Disclaimer: I still don't own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does, and I somehow doubt that will be changing any time soon. Since I'm not making any money from this, there is nothing for the law-ninjas to sue out of me.
Author's Note: I am SO sorry I left you guys hanging for so long on that cliffhanger! With all the preparation for MikomiCon weekend before last, and then MikomiCon itself last weekend, and trying to get all my schoolwork done so I wouldn't have to worry about it, I had absolutely ZERO free time! Also, I admit part of this chapter gave me absolute hell to write, and that's a writer's block I managed to break down only with the help of MikomiCon-induced exhaustion and one ringer of a head cold.
Chapter 4: Shock
"Now and forever after
Asylums filled with laughter
Suspicion haunts my dreams
An echo through my mind"
-"Evening Star" - Dragonforce
All things considered, Danny should probably have realized that was going to be the result. Alternate Vlad had explained how that nightmare had come to exist, but the idea never quite registered beyond "It was partly Vlad's fault." He was the first to recover, jumping to his feet and gaping openly at his handiwork, at the two forms sprawled dazed on either side of the dropped Ghostcatcher.
To one side, an entirely too familiar form lay sprawled on his back, cape splayed out like a pair of demented wings. The red and white material seemed worn and faded though, almost tattered in places. In fact, "worn" was a fairly accurate description of the tall ghost overall. The black upsweep of his hair was no longer perfect, but instead mildly disheveled; blue complexion tinged slightly green with the first traces of wrinkles around the squinting red eyes. Indeed, one could say rather accurately that Vlad Plasmius looked almost haggard.
To the other side, face down and already struggling to get up on quaking limbs was the other figure, distinctly familiar but altogether alien. Lean muscles highlighted by the form-fitting black jumpsuit, perhaps five or six inches taller than Danny was; this other figure was panting heavily, the breeze carelessly tousling the ragged white hair. He was thin, but not quite gaunt; if one were to make a guess based on appearance, the ghost probably didn't weigh much more than his 14-year-old counterpart.
"Wha-?" Plasmius managed to gape, dragging himself to a sitting position and clutching at his head, a grimace plastered across his face.
"My head-" Phantom fell back down, also trying to massage away what was apparently a killer headache. His voice, while deeper, was unmistakably Danny's.
"Sam, the thermos!" Danny finally found his voice, the request coming out as a surprised squeak. While that nightmare alternate future had looked so radically different from his own appearance, it had been easy for the teen to disassociate that future from his 'what could have been'. Seeing the two halves of that twisted mirror image sprawled out in pain right in front of him demolished that.
"Whoa, that's really creepy." Tucker observed from where Valerie still lay unconscious.
"Right!" Sam's expression at the sight nearly mirrored Danny's, violet eyes wide as she surveyed Phantom, the ghost very likely a good representation of what her friend would look like ten years down the road.
"Danny!" The front door of the house flew open, Jazz armed with the Ghost Crammer in one hand, and one of the larger ecto-cannons from the lab in the other. "...What the-?"
Their voices made Phantom's head snap up, green eyes flying wide open in terror. Headache apparently forgotten, he scrambled to his feet, visibly trembling as he stared at the group, mouth working to produce words, but no sound coming out. Danny braced for another fight, crouching slightly and ignoring his injuries, grabbing the Fenton Thermos Sam handed to him.
Phantom took a few wobbling steps backward, looking at the familiar faces staring at him, at Danny's determined scowl. "G-get away from me!"
That unexpected declaration gave Danny pause. He wasn't sure what to expect from the split spook, but borderline panic most certainly wasn't it. There was no mistaking the ghost's expression, beads of sweat forming on his brow, green eyes sweeping back and forth as if seeking an escape.
"Oh cheesedip, my head-!" Plasmius finally staggered to his feet as well. The tall ghost froze up at some realization, head jolting upright and gawking at the equally stunned Phantom. "Wait... my head-?"
