Noel, Noel
Chapter Four: Apocalypse

"He's trying to destroy the universe."

"What!?" Danny blurted… "Why!? How!?"

Danny's enemies had wanted many things—power, money, conquest, or the simple pleasure of the fight. One had wanted his sister; one had wanted to scorch the Earth and one had wanted him to condemn another to the depths of hell. One would be trying even now to rest Danny's pelt at the foot of his bed, if not for the Ghost Truce.

But to end the entire universe? That was a new one, even for Danny's crazy cast of rogues.

Savior shuddered. "I'm not sure about any of this. But when I saw him coming, I slipped a strand of the Shimmer into his ear—he definitely has a head despite appearances to the contrary."

"You did what?" Skulker asked from across the room, still not concealing his bitterness at the human's presence.

"My talent, the Shimmer." Savior held up a hand and the white energy ropes that he used for offense and defense emerged. "They can interface with nervous systems, and I tried to figure out what his goal was."

Dorathea floated forward. "And that is to destroy the universe? But why and how does he seek to do this?"

Savior frowned. "The details are… vague. The reason I passed out was… his mind is incredibly complex. It overwhelmed me just trying to find anything in it, but I know what he wants and why. Those were almost easy to discern. I think he's trying to end Christmas forever.. He thinks that would force the Apocalypse to come sooner, and then he'd be free of his job—the curse, I guess. All I know is that he may not look it, but he's as bitter as Sizzle ever was."

"Lovely," Danny muttered, recalling the hatred Sizzle had spewed forth from the moment she'd stepped into his life. Danny turned and surveyed the remaining ghosts in the room. It seemed that more than Wulf had been warped away by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, but there was still a rather large group of ghosts there.

"But why should we believe one such as you, human child?" Nikolai Technus demanded of Savior. "How do we truly know you read the mind of this traitor?"

"And even if you are telling the truth," Ember said, getting up and dusting off her clothing, "Why should we help you? You can handle it yourself—if you really defeated Pariah Dark and Sizzle."

Danny felt his face fall, but refused to be disheartened yet. "I had help with Dark. I believe you were there yourself, Ember."

"Miss McLean, I'm not sure…" Savior began, "That you really understand what's at stake here. This guy wants to prevent Christmas from ever happening again. And I don't know how, but I know he believes he can do it. I've learned that when something this absurdly powerful thinks it can do something—it usually can come pretty close."

"But why did it come here and wreck the place?" Young Blood shouted. "Why did it point at Danny?"

Savior frowned as if trying to wrack his brain, and also showed an amount of displeasure towards Danny himself. Danny figured it was because pretty much all his enemies knew his name and could blurt it to his parents or the government at any instance.

"I think…" Savior began cautiously, "that he wanted you to fight Danny. Danny is the only one who can stop him. I think.."

"I do not think this warrants my concern," Technus said. "I shall be ruler of the woirld one day."

"Idiot, there won't be a world, or a 'woirld' or however else you want to garble it,." Savior walked towards the ghosts. "You guys.. You like this Truce, right?"

"Yes…"

"Well he wants to take that from you—from all of us. Everything good and worthwhile about this season will be lost along with all the bad. If the universe ends and the Ghost Zone somehow survives, you'll be trapped her in an unending void with no sense of time for all eternity. No more Truce. No more celebration."

Danny grew concerned, because it was clear that not only was Savior not fully well, but he was having a difficult time focusing on the thoughts he'd siphoned out of Future. He'd never seen Noel so stressed before, even in the heat of battle. He'd never seen Savior..

Afraid.

Danny turned and shot a glance at his foes and allies over his shoulder. "If you all want to come with me, fine. If not, I don't need you. Savior, mind if I overshadow you again to get us both out of here?"

Savior gave him a glare of disapproval, but resignation to the act, and Danny did so, flying out of the castle and into the Ghost Zone above.

