The Odd Trio: A mega evntually Cartoon Crossover

by Staredcraft

UPDATED! Revisted and Edited! Join Danny Phantom, JennyXJ9, and Ninjetta Kimi Finster as they meet up for the first time ever! You're in for a wild ride when these three are around! Can they stop the deadly team up of Vlad Plasmius, Former Queen Vexus

3. Chapter 2 Blood of a Hero

Odd Trio Episode 1

Chapter 2 - The Blood of a Hero

Kimi sat on her bed thinking about What Tommy, Danny, and Jenny said. She knew they were right, but she just couldn't help feeling that she was responsible for her father's death. Not only that, but it nearly happened again. She almost lost Chuckie and her mother as well because she wasn't there to defend her city. She knew she couldn't save everyone, but how could she save anyone if she couldn't even save the rest of her own family?

But why did she become Ninjetta in the first place? Sure, initially she did it to avenge the death of the only father that she'd ever known.

But there was a greater reason.

She didn't want anyone to have to go through the pain that she'd already been through to lose any family member. And isn't that was all people are—someone's family or friends?

Kimi remembered how Danny did what he could to ensure that his parents wouldn't get hurt.

But Jenny, her mother was still being held captive. Vexus probably still had her. Who knows what she could do to her.

And what about everyone else she'd helped? All the lives she'd saved in the past?

They were right. No matter how much she realized that being Ninjetta wouldn't bring her dad back, she still had a responsibility. Being Ninjetta was more to her than just vengeance.

It was a matter of honor, of honoring her father and his memory. It was her duty to make the world as safe a place as she possibly could.

Somewhere out there, enemies of hers, Danny's and Jenny's had banded together to try to destroy what she sought to create—Peace.

Just the mere thought of it…almost set off her Ninja Sense, just the slightest bit.

Something bad was going to happen.

Kimi looked down at herself. She still had her suit on.

And she was still Ninjetta.

"Have you found anything yet?" Danny asked Jenny, who was standing in the middle of the living room, trying to search the Internet through her brain on anything about those gems that could help—and possibly tell what those fiends were up to. Perhaps it would lead her to her mother as well.

"You know, if you keep on interrupting me," Jenny said, "I'm going to lose my place, and then I'll have to start all over again."

"Sorry." Danny said.

Suddenly, Kimi burst abruptly out of her room. The shock made Jenny lose her search place. She and Danny jumped.

"Kimi?" Tommy said, "Are you okay?"

"I've never been better, Tommy," she smiled, "We have to find Dr. Wakeman before it's too late. I have a bad feeling that something bad is going down."

"Like what?" Jenny asked, "I tried scanning the sky for some sort of presence of a spaceship, but I couldn't find any near enough to be in my range, and I tried searching the Internet, but I couldn't find anything about those gems."

Suddenly the door flew open, and there stood Gaz, with a very large, old book. Tucker and Sam were standing behind her.

"Well, Well," Gaz said, "I seem to have found the Freak Patrol."

"ODD TRIO!" they corrected.

"Whatever," Gaz said, "Just making a suggestion, besides, I thought it had a nice ring to it."

"Gaz, what are you doing here?" Kimi asked.

"I seem to have found something terrible about our little project," Gaz said holding up a tattered old encyclopedia.

"But…" Jenny said, "If you found something in that old book, how come I couldn't find anything on the Internet?"

"Because, child," Gaz said, "The Internet may be an abundant resource, but it only has whatever someone has found and thought was worth the effort to put on it. And while books may be ultra low-tech to you, you'll always find exactly what you're looking for, if you just bother to look."

Gaz dropped the book onto the coffee table on its spine. It cracked open and fell open to a page she'd book marked earlier.

"Here we are:" Gaz read, "The Mystic Gems of Asteroth.

"In ancient legend of unknown origins, tales were told of three gems forged by a demon named Asteroth, They were meant to harness the power of three different forces of evil: Fear, Helplessness, and Death. When focused correctly by surrounding ambient light, a beam will shoot forth from the gems. If focused on a victim, each gem will attack said victims' mind or body according to whichever power it signifies. The first forged by Asteroth was Helplessness, made to render a victim unconscious and unable to move. The second was Fear, meant to attack the psyche of its victim by entrancing them into a dream-like state in which the victim lives out his greatest fear…"

"Or HER greatest fear!" Ninjetta said, "That's the one that was used on me!"

