Hi! I'm much later than expected, but here I am! ^^ I'm probably usually gonna be a once-a-monther for this story...if I don't lose my inspiration. :P You're looking at 3 weeks as a minimum time, and there's no maximum, because I lose inspiration easily. PLEASE review!. Only got two reviews last chapter... Sheesh, people, I go through all this trouble to keep you guys happy and not many review. :/

THIS CHAPTER= ANGSTY. This is where your angst comes in, plus a little plot twist which is the basis of the entire story. (I bet you didn't see that coming, all you who don't watch me on DA.)

Frontlines: Chapter 2- Broken and Lonely

,.~*~.,

The Fenton family stared, shocked, at the hostile invading force. The mayor strode forward, both hands folded neatly behind his back. Danny felt a chill run down his spine.

"Now then," the mayor began, "which one of you decided to build this thing in the first place?" There was a terrifying silence. The mayor's eyes surveyed the frightened and confused faces staring back at him. "No answer?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, then, I'll just guess." He turned to Jazz. "This girl is intelligent. Perhaps she conceived the idea." He grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Hey!" Jazz exclaimed. She tried to wrench away, but the mayor's iron grip held her in place.

"No! Mr. Mayor, let her go! I'm to blame," Jack admitted. "I'll give myself in if it means my family will be safe."

"I'm to blame, as well," Maddie said. "If you take my husband, you should also take me."

Danny's jaw dropped in astonishment. "Mom, Dad...you can't do that!"

"Yes they can, my boy," the mayor said. "They are ordered to. They have broken a fatal rule."

Danny couldn't speak. He backed off a few steps, gaze switching from the faces of his parents to the menacing frown of the mayor.

The mayor snapped his fingers. "Guards, take these two away." Two armed men stepped forward and grabbed Jack and Maddie by the shoulders. Then, they were forcefully pushed upstairs to be taken away to prison.

Jazz stiffened. Danny glanced at her, keeping calm despite how much he was panicking on the inside. The redhead marched up to the mayor. "Just who do you think you are?" she began. "What rule did they break? As far as I knew, there was no rule against building a ghost portal!"

"But there is," the mayor said, a twisted smile growing on his face. "And you, my dear, have just broken another very serious rule."

"And that is...?" Jazz demanded.

"Punishable by immediate death." At once, a gunshot rang out. Danny watched in horror as his sister took a bullet to the head. With a second shot, Jazz had received an open hole in her chest. She fell to the ground, her life rapidly slipping away.

"Jazz!" Danny screamed. He almost ran to her side, but fear overtook him. His sky-blue eyes, clouded with growing tears, rose up to meet the mayor's. The man had a pistol in his hand, still smoking with the fresh shot.

Danny couldn't tear his eyes away from the bloody scene, despite how much he wanted to. The longer he stared, the further the image ingrained itself into his mind: His sister lying on the floor as the last of her life slipped away through the blood which slowly oozed from the bullet wounds, and the mayor standing over her with the killing weapon in his hand. It was a permanent scar, now. That image could never be erased. The entire time, the mayor had an evil grin etched on his face that made Danny's blood run cold. That could never be forgotten, either.

The mayor raised an eyebrow at the confused, terrified teenager. "Goodbye, Daniel," he said.

Danny was prepared to take a bullet to the heart. Instead of shooting, however, the mayor put the gun away. He turned around and walked back up the stairs, hands behind his back. Once the man and his armed guards had left, Danny collapsed to the ground and began to cry. He hadn't cried in forever, but he remembered when he was a child, he cried all the time. Whenever he cried then, no matter how silly the matter, Jazz or his mother were always there to comfort him. But they weren't now, and they couldn't. Maddie was going to prison and Jazz was now dead.

Danny calmed his crying down to a sob and crawled up next to his sister's body. He avoided looking at her face, for he couldn't bear to look upon her blank cyan eyes without hurting even more inside. His life had fallen apart in a mere five minutes - five minutes in which his parents could have been celebrating their first real success. Instead, those minutes had been spent in fear, death, and agony...and the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness.

"I'm a horrible brother," Danny choked out, burying his face in his hands. "I'm sorry for all those times I refused your advice; sorry for when I thought you were a nuthead. Forgive me now, please..."