Suddenly, Danny heard a voice behind them, calling out for them to wait. Danny turned to see Desiree flying up behind them, followed closely by Ember, Spectra and Bertrand, Walker and Walker's henchmen, Kitty and Johnny 13, and Queen Dorathea herself…

"So this is our strike force?" Noel said, briefly taking control of Danny's body. "It could be worse."

"Suck it up, dipstick," Ember spat. "You're lucky to have this much."

"Though I must say," Spectra commented. "You do look like a waterfall of misery, boy. Mind if I have a taste?"

Danny reasserted his control and arched one of Noel's eyebrows. "The Titan is not on the menu, Spectra."

"We shall not fight amongst ourselves on the Eve of the Truce," Dora insisted. "It is with only the utmost restraint that I've not yet transformed into a Dragon."

"Uh oh," Johnny said, pointing towards the Ghost Zone's parts unknown—at least to Danny. The overshadowed Titan turned his head to see a massive portal opening before them, wreathed in green flames.

"This… is trouble," Spectra said with false sweetness. "I'm almost inclined to abandon you all to whatever gruesome second deaths this guy has cooked up for us."

"Whatever," Danny said. "I'm going in."

Danny blasted towards the portal, and the ghosts that were brave enough to follow followed

The other side was incredible. Noel saw it all through his own eyes, even as Danny steered the body—gargantuan pillars and impossible structures that brought images of Olympus and New Cronus to Noel's mind…

"There really are infinite realms here," Savior said to Danny. "How much does property here cost?"

Danny didn't respond out loud, but Savior heard Danny's voice in his mind. "I wouldn't if I were you. The warden—Walker, doesn't allow any matter from our world into the Ghost Zone, including people."

Atop one of the massive temples in this area of the Ghost Zone, after traveling for hours, the party stopped to rest. Bertrand offered Danny some ecto-beer but he turned it down.

Danny had left Savior's body, and the two were discussing their foe. "It all seems a bit weird," Danny said. "If I was the only one who could stop him, why did he suck me into the Ghost Zone?"

Savior shrugged. "Like I said, I think he wanted your enemies to ignore the truce and destroy you. Maybe I was the catalyst to make that happen. I don't know how this thing's mind works honestly. "Connecting and reading 'data' from a human brain on the spot is hard enough, this thing was like trying to pick up pictures from the bottom of a tank covered with acid and filled with rabid piranhas."

Kitty, who was standing beside Danny downing some bottle of ectoplasmic liquid, commented. "Did you catch those powers? I've never seen anything like that. That green flame he kept using. Even Ember's hair doesn't behave like that."

Danny glanced up at her, and Noel saw something strange in his eyes… Like he was trying to recall an old, vague memory.

"I have," Danny said after a bit. "I've used something almost exactly like that—in the future."

"What?" Noel asked. "This is a new one. When did you go into the future?"

"It's… very vague," Danny said. "But I remember something happened. Valerie got killed, and then… This is going to sound completely insane, but Marty McFly took me to the future."

That wasn't what Noel was expecting. He almost felt like falling backwards out of his seat and rolling across the ground in a fit of laughter, but resisted the urge. He anchored himself with the Shimmer. "Danny. You were dreaming. Marty McFly is a fictional character. In a movie."

"No." Danny said. "I know it wasn't a dream. It was just like—after I got back, the past and future suddenly changed on me. But I know what I saw. The Amulet of Roasha—Vlad used it to take over the world in the future. And I used it myself."

"You're serious." Noel stared Danny up and down and didn't see a hint that he was joking. "You're really honest-to-God serious, that you think Marty McFly became real and took you into the future."

"Wasn't your entire city attacked by fictional characters last Halloween?" Danny shot back.

Noel sweatdropped. "We don't talk about that. It didn't officially happen. And don't go asking Metatron about it, cause he wasn't there."