Red eyes suddenly open wide in shock stared across the forgotten Ghostcatcher at equally shocked green ones as Phantom and Plasmius exchanged looks. Apparently both realized the implications of what was going on at the same time; both staggered backwards from each other, Plasmius pointing accusingly at Phantom with one hand while massaging his aching head with the other.
"Stay back-!" Phantom yelped, backing away from Danny and Plasmius, voice nearly cracking on the command.
"You-!" Plasmius didn't finish the statement, a horrified look crossing his stern features. "This is-... we did... fudgebuckets!"
"It's your fault-"
"As much as it is yours, boy!"
"But you-"
"You attacked me!"
"I-"
"We-"
"Enough!" Danny yelled over the sounds of the argument while aiming the Thermos, more than just a little unsettled by events. His voice drew the attention of the two ghosts, their incoherent argument forgotten.
"No!" Plasmius yelped upon seeing the Thermos, the tall ghost barely any calmer than Phantom seemed to be.
"Sam-!" Phantom squeaked out in a terrified voice. "And... Valerie, and everyone else-! Stay away from me! Don't come any closer!"
"What-?" Sam looked about as baffled as everyone else. No one was sure what to expect with the ghost split in half, but this absolute terror was certainly not anywhere near what the teen would have expected.
Phantom continued to back away from the group, green eyes getting progressively wider with panic as he saw everyone, saw the building behind them. Plasmius wasn't backing away as much, but had a similarly shocked expression, red eyes wide and mouth gaping.
"Okay, I am totally disturbed now." Danny stated, the Thermos in his hands whining as it powered on, the device aimed at Plasmius. After all, the tall ghost was probably the more dangerous of the pair- in the present Vlad Masters was without a doubt an extremely dangerous opponent, the same probably applied to the man's ghost half from ten years in the future.
"I refuse to be stuffed into that hideous contraption again!" Plasmius yelped, lobbing a red beam that smacked the Thermos from Danny's hands and knocked the teen over. In the time it took Danny to get back to his feet, the pale spook had already taken off, fleeing the scene. Almost as if in a panic, which was terribly out of character for the spikey-haired spook.
The dropped Thermos rolled along the ground, coming to a stop at Phantom's feet. The slender ghost jerked backward at the slight harmless contact as if the thing was lethal to the touch. "No!" The ghost yelped, smashing the Thermos.
"Today just gets better and better." Sam noted dryly as Danny launched himself at his older duplicate.
Instead of fighting back, the ghost cried out and tumbled out of the way, still staring at Sam and Valerie, then at Tucker and Jazz in turn. Considering that just minutes prior he had been actively trying to kill them all, the ghost's horror at the sight of them and his warning not to come near him were utterly baffling. The spook continued to frantically evade Danny's assault. The fourteen year old half ghost had a confused and mildly uncomfortable look on his face; it was probably more than a little unsettling to be trying to beat someone who looked exactly like an older version of himself.
"Somebody go find another Fenton Thermos!" Danny yelled to his friends while throwing another punch at Phantom. Almost as if a reflex, the older ghost caught the punch instead of evading, matching pairs of glowing green eyes locked on to one another as Phantom stared at his younger self at close range. The older ghost's gaze flicked from Danny's face to the fist he currently held captive, slowly sliding to his own white-gloved hand.
"Get away from me!" Phantom abruptly shrieked, shoving Danny back and gaping at his own trembling hands. The look on the ghost's face was horrified, staring at his hands as if he was seeing something else entirely and not the aborted battle that was going on. He backed away, hands clutching at his head, eyes clamping shut in a panic. "No, they're all going to-! And because of me-! NO!"
With a cry of surprisingly anguished terror, Phantom shot into the air, the black-clad form quickly lost from sight. With the fight apparently over, Danny's stance relaxed slightly, the teen practically deflating as he remembered his injuries. Jazz was staring skyward in the direction Phantom had bolted, a thoughtful look on her face. Sam and Tucker both trotted over to Danny, expressions both relieved and worried.
"Now what, dude? He... ur... they-?" Tucker guessed. "They're both on the loose!"