"Sorry," Gaz said, "It's this old time literature. I've found it tends to be very sexist…moving on…this is the first part that disturbed me.

"The third and final gem forged by Asteroth was Death. When focused on a victim, it is said to completely disintegrate its physical structure, thereby completely destroying the victim."

Ninjetta stood up.

"We have to find that gem before those villains do."

"Too late." Gaz said.

"What?"

"It's too late. It seems the baddies did their homework. Ironically enough, where as Helplessness was found in Amity Park, and Fear was found in Los Angeles…"

"Death…" Jenny gasped, "...was found in Tremorton!"

"Bingo."

"Oh No!" Jenny said, "And it's been used?!"

"Apparently," Gaz said grimly, "Reports have stated that a bunch of glowing robots, just like the ones here in LA stormed the Tremorton Museum. Witnesses reported seeing a strange bright flash as they fled the scene."

"Oh no!" Jenny said slowly sitting down, "And I...I wasn't there to stop them!"

"Jenny," Kimi said, "It's okay. There was no way of knowing."

"But…but…"

"Jenny," Gaz said, "I'm sorry it had to come down to this, but we still have a job to do, and your mother is still being held captive somewhere."

"Right!" Ninjetta said, "Remember, continue on, doing what you believe in."

A look spread across Jenny's face, half of anger, half of determination.

"You're right." she said, "Let's go."

"Hold on just a sec." Gaz said throwing her hand up in front of them, "Did I say I was finished?"

"There's more?"

"Of course there's more. Duh!" Gaz said, "There's one other part that you guys should hear."

And then she continued reading:

"The Mystic Gems' powers must be activated once, by focusing their energy on a victim. Once such is done, they are then brought together in a sacred ritual in which the Gems will actually call forth the Demon Asteroth, to wreak havoc, destruction and death upon the world."

The Odd Trio gasped.

Kimi: Ninja power!

Jenny: Teenage Robot!

Danny: Going Ghost! 3...

Jenny: ...2...

Kimi: ...1

Together: Odd Trio!

When we are together, we are the Odd Trio!

Three young superhero powered teens,

Working together as a fighting team,

They and their friends are doing things their way,

Helping out the world to save the day.

They stick together like birds of a feather,

Champions alone but unstoppable together

Ninjetta, Danny Phantom, XJ-9,

Their here to save the world from crime!

They'll never stop until their work is done,

They may be three but they work as one,

They do coolest things as a team,

Hard to believe that they're still in their teens,

Their powers my not be fully developed, But they'll save the day for you and me! Odd Trio!

A black car zoomed by on a dirty city street as our three heroes flew and swung directly overhead.

Gaz drove the car, carrying Tommy, Sam and Tucker along as they made their way to the museum in Tremorton. Above them, Ninjetta shot off another string of webbing as Danny Phantom and XJ-9 flew next to her.

Danny looked at Ninjetta.

"So...this girl named Savannah...she's Assassina. How did this happen?" He asked.

Ninjetta sighed as she swung.

"Well...back in junior high, she was one of those popular girls that everybody tried to be like. But she was sort of snotty though.

Anyway, when we got to High School she found out quickly that there were other girls that were more popular than she was. She went straight from being the most popular girl in junior high to being just another regular girl high school. Even when I got into high school, she was a junior, and still wasn't up there with all the popular kids."

"And she didn't like that, did she?" Jenny asked.

"Bingo." Ninjetta said. "Anyway, she noticed how popular I was getting taking pictures of...well...Ninjetta."

"You took pictures of yourself?!" Danny asked.

"Yeah, and I started selling them to the Los Angeles Tribune." Ninjetta continued, "She tried too, and was doing quite well. But then she decided that she wasn't becoming popular enough, fast enough, so she tried to spice it up and made false close ups and even went so far as to have a falsified interview with Ninjetta. I later exposed her and she was disgraced. The Tribune fired her, and she was so embarrassed that she even dropped out of school."

"Eew." Danny said.

"Actually I think that's more of a 'Yikes'," Ninjetta said, "But whatever."

"But what about that outfit of hers?" Jenny asked. "It's unlike anything I've ever seen. It moves on its own…like it's alive."

"It is alive." Ninjetta said.

"What?" Danny and Jenny gasped.

"She's a completely different form of life. She's a being called a Djinn; they sort of come from a parallel dimension. Usually we can't see them, but they can see us. They're just like humans, they live and die and eat and sleep, and there's even good and evil. Usually they leave humans alone, but sometimes the mischievous ones actually possess humans, and even have the power to manipulate their thoughts and emotions."