"Riiight," Danny said, even as one of the walls of the temple crumbled in the distance. "Assuming the official Titans website is to be believed, Chaos Magic manifestations of a bunch of horrible third-rate horror movie villains appeared in Jump City and trashed the place. Maybe something like that happened to me. The rules of Back to the Future suddenly became the rules of our world temporarily, and the characters came alive too. All I know is, I was in the future, and I used a new attack called the Hopefire. I basically used the emotional energy of the ghosts around me—their hope—and turned it into a weapon. If that makes any sense."

Noel shook his head. "Not really, but I'll keep that in mind." Actually, I won't.

He started off so well, this Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

The guardian spirit of Christmas. He never really had an official title or name; it was what he did that defined him. Everywhere he went, he promoted Christmas Spirit, behind the scenes... He so dearly wanted the holiday—'his' holiday—to succeed.

But the guardian only held his full powers on Christmas itself. And in, say, June, when Christmas was still half a year distant, he had a very grim appearance indeed. Some would say he looked like Death—like the Grim Reaper.

It was in this form that he did much of his wandering. He traveled the world, searching for things to occupy his mind and expand his understanding of the universe. He found himself in far off New Cronus where he was taught architecture by the Titans of Myth. He even entered the Realm of Dreams.

The first blow to his sanity would come from there—though not directly—when, purely by chance, he encountered the dreams of a struggling author who was greatly concerned that Christmas was becoming less meaningful each year…

On the distant end of a coliseum-like structure within Future's domain, Danny and Savior felt the gravity increase to near-earth levels, and Savior found himself able to walk and move like normal for a change. "In a way, I almost miss being half weightless."

Spectra laughed. "Enjoy it while you can. As much angst as you have, boy, you're sure to be dead weight as a ghost."

"Was that supposed to be a pun?" Savior snarked.

"Knock it off, you two!" Danny said, imposing himself between the fight.

Promptly, a giant magenta ball of energy swooped down and knocked Spectra off the floating coliseum and into the abyss below.

"Wha-!?"

Danny turned to see Future, hovering above the arena, his bony hands glowing with crimson fire.

Spectra blasted back up in her solid black form and returned fire with a burst of green lightning, Future deflected it, and Bertrand transformed into a ninja and leapt at the ghost. But Future just faded backwards, grabbing Bertrand's leg and hurling him into Walker.

Walker's men charged forward, leveling their rifles at Future and blasting away, but the ghost took each shot and then launched another magenta fireball at them, sending them scattering like bowling pins.

Danny charged forward, sending a series of ectoplasmic energy shots at Future, and Savior threw out a couple of Shimmer strands that slammed into the columns that held up the roof of the coliseum and rocketed upwards, then reversing and swinging along the ceiling.

Danny saw Savior coming and charged forward, timing it so both Phantom and Titan slammed into the Ghost at the same time.

Rolling away as the Ghost began to counter attack, Savior accidentally knocked Kitty over with his momentum. "Oh man!" Kitty shouted at him.

Savior muttered a half-hearted apology and stood up. Danny and Future were going at it from a distance, now, and Danny… seemed to be winning.

"The kid is stronger than most people think," Savior said, watching the fight…

Dora nodded. "He has a great amount of power—though it's hidden away somewhere."

Savior regarded the ghost woman a moment. So she new about it? Great. After a moment of silence, he asked, "Why didn't you send your army? You're a queen after all."

"My army has nothing on me," Dora responded, allowing her anger to flow freely for the first time that night. Her eyes flared, glowing red even as her body transformed from woman to Dragon via the power of the amulet of Aragon. "TRUCE BREAKER!" The dragon bellowed.

Dora charged forward, tearing into Future, even as Danny blasted him with another double-handed ecto-shot.

Savior watched as Walker commanded his men to fire at the ceiling with rocket launchers—of the ectoplasmic energy variety, of course.

The rockets lanced out and hit their target, and a chunk of the ceiling crumbled on top of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, burying him in a pile of rubble fifty feet high.

Danny and Dorathea came to a rest near the pile of rubble, breathing heavily from the strain, and the ghosts quickly gathered around.

"Is it dead?" Kitty asked.

"I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious," Savior said. "Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come."

