, who were retaliating with a grim determination. The two adult Fentons were tiring quickly, Jack more than Maddie, but the Vlads seemed almost unfazed by the exertion, easily deflecting most of the attacks.
Lancer flew the girls over to a corner away from the action and assessed the situation while keeping them all invisible. Vlad seemed to be winning, and the fight was happening at too close a range for him to use his Ghost Breath without affecting the Fentons too. That would have to be a last resort. He needed to take out those clones now. He let go of his charges, and Val ran straight into the fighting, still in her battlesuit.
Lancer leapt off the floor, still invisible, and flew up behind a clone. He fired an ectoblast at its chest at close range and it disappeared. Another Vlad headed in his direction, but Valerie hit it with a missile before it could do anything, and it vanished as well. Danny flew at Vlad Three and began engaging him while a well-timed series of blasts from Jack, Maddie, and Jazz weakened the fourth enough that he disappeared as well. The final, real Vlad sent a massive beam of energy at Danny, who hit the far wall smoking. Plasmius was beginning to look worried.
"Daniel, William, can't we talk about this like rational beings?"
"If we were all rational, maybe." Lancer fired another blast at Vlad. "But after what you did in the lab, I don't think that option's open anymore."
He duplicated himself, and went at Vlad, Danny closely following. The humans pitched in with their ectoweapons whenever they could get a clear shot. Vlad was beginning to look very tired, the humans had hit their second wind, and the two halfas were still reasonably fresh, and very angry.
"Wanna call it quits, Plasmius?" yelled Danny. "Not as strong as you thought, huh? Met your match?"
Before Vlad had a chance to reply, he was hit with a double blast from Valerie and fell to the ground, out cold. Everyone backed up to form a circle around him, shocked. Danny winced, realizing what was about to happen. Two rings of light appeared at the ghost's waist and split apart to reveal ...
"V-man?" Jack's jaw dropped. Everyone turned to look at Danny, who fidgeted.
"Okay, so maybe I'm not the only halfa?" He grinned sheepishly.
"I don't understand. Vlad is the Wisconsin Ghost? And you knew?" Maddie said. This is all beginning to make sense. The Portal, the lab, DALV, the intimate knowledge of our family, the appearances in Amity Park, the thing at the mall ...
"Since the reunion," Danny told them, thinking nervously. I'd better give them the history before he wakes up and gives "his version." He took a deep breath and plunged in.
"He blackmailed me into not telling anyone, but I don't think it holds anymore. Remember the accident with the Proto-Portal? That's when it happened. He blames Dad for the accident and has been trying to get revenge. He is trying to make me his apprentice. I think deep down he's really lonely and won't admit it. That's why he keeps kidnapping members of our family." Danny shot a look at Lancer. "And now other people, by the looks of things."
Everyone was so worried about the implications of Vlad's transformation that they had completely forgotten about Valerie's presence. She was standing a ways apart from everyone else, and trying to block out what she was witnessing. Her benefactor was a ghost. An evil ghost who was trying to do who knows what to Phantom. Danny Phantom, who seemed to be on pretty good terms with the Fentons.
Wait a sec, did he just say, "our family?" What's goin' on?
Vlad groaned and slowly opened his eyes. What just happened? Then he noticed the ring of faces around him. Right... Daniel, Spirit, Fentons, battle, outnumbered, unconscious ... Unconscious?! Does that mean ...? Vlad stared down at himself. He was back in his business suit. He allowed himself a wicked smile. Maybe I can still use this.
Before he had a chance to reciprocate, Jack Fenton burst out.
"It was you all along. You trying to kill me and destroy my son. I don't know why I didn't see it before. In hindsight it was so obvious. I should have seen you were after our technology too, with all that time you spent in our lab. I saw some of our inventions in that lab of yours, so don't deny it. No wonder why Danny kept trying to get you away from us. I should have trusted my son, but instead I. Trusted. You." Jack trained an ectogun on Vlad, glaring.
"Yes, Jack, it was me. But you created me. You drove me to it. And you were always too stupid to see through me, always too stupid to see that your son was half-ghost too. Can you even imagine what life is like for us, living in fear of discovery at every moment?"
He was on his feet now and so close to Jack that flecks of spittle were hitting the larger man's face. Despite Vlad's threatening posture, Jack couldn't make himself pull the trigger of the gun. This man had been his best friend for years, even if he hadn't returned Jack's feelings.
"Your carelessness ruined my life," Vlad went on. "I'm a freak and it's all your fault. I don't belong in this world or the next. And you have the gall to assume that I still want to be your friend, after you took away everything I wanted."
Danny noticed that Vlad was priming another ectoblast. He shot one of his own at him, and the other man's blast shot through the ceiling as he slid into a pile of rubble. Danny advanced on him.
"Leave my dad alone," he growled. "It's over, Vlad. You can't fight us anymore. I'm never going to join you and my family's never going to fall for your tricks again. Revenge is no longer an option. We'll be ready for you. Every last one of us."
"I know, Daniel," Vlad said smoothly. "But you want revenge on me. Take it. I'm weak now. You can kill me if you want."
"No," Danny said firmly. "You've still got good in you, somewhere. Let it out. There's still hope for a better life." He turned from Vlad to face his parents.
"Let's go. He'll be fine. We should get home." He steered the group of heroes towards the door. They were too stunned to protest. Once everyone was in the corridor, Danny turned, grinning.
"Oh, and Vla-ad?" The elder halfa twitched.
"I. Do. Not. Need. A. Cat!"