"Just like a ghost!" Danny said.

"Exactly." Ninjetta answered.

"That explains why the Sonic Exorcist worked on her?" Danny asked.

"No." Ninjetta said, "It worked because she's sensitive to loud noises, and high-pitched sounds and bright light."

"Wait," Jenny said, "How do you know that this…Djinn thing…is a she?"

"Well," Ninjetta said, "I found her, and she possessed me, and our minds sort of merged for a while. But after I found out that she was manipulating me for evil, I overpowered her and rejected her. But I had already learned a lot about her, and she learned EVERYTHING about me. Anyway, it found Savannah and possessed her, and they both bonded because they both hate my guts. So since the Djinn knows who I am and knows all my moves and everything, so does Savannah now. Assassina doesn't even set off my Ninja Sense." Ninjetta sighed.
"Oh. So she…er…THEY must really hate you now then, huh?" Danny asked.
"You have no idea." Ninjetta sighed.

Meanwhile, Vexus reclined in a command seat on her cloaked spaceship and smirked evilly as she looks at the news report of the ghost possessed Cluster Robots and Joxer's attack on the museum.
"Foolish humans! They cannot defeat beings under our control!" laughed Queen Vexus.

Suddenly a drone walked onto the command deck. Vexus' chair wheeled around to look at him.

"Yes?" She said sternly.

"Oh Mighty and Powerful Overlady Vexus," he said groveling, "The prisoner has awoken from its slumber, your Most Magnificent Excellency."

"Fantastic," Vexus said, "I must pay it a visit."

Vexus arose form her seat and made her way to the detention level.

Inside her glass cell, Dr. Wakeman tried pounding the glass panels until they would shatter. She had no such luck, as every time she impacted the pane, she just bounced off as the glass vibrated for a moment. Still she kept trying. She threw herself into the pane again, falling back down as the pane continued to shudder.

"You're wasting your time, Wakeman." Vexus said as she walked into the room, "That glass is made from the absolute densest, unbreakable plastic in the cosmos. Nothing can get through it, certainly not you."

"Vexus," Wakeman glared, "I knew it would only be a matter of time before you crawled out of the woodwork again. I must say though that anytime would have been too soon."

"Love your welcome, Mrs. Wakeman." Queen Vexus said, glaring back. "By the way, you may not notice, but we have stolen the last two Mystic Gems, and have taken some hostages as well. They will be perfect sacrifices to Asteroth when we release him."

"Asteroth?" Wakeman said, "Where have I heard that name before?"

"Asteroth is a mystical demon," Vexus explained, "And we shall use his power to destroy the universe! And as I understand it, you are well versed in knowledge of him."

Wakeman glared, "So you're gong to use me to find out how to release him?"

"Dear lady, perish the thought," Vexus hissed, "We just want you out of the way…permanently!"

"Hold on one moment," Wakeman said, "Do you mean Asteroth is the demon that's entrapped within these three Mystic Gems?"

"The very same." Vexus said.

"Wait!" Wakeman gasped. "You can't! You can't release Asteroth! If you do, you may not be able to control him!"

"We don't have to." Vexus said, "We'll ally ourselves with him and he will wreak havoc upon this insignificant world and you will all be at our mercy!"

"Vexus!" Wakeman said, "I'm warning you! You will not be able to handle Asteroth!"

"Right…" Vexus said, ignoring her, "The visit was fun, Wakeman, but now that we have all three gems, we are unstoppable! And I do believe we have a demon to release upon humanity."

With that, Vexus walked out of the detention area, leaving a very flabbergasted Dr. Wakeman.

"Oh my," she said, "This can only end badly. I hope XJ-9 gets here soon, or the consequences could be severely horrendous!"

Back in his office, Stan Matthews reclined back in his chair, still smoking a cigar. He opened his mouth and steadily exhaled so that the smoke escaped in a large, thick billow.

Suddenly, the door burst harshly open with a loud thud as Joxer kicked it open. Stan sat up sharply as Joxer stood in the doorway grimacing furiously.

"It's about time you got back," Stan said laconically, reclining back in his chair, "It doesn't take two hours to forcefully raid a museum and steal one freaking gem."

Joxer only growled.

"I trust you DO have the gem, correct son?" the elder Matthews said, "It'd be a shame if you screwed this up."