"I meant did we beat him," Kitty snapped.

Johnny 13 knelt by the pile of rubble, and Shadow moved towards it, writhing as if it were feeling some sort of energy coursing through it. It began to hiss.

"He's still under there," Johnny said...

And then the pile of rubble exploded in a burst of ectoplasmic energy and the green fire, the one that seemed to allow Future to do anything he wanted. Electricity crackled and the debris floated in the air, even as most of the ghosts were knocked on their butts. Only Savior was left standing, because, being human, the ghost-objects passed right through him.

Danny quickly joined him, though, his hands pulsating with green light. He began shouting at the Future. "Look, dude, I have no idea why you hate your job so much, but if you don't stop, neither will I."

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come held out a hand, crimson lighting crackling along his fingertips, until it coalesced into a grim-reaper-like scythe.

Which the Ghost then swiped through the air, slicing into reality, a trail forming where the blade traveled and shards of energy raining down on the ghosts. Danny and the others shielded themselves as best the could, and Savior hid, not behind but within one of the stones that had formerly been a part of the coliseum's ceiling, using his intangibility to Ghost Zone-objects to his strategic advantage.

But with another wave of the hand, Future himself vanished into another one of his portals.

Then the shards began glowing, and changing. Danny gasped when he saw eyes appear on the shard nearest to him, and from there it only expanded, growing larger and transforming into an energy-based crystalline entity resembling a minotaur. Fitting for a battle in a coliseum.

Danny blasted first, deigning to ask questions later—if ever. As he charged forward, pummeling the minotaur with his fists, chunks of the transparent being shattering off like glass. But the minotaur retaliated, grabbing Danny by the neck and throwing him up into an intact portion of the ceiling. Danny didn't hit hard, as he had lost momentum on the way, and his new vantage point gave him a good perspective on the battle below.

Savior was fighting a group of things that looked like Medusa, while a phalanx of Cyclopes were smashing through Walker's men. Harpies were having it out with Johnny, Shadow, and Kitty, and Dora and Ember busy taking down a group of flying Sirens. Spectra was nowhere to be seen, and Bertrand had been cornered by a Cerberus.

Danny cringed. "Somebody has been playing way too much God of War."

A gorgon. No, not a gorgon, several gorgons. Why did he always get saddled with fighting something that his powers were almost worthless against? Savior would have let out a stream of swearing if he hadn't been in the heat of a battle.

One of the snake-haired creatures lunged at him, and Savior sprung over its head and sliced at the snakes with Shimmer blades, which clearly caused the gorgon a lot of pain. Savior landed hard, then lunged forward, stabbing at the creature's stomach, but it rolled out of the way, and the one behind it kicked him in the face…

Noel took the blow and flipped backwards off his hands, then blasted two Shimmer blades through his feet, through the floor below and then up into the heads of the manifestations. Their transparent heads shattered like a porcelain doll's, and both gorgons collapsed onto the ground.

The third one shoulder-slammed him in the back, but Savior had expected that, and rolled with the blow, turning over as he came up and grabbing a nearby chunk of the ceiling—it seemed that somehow he only phased through it when he applied a certain amount of pressure. He could still pick up ghost zone objects, just as ghosts could pick up human world objects.

Savior hurled the chunk of rock at the gorgon's face, but it dodged out of the way and leapt into the air, trying to stomp him into the ground. Savior rolled into another one of the chunks of the ceiling… which the gorgon promptly landed on and smashed to dust… With no Savior to be found inside…

Noel then phased through the floor right behind the gorgon, Shimmer lines from his shoulders pulling him through even as lines from his feet pushed. And more came from his hands, two spikes of Shimmer strands that Noel slammed into the sides of the gorgon's head, shattering it like the other two.

Okay, maybe they weren't almost worthless. These gorgons didn't have the power to turn him to stone with a look… which likely meant that none of the creatures had such powers…

Across the room, Noel saw Bertrand transform into a Hydra and eat the Cerberus, and Walker finally got his men coordinated enough to blast the eyes of their monocular foes, causing all the Cyclopes to collapse and shatter on the hard ground. Shadow tore through the harpies, knocking them out of the sky even as Kitty used her purse to smash their crystalline wings to shards of energy.