"Yeah, but somehow I don't think either of them are going to be as dangerous as he was." Sam noted. "Why do you think they both freaked out like that?"
Danny sighed and transformed back to normal, wincing as his injuries made themselves more known as his adrenaline subsided. "I dunno."
A groan from behind them returned everyone's attention to Valerie as she jolted back to alertness. "AAH-!..." She glanced around, realizing she wasn't wearing her suit and that there were no ghosts present. "Danny? What are you doing here? What happened?"
"Ur..." Glances were exchanged among the three friends as they collectively fumbled for an explanation. "Sam and Tucker were-"
"-playing video games-"
"-watching a movie-"
"We were all inside when we heard an explosion." Jazz cut through the chatter with a smooth lie. "Danny was the first one to the door, and we found you out cold. What happened?"
Apparently the fib coupled with turning the conversation back to the injured huntress did just the trick to halt any uncomfortable questions. Valerie staggered to her feet, trying to ignore a multitude of bruises and scrapes easily on par with the beating Danny had taken earlier.
"We heard about the ghost attack on the news." Danny added to make it easier for Valerie to fib her way out of it, though basically everyone present knew of the girl's second job.
"Yeah..." Valerie fumbled for an explanation of her condition. "That's... what I was running from. Guess I didn't run fast enough."
Despite the girl's forced casual demeanor, Danny could see that Valerie was discreetly looking around, looking for either the fire-headed ghost or himself. At least he didn't have to worry about the huntress blundering across that psychopath. Prior to the split, the ghost definitely had a special place of loathing for Valerie. From what the half-ghost had been able to gather from his trip to that alternate future, it had been Valerie's reaction to learning he was half-ghost that had helped set that future in motion.
"Yeah, I can tell." Danny grinned sheepishly. "You need anything? Mom's got a first aid kit in the lab."
"Actually, yeah." Valerie grinning shyly at her friend while Sam rolled her eyes at the display. "That ghost got me pretty good, didn't he?"
Compared to what he wanted to do, he barely scratched you. Danny mused to himself as the group migrated inside the building to help tend Valerie's thankfully minor injuries. The four teens who had witnessed the division of Danny's alternate future self had to keep their thoughts on the matter to themselves, at least until Valerie left. From the secretive glances back and forth, it was clear to Danny that they were all at a loss to explain the reactions of the two ghosts.
Jack and Maddie returned some time later from their ineffective hunt, the adults looking surprisingly deflated. It made sense; not only did the ghost they were after escape, but they had probably seen most of the damage from the ghost's rampage up close, whereas Danny had primarily seen it only from the air. Upon spotting the kids, Maddie veritably sprang over, embracing a startled Danny and Jazz tightly.
"Oh, I am so glad you're both alright! Your father and I saw the damage outside and we were worried-!" The slender woman declared, while Danny tried to hide a wince as his mom's embrace made his bruised back ache anew.
"Yeah... We saw the news." Sam gave Danny a sympathetic glance. "And... hid in the basement when we heard a crash!"
"A crash?" Jack glanced at the goth, expression indicating a desire for further information.
"I think... one of the ghosts hit the roof!" Jazz stated. Well, it wasn't a lie, their parents just didn't have to know that the ghost that hit the roof had been Danny.
"Splattered spooks, the ops center's been compromised!" Jack cried out, bolting for the stairs. "It might still be up there! Let's move, Maddie!"
Maddie released her hold on her two kids, taking off up the stairs after Jack and pulling an ecto-weapon from some hidden pocket of her jumpsuit. The teens all exchanged mildly confused looks. Really, where could someone possibly conceal an ecto-gun that large in a skin-tight bodysuit?
"Speaking of nutty parents, I should get home." Valerie stood up with a slight cringe. "My dad's probably about ready to flip wondering where I am."
"Um, Jazz could probably give you a ride if you don't want to walk-?" Danny offered, earning a dirty look from Jazz, the redhead clearly not wanting to be volunteered without her consent.
"Oh, no, I'll be okay." Valerie opened the door. "But thanks, Danny. See you later?"