At those words, Joxer completely lost what little control he had. In a fit of rage, he grabbed the door he'd just kicked open and completely ripped it from its hinges. With a mighty heave, he threw the door edge-first at his father's head.

Stan Matthews sighed in annoyance as he sat forward, the door still rocketing toward him.

Suddenly, in a swirl of smoke, Plasmius appeared in the door's path. He held his hand up, glowing bright pink and shot a large beam of ectoplasmic energy at the projectile, completely disintegrating it in midair.

Joxer gasped, in bared-teeth astonishment and frustration.

"You! You…" He stammered, "How DARE YOU!!!"

"Settle down, boy." Plasmius ordered, "I will not stand for this, and neither will your father. Now stand down."

"My FATHER?!" Joxer howled, "My FATHER!?! My 'father' is a backstabbing, distrusting…"

"ENOUGH." Stan boomed standing up just as sharply as he sat, "ALAN, THE GEM. NOW."

"You know what?" Joxer said, angrily pointing at his father, "I don't even have the gem, Assassina does, and even if I did, I couldn't really give a rat's arse about it! You and your stupid little ritual can go to—!"

At that very moment a long, black tendril prodded the back of Joxer's head, and he froze in fear instantly as a shockingly cold sensation washed over him.

"Now, now," Assassina said, "There's no use for that kind of language, especially when talking to your father. He's just trying to secure his assets as any good businessman does."

Assassina removed the tendril from Joxer's head and he returned to a normal state of consciousness with a violent shiver.

Matthews and Plasmius gasped in shock as she sauntered in, hips swiveling, and carrying the gem.

"What was that?" Plasmius demanded to know.

"Something you can't do, I'm sure." Assassina said disgustedly as she diminutively sized up the ghost in front of her, "Now move out of my way so that we can get this over with."

"Excellent," Stan smirked greedily as Assassina set the gem on his desk, "I will notify Vexus. The ritual shall begin immediately."

Stan opened a cover on his desk and pressed a button.

Within seconds, Vexus teleported directly into Stan Matthew's office, carrying a large case.

"The third Gem is ours, Vexus!" Matthews said, "Give me the case with the other two."

"As you wish," Vexus complied, laying the chest on Stan's desk.

Stan opened the case, and took out the remaining two Gems and held it in his hand with the other. He held them up above his head, cackling evilly. The rest of the villains stepped back, as they expected Asteroth to come forth from the Gems.

When he didn't, they stood back up confused.

"Well, is it going to work or not?" Vlad snapped.

"Yes I agree. I thought once they were together then Asteroth would come forth." Vexus added.

"SILENCE!" Matthews snapped wildly, lurching forward with bared teeth. Everyone, save for Assassina, jumped back in alarm. Stan regained composure, adjusting his tie with his free hand.

"Yes. Well," Stan said pseudo-calmly, "Apparently there was a miscalculation on my part that I had only recently discovered."

"A MISCALCULATION!?!" Joxer screamed as he flew off the handle again, "Why you miserable, stupid son of a—"

Assassina raised her tendrils to him again, and Joxer immediately stopped his sentence short.

"What sort of miscalculation?" Joxer grumbled, returning to a more civil tone.

"As it turns out," Stan continued, "According to the legend, for the gems to work correctly there must be a coating of blood on each of them, each from a different person, according to what they consider their blood."

"Well, if that's all…" Vlad said, phasing back into his human form, "I'm willing to donate to the cause."

Vlad pulled out a small dagger from the inside of his coat pocket.

"No Vlad!" Stan boomed, "Save your blood."

The group of villains looked at Stan awkwardly.

"According to legend," Stan explained, "The gems draw their power from those whose blood is used. So, in essence, we need the blood of very powerful individuals indeed."

"Then what's the problem with my blood?" Vlad snarled.

"Absolutely nothing" the elder Matthews grinned evilly, "but why waste your blood and pain when we can get it by more convenient—younger—means?"

All of the villains smirked...they knew who was needed.

Jenny landed harshly to the ground, sending out a large spider-crack in the asphalt below as Ninjetta and Danny landed on either side of her. As they looked around, they saw that the entire place was deserted.

"Be quiet," Jenny said, "Who knows what's going on, or who's still hanging out here." Danny and Ninjetta nodded.

"Right," Ninjetta said, "Now there has to be something around here that'll lead us to the villains."