Jazz, of course, didn't answer. Her body lay as still as ever, not even pulsing blood anymore. Danny forced himself to look at her gruesome, frozen expression of pain. He shuddered and reached a shaky hand towards her face to close her lifeless eyes. But no...no, Danny couldn't bring himself to touch her. The pain was still too fresh, too real. He drew his hand back to wipe away a cascade of new tears. It was then that he began to cry and convulse uncontrollably. He collapsed further onto the lab floor, cold and scared. "Why is this happening? Please be a dream, please!"

Danny's crying couldn't turn back the clock, and neither could his hoping this was all a dream reset everything. He hoped it was a dream, yes, but he knew it on the inside. He knew it was all real. His parents really had been arrested, and his sister really was dead. He was broken and lonely, with no one to turn to.

Danny grabbed his sister's still warm hand, embracing the last bit of life he could get from her. This truly had been the worst day of his life, and it was far from over. If only he could escape it...

Exhausted by his crying, the raven-haired boy rested his head on the floor and shut his eyes. He soon drifted off into a deep, lethargic sleep.

,.~*~.,

Fresh sunlight lit Sam's path as she walked to school the next morning. "It's a nice day today," she commented to Tucker.

The boy in the red beret, who had had his nose in a video game, lifted his head. "Huh?"

Sam grunted in disgust. "Never mind."

The teens continued walking. "Say, Sam...where's Danny?" Tucker's sudden question prompted Sam to look around. Her friend's familiar black hair and white t-shirt were nowhere to be seen.

"I don't know," the Goth answered, shrugging. "But he's gonna be late if he's not out of bed by now."

"The guy was probably up playing 'Doomed' all night or something," Tucker suggested.

"Makes sense," Sam agreed. "We know him too well." The girl still felt strange with only Tucker with her. She, Tucker, and Danny were an inseparable trio! Walking all the way to school without their timid friend seemed very odd. "We'll see him later," Sam reassured herself.

,.~*~.,

Danny woke up on a hard surface. It took him a few moments to realize it was the lab floor, and to recall what had happened that previous afternoon. He sat up. He was sore from his night on the floor, but at least the pain of losing his parents and sister wasn't as fresh. The boy nervously squeezed something in his hand.

Suddenly, Danny realized what that cold mass wrapped up in his hand was. He gasped and let Jazz's hand go. The little bit of blood that had leaked out of her wounds had dried, leaving her with an ugly brown stain on her head. Danny still couldn't stand her horrifying expression. In an attempt to help ease his pain, he made the mistake of looking into her dull eyes...

A startling flashback flashed before Danny's mind's eye. He once again saw the mayor standing over his dying sister, a smoking gun in his hand. The boy jumped in fear. He panted, trying to calm down. He reached out with his hand and slowly drew the eyelids over Jazz's eyes, breathing deeply.

"I need to do something with her body," Danny said to himself. "Like...give her a funeral or something."

Suddenly, his watch beeped. "Eight o' clock?" he mumbled. "In the morning? I slept that long?" The significance of that number suddenly hit Danny. "I'm thirty minutes late for school!"

Though school wasn't very important to Danny any more, he decided he should go, anyway. After all, he didn't want to know what consequence there was for not staying in school; plus, his friends needed to hear the news.

,.~*~.,

It was now 8:30 AM. Sam and Tucker were trying to listen to their science lesson, which seemed strangely tiring to Tucker. Tucker usually loved science class. After all, it was directly tied into technology, plus is was his only 'A' besides sewing. But today he couldn't seem to concentrate on anything, as if his brain had gone to some distant, faraway planet. He was still worrying about his best friend, Danny.

He knew that the boy's crazy parents had activated (or tried to activate) their "ghost portal" that previous afternoon. Tucker wondered if Danny's absence was due to that. Perhaps he was up until three AM playing video games, or cramming for their history quiz. Maybe a spring cold had attacked him...

The classroom door opened. Tucker instinctively looked up to see who was coming in. A burden symbolically fell off his shoulders when he saw the sleek dark hair and slender frame of Danny Fenton.

"Mr. Fenton, you're late," Mr. Dunn said, glowering at the teen disapprovingly.

"I know, Mr. Dunn. I'm sorry, it couldn't be helped."

"Take your seat silently," Mr. Dunn commanded. Danny nodded briskly and headed toward his desk.

Tucker smiled at him and waved. Danny simply looked at him in acknowledgement before sitting down and turning his attention to the front of the room. Tucker's smile turned into a small frown. Something seemed to be bothering his friend deeply; the last time Tucker had seen Danny act this way was five years ago, when his grandmother was dying in a hospital bed.