"Yeah, later Val!" Danny shut the door after the dark girl left. Valerie would probably just use her suit and jet sled to fly home, but he was trying to be nice. With the huntress gone and the elder two Fentons upstairs scouring the ops center for ghostly intrusion, the four teens sat down with a collective sigh.
"So..." Tucker was the first to break the silence. "Danny wasn't kidding when he said that guy was some sort of freaky fusion of him and Vlad, huh?"
Another round of silence fell on the room as all four considered that. It was one thing to be told something strange like that. It was another entirely to see concrete proof of it in the form of the two ghosts that were now loose somewhere in the city. There was only one thing any of them could say in the wake of that revelation.
"EW!"
"Being totally grossed out aside, I'm going to have to find them both and do something about it." Danny sighed, clearly disturbed by the encounter. "I mean, we can't just let them get away after...all of that!"
The half-ghost gestured at the TV and its ongoing coverage of Amity Park's most recent ghost crisis. Amazingly enough there were no known reports of fatalities from the ghost's rampage, though the report indicated that injuries were in the hundreds and that the totals were still inconclusive. Still, even if no one was killed, it would probably take months for the damage to be repaired. The entire battle had been an uncomfortable reminder of that apocalyptic future.
"Yeah, instead of one powerful deranged maniac, there's two crazies loose now." Tucker frowned at the television.
"But it was weird how they both freaked out, don't you think?" Sam finally gave voice to the oddity of the day that had been bothering the entire group. "Plasmius just spazzed out about the thermos, and Da-... Phantom? He completely freaked out."
"That's the weird thing. If he's supposed to be some sort of totally evil me, how come they didn't both jump me?" Danny frowned. "Split or not, they had the advantage."
The group sat in silence considering that. It didn't make any sense, given their limited knowledge of Danny's alternate self. From what they had all seen, and what Danny had told them of that forgotten and time-erased final battle, the ghost hadn't an ounce of compassion in him, there was nothing but hatred and a firm loathing of all life. Certainly the ghost's ego and confidence alone were a nigh-impenetrable barrier to sane reason, and six months stuffed in a Fenton Thermos hadn't made the deranged spook any saner. That Sam had been able to stop the ghost dead in his tracks with wit alone was similarly baffling.
"I don't think they were just freaking out." Jazz grabbed her backpack and fished a book from it: Headshrinker's Almanac. The younger teens all stared at the redhead as she flipped to the textbook's index and then to a seemingly random page.
"Hello, did you happen to miss that entire-" Sam pitched her voice deeper in mocking imitation of Phantom's earlier outburst. "'Get away from me!' bit? Split or fused, the guy wasn't anywhere near rational."
"I'm serious!" Jazz didn't look up from the book. "I think Phantom was showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, not just 'freaking out'."
"Post-traumatic-whaty-what?" Tucker quirked an eyebrow, unfortunately inviting the lecture full of psychology babble.
"Post-traumatic stress disorder." Jazz repeated, her voice taking on that teacher-talking-to-student sort of tone she tended to adopt when blathering about psychology. "It's what happens to a person who can't cope with some sort of traumatic experience."
Danny and his two friends exchanged looks. Maybe Jazz was on to something with the psycho-babble? "Okay Jazz, I'll bite." Danny eased back against the couch cushions.
"From what you told us, he exists because of some messed up fusion with Vlad's ghost self, right?" Jazz glanced at her brother, who nodded once. "Well, in that other future, what drove you to go to Vlad in the first place?"
Danny cringed, he didn't particularly like actually associating himself at all with that timeline. "From what Vlad told me in the future, I moved in with him since he was the only guy in the world who could understand me at all after..." He paused, not much liking giving words to that horrible concept. "... after you guys all died in that explosion."
"So you're telling us that he's like that because he couldn't cope with our getting killed ten years in his past?" Sam sounded dubious.
"Not counting whatever else got all messed up with the fusion, yes." Jazz nodded, sounding pretty certain of her theory. "And we don't know what else happened in that ten year span."