"Let's split up," Danny said, "We'll cover more ground that way, and if any of us run into trouble, just call for help."

Ninjetta winced. "I don't think that such a good idea. They do that in the movies, and everyone ends up getting killed."

"Yeah," Danny smiled, "but were any of them super-powered Ghosts, Robots or Ninjas?"

"Fine." Ninjetta conceded, "but be careful, and come back to this spot, if there's too much trouble to handle."

"Got it." Jenny said as wheels extended from the bottom of her feet. And she rolled off silently down a corridor.

"They gotta see me if they wanna catch me." Danny smiled as he phased into invisibility and flew off.

Ninjetta jumped up onto the wall, landing on it silently before slinking into the shadows.

Outside, Gaz's car rolled up to the museum. As she shut off the engine and lights, she stepped out and looked around. A strong foreboding shook her.

Something was wrong. Where were the heroes?

Sam had gotten out of the passenger side and had begun to let Tucker and Tommy out of the back seat.

"No." Gaz said, "Stay in the car. This could be dangerous."

"But Gaz," Sam protested, "Our friends are in there and we're going to help them any way we can."

Gaz turned to look at Sam.

"The best thing you can do," Gaz said, "Is remain in the car and out of the way. Kimi, Jenny and Danny can take care of themselves for the most part, but we don't need mundanes like you guys getting hurt."

With that, Gaz turned in a swirl of black trenchcoat and purple hair and ran off to the entrance, leaving Sam standing statically, her jaw dropped in offense.

"Wh—what?" She stammered, "Mundanes?! Why…why that little..."

"Mundanes?" Tucker repeated, "Man, she's got some nerve."

"Well, she can't talk to us like that," Tommy said, "Let's show her how un-mundane we really are. C'mon!"

"But…" Tucker stammered, "Gaz told us to stay in the car!"

"Yeah," Tommy said, "and she called us Mundane too, so let's go!"

"Eh…" Tucker said, "You guys go ahead, I think I'll stay here."

"Quit messing around Tucker!" Sam said.

Tommy nudged Sam.

"Relax," he said, "My friend Chuckie does this to me all the time, let me handle it."

"Okay, Tucker," Tommy said, nonchalantly walking off, "You can stay here while Sam and I go inside. You can just keep a lookout for when the badguys DO come."

"Wha—when the badguys come?" Tucker said, "What do you mean lookout?"

"Oh don't worry," Tommy said as he and Sam started off, "We'll know they're here once you start screaming for help."

As Sam and Tommy started running off, Tommy started counting:

"4…3…2…1..."

"Wait! Wait up!" Tucker said as he took off after the other two, "I changed my mind, I'm coming with you! Strength in numbers, you know!"

"That was amazing Tommy," Sam said, "How'd you do that?"

Tommy smiled. "Eh. It's a gift."

As Ninjetta crawled along the top of the wall, she paused and looked back at the gaping hole at the front of the museum where they—and presumably the villains—had entered. She could see the stars twinkling in the night sky. She peered off back down the hall into the darkness of the museum before her.

She suddenly felt a small shiver in her mid-spine. Something was down there.
Ninjetta jumped down from the wall and took of in a half-sprint down into the darkness. Farther and farther she ran in until suddenly, her Ninja Sense radiated abruptly and harshly from her head. Ninjetta stopped in her tracks and drew her katana, stancing herself and looking around. She looked around in the darkness, her spine still bristling with her Sense transmitting from her head in almost throbbing waves. The only sound she could hear was the faint huffing of her own breath.

Wait.

Large sword in mid-swath. It's coming from behind.

JUMP!

Ninjetta jumped suddenly and flipped over, slashing her blade below her head to block the incoming strike. As the two blades clashed, a large spark spit forth, lighting the darkness.

As Ninjetta landed, she saw him. The Ninja Ghost stood before her, grimacing fiercely, possessing a new mecha-suit.

"You!" Ninjetta grated.

"Hello, young one," The Ninja Ghost cackled, "Prepare to meet your ancestors!"

"Oh, get a life." Ninjetta cracked as she readied her sword, "Literally."

Danny glided through the air, still remaining invisible; looking for any sort of clue that could lead him to where the villains could be. He prayed he didn't actually run into one.