"Jeez, what do you keep in that thing?" Johnny said after Kitty had finished her rampage.

"Just the essentials," she said, giving him a flirtatious wink.

"That's my babe." He smiled.

Then Danny blasted down, pummeling the minotaur with a series of punches and kicks, sending ripples of energy off of his fists and causing the creature to crack, pieces of him shattering off with every blow. Danny grabbed it by the horns and hurled it into the wall, then finished it off with a double-handed ectoplasmic energy blast.

Danny hovered back to the ground and returned to human form, involuntarily.

"That drained me a lot more than it should have," he commented.

"Now that you mention it," Ember said, bashing in the final head of the last remaining Siren with her guitar.. "Nope. I don't feel a thing."

"Me neither," Kitty said. "Are you sure you just didn't over-work yourself?"

"I wasn't effected either," Savior said as he came forward. "Either you're more out of shape than you look, rookie, or it has something to do with your half-and-half nature. Or…"

"Or what?" Danny asked.

"Never mind."

"Okay…" Danny shrugged. "Well, if that was his idea of an obstacle, I think we survived it."

"Not without casualties, though," Savior said. "I don't see Spectra anywhere."

Bertrand began to look worried.

"It's possible Spectra just up and left," Ember said. "I wouldn't it put it past that—"

"AHEM!"

All heads turned to see Spectra, in the form of an elderly woman, crawling out from behind a larger rock. "I was afraid of this," she sobbed. "I'm nothing without my youth, and I went too long without consuming any misery—all thanks to that boy!"

She pointed at Danny, then lunged at him, her fingernails ready to strike like claws "Share with me your misery, boy!"

"No! Penelope!" Dora shouted.

Danny, unable to transform or react in time, stared blankly as the old lady flew towards her….

And suddenly vanished in a flash of light, dispersing into a cloud that moved towards Savior. When it dissipated, Danny could see Savior was holding a small object shaped like an acorn, attached to a chain.

"Fact," Savior stated. "The ghosts of this realm are combinations of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness."

"That's what my mom says," Danny deadpanned.

"This device scrambles both into a form that's almost unusable until the consciousness part can pull the ectoplasm back together." Savior extended his hand at an angle behind him, and released the switch on the artifact. Another bright light-emitting substance spewed out and collapsed onto the ground, vaguely resembling what Spectra might look like as hamburger meat.

"If any of you tries to violate the Truce by attacking myself or Danny, that will be your fate as well."

"Tread carefully, young man," Dorathea said. "Penelope may have violated the Truce, but you are still greatly outnumbered here, and are not under that Truce's protection."

"Like it or not," Danny said, "Savior is under my protection until we're out of here. And to fight him, you'll have to violate the Truce and attack me."

Walker examined the pile of Spectra on the ground and smiled. "You have nothing to worry about. Spectra was weak. She broke the rules. I don't break them—I make them. And everyone else here will follow them or end up in my prison."

"That's all well and good, but we still have to save Christmas," Danny said. "And we still have no idea how this future guy plans to bring about the Apocalypse."

Savior nodded. "And everyone needs to pay more attention to their flanks. I noticed during the fight that everyone was paying so much attention to their own foes that they could have been hit from the side at any point."

They all looked at him, Danny thinking probably what everyone else was: Who do you think you are?

"And," Savior added. "Don't get so caught up on one enemy that you don't notice what else is going on. Especially you, rookie."

Danny shook his head, but the party continued after that, leaving Spectra there to recover alone.

End note: Okay, so I lied. I said continuity with Legendverse wouldn't be important, and it's becoming quite important. For further explanations of Danny's second trip to the future, read my story Time Phantom. For more on the great power that Danny possesses, read Legend Maker's story Danny's Inferno.