"I can guess." Danny shivered, the memories of that twisted future still all-too-fresh in his mind despite the fiasco with the C.A.T. exam being some six months behind him. He gestured again at the television and its aerial footage of the wide swatch of demolition left from the ghost's rampage. "Imagine that, only about a billion times worse. Everything was flattened. The only survivor that we ran into was Valerie."
"Yeah, and she was pretty far off her nut in that future, too!" Tucker added.
"Can you really blame her?" Sam pointed out in a rare defense of the huntress. "Apparently in that timeline, Danny really did ruin her entire life."
"And everything else." Tucker nodded.
"Can we stay on topic? This isn't about Valerie." Jazz interrupted, mildly annoyed at the off-topic discussion. "Okay, so the explosion and catastrophic loss was the primary trauma. PTSD patients try to avoid things that remind them of the trauma. Which would fit with why Phantom panicked and ran away like that."
"So why now and not ten years ago?" Danny still wasn't convinced.
"Blame Vlad?" Jazz shrugged, reciting from the textbook. "'The patient isolates themselves, becoming detached in their feelings with a restricted range of emotional response, and can experience so-called emotional detachment or numbing.' That sounds an awful lot like what he was like before you hit him with the Ghostcatcher. Maybe because of the fusion with Vlad's ghost half, he reacted with some sort of extreme avoidance and didn't have the other symptoms like flashbacks until the fusion was undone?"
"Blowing everything up is avoidance?" Tucker glanced at Danny. "Isn't that a little... I dunno, ineffective? Or at least really tedious?"
"Maybe not with the kind of power he's got." Danny frowned, staring at the floor.
Was it possible that if the unthinkable ever happened that he would willingly opt to try and destroy everything familiar? All in a frantic attempt to try and do away with painful memories? Was there an actual method to his alternate self's madness? Regardless of whether or not there was, it still fell to him to resolve the situation. At least before the insane ghost had been split in half, he was a known enemy. Danny knew relatively well what could be expected of the fire-headed spook. With the ghost now split in two, he now had two relatively unknown opponents to deal with.
Sure, he could probably make a pretty good guess as to what he could expect of Plasmius. Danny was familiar with the tall ghost's present day counterpart, and how Vlad usually operated. It seemed a reasonable assumption that a fifty-year-old Vlad probably wasn't much different in behavior than the present forty-year-old Vlad was. Still, there were unknowns. Vlad in that warped timeline had acted radically different from the billionaire's present day self after all; there was certainly no guarantee that the man's ghost half alone would be anything like the present timeline archvillain.
Then there was Phantom, the twenty-four year old version of Danny's own ghostly self. Plasmius was an unknown, but one could make a fair guess about the spikey-haired spook. There was nothing Danny could use to even begin to gauge how his older mirror image would behave. What would happen when the ghost's initial panic wore off? Would he resume the destructive rampage that the fused version had attempted? Would he alter his behavior closer to how Danny himself generally acted?
"How are we going to even start looking for them, anyway?" Sam quirked an eyebrow at Danny. "And when? No offense, Danny, but I think it's going to have to wait until tomorrow."
"And just leave them on the loose overnight?" Danny protested.
"Dude, Sam's right. You got beat up pretty bad." Tucker glanced at his friend, gaze lingering on the variety of bruises and scrapes clearly visible even though the wounds had been sustained while Danny had been in ghost form. "Even if they're loose, they aren't causing trouble yet."
"And we don't know what they're both capable of." Jazz jumped on the bandwagon. "I think the best thing to do right now is wait until morning. Danny, you should really give yourself a rest while you can. I'm sure if anything happens overnight, it'll be all over the news."
Danny didn't want to admit it, but his friends and sister had good points. Despite how quickly he tended to bounce back from injuries, he knew he would likely be sore for the next few days. That, and while he was already resolved to tracking the two ghosts down no matter how creepy and unsettling it would be, the half-ghost teen was most certainly not looking forward to that encounter.
"I guess you guys are right." Danny grumbled. "I just hope Valerie doesn't find them first."