As he flew forward, he heard a small noise. He gasped as he turned quickly to look over his shoulder. He gazed back down the hall to see if anybody had been following him, but all he saw was where he'd already been. He floated down closer to the ground and continued flying on down the hall, peering back every so often too see if anyone really had been following him. Something about this place didn't feel right. He couldn't sense any ghosts around; his breath hadn't gone cold, but something about this dark, damaged museum gave even the Ghost Boy the creeps.

Danny spun around again suddenly when he thought he'd heard another sound again. Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

He started to fly forward again, but as he turned around, his face met with the huge jaws of a Tyrannosaurus skull.

Danny jumped back and let out a yelp as he unconsciously phased solid again and hit the ground hard. He looked back up at the skeletal display of the T-Rex in front of him and heaved a heavy sigh.

Man, he thought as he stood up and dusted himself off, why am I feeling so jumpy?

Suddenly he felt a tap on the back of his shoulder.

Danny jumped again and grabbed the arms of whoever was behind him.

"HEY!" Sam yelled, "Danny! It's me!"

Danny heaved another sigh as he let go of Sam. Tommy and Tucker walked up next to her.

"Jeez." Danny said, "Sorry, I'm just a little on edge. There's just something about this place that gives me the heebie-jeebies."

As Danny drew in his next breath, it froze in his lungs, and as he gasped it out, it fogged heavier than it ever had before.

"Like that?" Sam gulped in worry.

Danny turned around and suddenly, from the darkness materialized not just one ghost…

…but several.

Skullker, Technus, Desiree, Lunch Lady, Walker, Ember, and the Fright Knight appeared before him, all armed to the teeth in new mecha-battle suits.

"Uh, yeah," Danny answered Sam, "That would definitely give me the heebie-jeebies!"

"Uh, Tommy," Tucker said as he jabbed him with his elbow, "I think the badguys are here."

Suddenly a ferocious cackling filled the air around them as Vlad Plasmius descended though the ceiling.

"Well, hello, young Daniel," he sneered, "So glad you could join the party."

"Sam," Danny whispered back to her, "get Tucker and Tommy out of here, now!"

Meanwhile, Jenny rolled down the hall, hunkered down so that nobody could see her. She was scanning the area for any vital signs—anybody who might be hiding out, waiting to ambush her. Suddenly her internal computer blipped. There were two different vitals in the vicinity, dead ahead.

As she came out into a large exhibition room, she gasped as a horrible sight took her.

"Oh no!" she gasped, "Brad! Tuck!"

There she saw her two friends, tied up and hanging by their ankles from the ceiling right below a skylight. Moonlight shone down upon them; Jenny could already tell that they had both redded-out. She switched off her sensors and rushed over to them as fast as she could.

Jenny engaged her rocket boosters from the soles of her feet and flew up to them to get their heads reoriented. Thankfully, Jenny scanned them and made sure that they were okay. She cut the ropes that held them and carried them back down to the floor. Once on the ground, Jenny sat them up and tried to revive them, it was a few minutes before Brad came to.

"Unngh," Brad moaned, "Where am I?"

"Brad! Brad!" Jenny said worriedly, "It's me! It's Jenny! Are you okay?"

"My head is pounding," he answered.

At that moment, Tuck also regained consciousness.

"Tuck!" Jenny said, "Are you guys alright?"

"Oh man!" Tuck said, "Where are we?"

"What happened?" Jenny said, "Who did this to you?"

Once again, the hall filled with evil, sadistic cackling as Jenny looked up and around. The gears in Jenny's chest began to turn faster as her oil pump began to beat harder.

"I've gotta get you guys out of here," Jenny said as she picked the two boys up.

Suddenly, a horrible realization occurred to Tuck.

"Jenny no!" the young boy screamed, "It's a trap!"

"What?" Jenny said.

Suddenly, Jenny was hit hard from behind and knocked to the ground. Whatever hit her back actually HURT.

It STILL hurt! It BURNED!

"Auuugh!" Jenny screamed, "Acid!? What the—?!"

The wicked laughter became louder as Joxer the Clown walked into the Moonbeam, towering over the felled Teenage Robot.

"You!" Jenny gasped with rage.

"That's not all," a second, familiar voice chortled as Vexus appeared next to him from the darkness.

"Well, well," the evil clown giggled, "The gang's all here, it looks like. Welcome XJ-9, you know my good friend and associate Vexus here. Long time pals you are! Heard so much about you…not all of it good by the way. I hear you fancy yourself a revolutionary. Shame on you."

Joxer walked up closer to Jenny, drawing a cane.