Something really, seriously bad must have happened; after all, Danny usually always smiled back when greeted with a smile and a wave. To simply acknowledge a greeting was so un-Danny of his friend that Tucker grew even more worried.

Sam had also noticed how sad Danny looked. Something terrible had happened, and the Goth girl couldn't help but be concerned. She hadn't been friends with Danny for as long as Tucker had, but she was just as close. She, too, had seen the same weighted look in her friend's eyes before; but this time, something seemed to be much different. Danny seemed to be haunted by some thought that he couldn't let go of. When the bell rang, she decided to ask her friend a question.

,.~*~.,

Danny was beginning to wonder why he'd gone to school today in the first place. Somehow, the smile of his best friend Tucker had managed to irritate him. Though Danny know the boy in the beret didn't know what had happened, he couldn't help but feel like Tucker was intentionally trying to mess with his emotions. The smile and wave seemed cynical, almost mocking, to him.

He had felt Sam's studying gaze all throughout science class, too. He knew that, like Tucker, she was only concerned, but Danny didn't want to be looked at, talked to, or bothered. He had just wanted to grab the books from his locker and head off to English class, but no. He had to be spoken to.

"Danny, what's wrong?" Sam asked.

Danny bit the side of his mouth. "Later, Sam," he said, shutting his locker. "Now isn't a good time."

"Knowing that look, no time is a good time," Sam said. "You haven't acted like this since your grandma was dying in the hospital."

Danny looked down and muttered something so low that Sam had to strain to understand him. "Grandma Fenton didn't die." The teen turned away and headed towards Mr. Lancer's classroom, leaving Sam in confusion.

Danny's stubbornness only made Sam want to try even harder. She'd try again at lunch, and even try to get Tucker to help Danny open up.

,.~*~.,

"Danny, you've got to eat something," Tucker told his raven-haired friend, who had been simply picking at his lunch for fifteen minutes.

Danny grunted. "I don't want to eat," he sighed, twirling his fork in his salad. Despite having not eaten since noon that previous day, he wasn't really hungry at all.

"Danny, why don't you just tell us what's wrong?" Sam suggested. "Then maybe you'll feel better."

Danny paused what he was doing. "I...it...it hurts to talk about it," he stuttered. "Come to my place after school and I'll show you." The teen resumed picking at his food.

Sam and Tucker exchanged worried glances. It was worse then they'd thought. "Well, try to eat something," Tucker urged, "Since you've already got the food."

"How can I eat?" Danny snapped. "My life has just gone down the toilet, and you just want me to act like nothing ever happened?!"

"No! Not at all," Tucker defended himself, wary of his friend's icy stare.

"Danny, look," began Sam, "I know it hurts, but shutting us out isn't going to make the pain stop!"

Danny's gaze fell back down to his tray. "I know," he mumbled. "And I told you I'd show you what the problem was. What's the big deal?"

"We're only concerned for you, man," Tucker said.

"I know that, too," Danny murmured. He poked his turkey sandwich. "And in that case, I'll tell you the part that isn't as painful." Danny paused and took a hesitant breath inward. Sam and Tucker leaned closer to their friend. After exhaling, the raven-haired teen revealed part of his pain. "My parents were arrested yesterday, just because they built a ghost portal."

Sam's jaw fell open. "Say what?!" she exclaimed. "Was it authorized?"

"Yeah," rasped Danny. "Our mayor himself showed up to order the arrest."

"That is so wrong," Tucker agreed.

Danny snorted. "Tell me about it." Danny had to admit, telling his friends about the arrest had lifted part of his burden. Still, he felt horrid about his sister's death. The image of her death continued to haunt his subconsciousness, eating away at him like a parasite. He felt like he had let her die...

"Something should be done about this!" Sam exclaimed, pounding a fist on the table.

"Nothing can be done about it," Danny sighed in defeat. "They'd arrest us, too, or worse..." Sam saw Danny's eyes cloud over with fear. The boy shook his head absently.

"So your parents are gone," Tucker noted. "All the more reason to eat that while you can. You might not be able to for a while." The boy pointed to Danny's lunch tray, still full of completely untouched food.

"I guess you're right," Danny muttered. He picked up the turkey sandwich to take a bite, but he only stared at it tiredly. "I don't know...I can't eat," he sighed, setting the food back down onto the tray. "I feel too sick from this incident."

"Save it for later, then," Sam suggested.