---
"You could have been killed!" Damon scolded while Valerie sat there glaring at nothing in particular.
"Well somebody had to stop that ghost!" Valerie protested. Sure, it was dangerous, but after seeing that hotheaded spook's destructive power how could anyone not feel anger and an intense desire to defend against it?
Heck, even her usual nemesis Danny Phantom had been trying to stop the other ghost. That alone had been strange- the ghost-kid had been fighting that monster with a singleminded intensity that she seldom ever saw him display. He certainly never fought her with that sort of absolute determination. Most of the time he merely avoided her with a sort of impish amusement and fought back only until he could shake her from his tail. The ghost-kid was infuriatingly good at that. In contrast, the nearly do-or-die determination he'd shown that demonic ghost was very nearly disturbing. The huntress didn't care to imagine that intense green-eyed glare directed at her.
"Why does it have to be you, Valerie?" Her father countered. "Why do you have to put your life on the line fighting ghosts?"
"Because." Valerie growled, clenching a fist despite the motion sending a painful protest shooting up her arm. "I have the capability to. I'm good at this, and nobody else is gonna stop these stupid ghosts!"
The entire argument was pointless, really. Unlike her old suit, there was no backpack full of weapons or special watch that Damon could confiscate. Valerie's new suit seemed to be entirely thought-operated, some new nanotechnology perhaps. No matter what Damon commanded, there was little the man could actually do to curtail Valerie's activity.
"Valerie." Damon massaged the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Sweetie, at least take a break from it for a few days."
"Dad-!"
"Valerie, you're already hurt. You stopped the ghost, I don't think there's going to be anything major enough for you to risk your neck over until after you're better." Damon had a good point. There had been simply no way for Valerie to hide the wide variety of scrapes, bruises, and burns she had sustained before she'd blacked out during the fight. Her shoulder hurt an awful lot with even the slightest of movements, it seemed likely she'd twisted or sprained something. Fancy new battle suit or not, with her injuries she would not be able to put up much of a fight, and she knew it.
"Fine." Valerie grumped, accepting the compromise with no good grace. "I'll be in my room."
"Thank you, sweetie." Damon gingerly hugged his annoyed daughter as she climbed to her feet.
Valerie stormed to her room, flopping onto her bed as heavily as her battered body would permit. Sure, her dad was worried about her safety, but in the greater scheme of things, which would have been worse? The huntress risking her neck to stop that monster, or playing it safe while the city burned from the ghost's terrifying power? She mentally reviewed the battle, wondering who the heck that ghost was, and what his relation was to the ghost-boy. The ghost-kid clearly had no love for the tall ghost that shared his DP insignia. Were they rivals of some sort? Siblings perhaps?
The huntress was jolted from her pondering by the loud ring of her cellular phone next to the bed. With a wince, she snatched the device and flipped it open to take the call. Probably Danny checking to make sure she'd gotten home safely.
"Hello?" She paused in mild surprise when she recognized the voice on the other end of the line. "Mr. Masters?"
Closing Note: Again, I'm sorry about the delay! With MikomiCon over with now however, in theory I should be able to stick to my weekly update schedule again. Hopefully. I intend to try! First off, thanks to my sister One Amahira for helping me pin down Jazz's psychobabble, and to Mabaroshiwoou from DPO for proofreading this, since I'm presently down with a head cold and doped up on cold medication right now.
Secondly, thanks to Sasia, PotterPhan21, Punker88, i AM the Random Idiot, MissMune, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Tornada Silverwind, and CharmedNightSkye for taking the time to submit reviews, even if only to threaten me with violence for that cliffhanger in the last chapter. You guys rock out loud, and I shower you all with virtual lollipops! (Everyone else does cookies. I'm being different!)
Lastly, I am happy to announce that one of my many plot bunnies has found an excellent home! "More Than a Thesis" has been adopted by MissMune, and from the first chapter the story looks promising. So go read it and give her some reviews, too! (http :// www. fanfiction. net/s/ 3189439/1/ )