Danny nodded. Seconds later, the class bell rang. Sam and Tucker stood, but Danny didn't move. He planted his face into his folded arms, using them as some sort of pillow.

"Come on, Danny. We've gotta go to class," said Tucker.

"I just wanna go home," whimpered Danny. He sounded like a five-year-old afraid of something no one else seemed to see.

"Then we'll all go," Tucker declared, furrowing his brow in determination.

Danny lifted his head and blinked. "What? Won't we get in trouble?"

"Definitely," Sam said, "but we can't let you suffer here for the rest of the day."

"Thanks, guys." For the first time since 5:30 that previous afternoon, Danny smiled a bit.

,.~*~.,

The three friends had escaped from the school with relative ease and without acknowledgement. Even Mr. Lancer, who was seemingly omnipresent, never showed his face. The three teens had made a clean getaway and were now next to Danny's place.

"Well, shall we go in?" Tucker questioned, ascending the steps to the front door.

"Let me in first," Danny ordered in a shaky voice. He twisted the brown paper bag in his hands nervously. The black haired teenager strode up the stairs to his house and slowly opened the door. Stepping inside, Danny took in a sharp gasp of air. He shivered. The air inside had a cold, abandoned feeling to it; Danny didn't like it one bit. Regardless of how creeped out the boy was, he took a few more steps inside.

Tucker followed him in next, and last to enter was Sam. They felt the chill in the air as well. "This place is...weird," Sam declared, "Really weird without your parents."

"Come with me," Danny commanded weakly. He dropped his makeshift lunchbag onto the kitchen table, then headed toward the lab. His friends followed. Danny froze on top of the staircase. An air of darkness oozed up into Danny's senses, urging him not to go downstairs. The frightened teen ignored it and turned to face his expectant friends. "Brace yourselves," he warned. "You might be startled by what you see."

Sam noticed a quantity of pain and fear flash in Danny's eyes, and a lot of hesitation, too. It was clear that Danny did not want to go down there. Nevertheless, he descended the stairs down to the cursed lab.

Halfway down, a sour, bitter smell filled Sam's nostrils. She was about to ask Danny what that could be, but the sight at the bottom of the stairs silenced whatever words were about to come out. Danny looked at Jazz's body solemnly. A silent tear fell from his eye and rolled down his pale cheek. Tucker had frozen as well. For about one minute, the three held a silent vigil for the dead girl.

Finally, Tucker broke the silence. "So, how long has she..." he swallowed, "...been dead?"

"Roughly twenty-four hours," Danny replied. He knelt down next to Jazz's body and stroked her broken forehead.

"Such a waste," growled Sam, shaking her head. "I may not have liked her very much, but she was the most intelligent person I've ever met."

"She could have been the inventor of the future," Tucker added.

"She was my sister...that's all that matters to me," Danny murmured. Raising his voice slightly, he added, "And I can't get over her death."

"Well, it's only been a day," Sam reminded him. "I don't expect you to be over it yet; time heals all. But until then, we've got to find out who's responsible for this." Anger edged Sam's last sentence and sparked in her amethyst eyes. Danny was silent. "Well, who did it? Who shot her?" Sam was clearly outraged.

Danny sighed and stood up. "Fine, but you wouldn't be able to act on it," he spat bitterly. "She was shot by..." His voice broke as the dreadful scene flashed before his mind's eye yet again: The mayor's evil grin as he fired the two bullets into his sister's skull and heart... "It was...the mayor himself."

Sam gasped. "He did it?" Sam breathed, unable to comprehend what she had just heard. "He's to blame for all of this?" The Goth was disgusted. What kind of a monster would kill an innocent teenaged girl on a whim?

Danny shook his head. "No, Sam...I'm to blame."

Tucker looked at his friend, a confused and shocked look on his face. "You? But...you just said the mayor shot Jazz, and arrested your parents."

"I brought this on them!" Danny wailed. Bottled-up emotion within him began to explode as more tears began to fall. "I wished Mom and Dad were gone! I mistreated Jazz! It's my fault! It's all my fault!"

,.~*~.,

EDITED: 8/3/13

Aw, poor Danny. Guy thinks he's to blame for everything. We can only imagine what Sam will say about this...

While typing this last part, I had a renewed interest in typing this story! I'm so excited to write it and bring it to you! ^^ I have so much in mind for future chapters and books!

Well, I had planned on updating earlier, but I'll try to make it up to you. I make no promises, but I'll TRY to update on or near Christmas!

I still don't like "update soons"! XD