"But allow me to introduce MYSELF." He said, his face faulting into a scowl and his demeanor suddenly turning malevolent, "I am Joxer the Fierce, the one…"

Suddenly, from the bottom of the cane, a large, diamond-tipped blade extended abruptly.

"…Who is DESTROYING YOU!"

The Ninja Ghost charged Ninjetta with amazing speed, but Ninjetta was quicker. She raised her sword to block as their steels clashed, shedding sparks and a loud CLANG that echoed through the exhibit hall. The Ninja Ghost swung back downward but Ninjetta blocked again, and bounced his sword back up. Ninjetta took advantage of the situation and tried to swipe for his head, but the Ninja Ghost blocked and took a swipe at Ninjetta's head. Ninjetta held her katana above her head to block, but as she did, the Ninja Ghost spun around and gave a mighty kick to her stomach, knocking the White Kurenai to the ground.

"And now, little girl," he said, spinning his sword with a flourish, "I shall dispose of you and finally get my revenge once and for all!"

Ninjetta flipped backwards to her feet and flourished her sword as she prepared for the Ninja Ghost to attack her again.

"Bring it, spook," she growled, waving her fingers for him to come.

Suddenly, and literally, from the darkness came an even swifter punch to the side of Ninjetta's head, followed by an elbow to her ribs and a sharp and swift uppercut kick to her face, sending Ninjetta flying across the room, and her sword flying off in the opposite direction. She landed on top of a sculpture, knocking it over with her.

Ninjetta groaned as she sat up and shook her head to keep herself conscious. Before she could get up though, a large black hand stretched out and grabbed her, pulling her up off of her feet. The darkness itself around her began to condense until it finally materialized into Assassina. The room around them would have seemed to be brighter, if not for the fact that nearly everything was engulfed in black flames. Assassina began to squeeze Ninjetta's throat, and the heroine started to gasp and cough, grabbing Assassina's hand, struggling and flailing wildly.

"Hey 'girl friend'," the villainess cackled, "I believe we have some unfinished business to attend to."
"Remember, leave her alive so that I may kill her myself!" yelled the Ninja Ghost.
"Like I could forget," said Assassina, rolling her eyes.

"Prepare to taste the fury of my five food groups of DOOM!" The Lunch Lady bellowed as she flew up in the air. A wave of sausages rose up behind her, seemingly from out of nowhere, and started to crash toward Danny.

Danny gasped as he quickly flew up and over the deadly wave of luncheon meats.

"Wow." He remarked to himself, "That…was weird."

He turned his attention back to Lunch Lady as the porky riptide prepared for another assault. She raised her hands, manipulating the meat for another rush at her foe.

"Hey, Lunch Lady!" Danny yelled firing off an energy blast at her, "Make like a cheap bun and split!"

The blast hit the Lunch Lady, sending her flying down the hall, followed by the punishing flow of bratwurst that she forgot to let go of.

Suddenly a large hand slammed Danny to the ground. Desiree's booming laughter filled the halls as her hand started to glow with ecto-energy.

"I WISH," she roared, "FOR YOU TO PERISH!"

But before she could fire her ecto-beam at him, Danny fired his own at her, knocking her back.

"And I wish not to!" Danny yelled as he flew at her, shoulder checking her into another display.

Before Danny could recoil to strike back at her again, Technus tagged him hard with an energy blast.

Sam, Tucker and Tommy watched in horror as the ghosts began to gang up on Danny.

"C'mon!" Sam said, waving her hand at the boys, "We've got to help Danny!"

They started to run to help their friend, but suddenly screeched to a halt as a giant metal boot stomped into their path. Skullker towered above them, arms folded, his armor face grinning widely.

"As for you three," he said, "you seem like the odd people out!"

Suddenly a large gun appeared out of his arm and aimed straight at the teens.

"So I shall turn you three into ghosts like everyone else!" the evil ghost laughed.

Sam, Tommy, and Tucker gasped and grabbed each other, waiting for the impending…

"Good!" remarked a screeching female voice, "That leaves me out of the equation!"

Skullker turned in the direction of the voice, only to see Gaz, in midair, leaping from the darkness. What little light there was glinted harshly off of her chrome spider legs; fully extended in attack formation, as she closed in on her victim.

Before Skullker could react to phase into intangibility, Gaz flew into him, walloping him a harsh blow to his head case. Skullker flew back several feet, crashing to the ground harshly.

The dark woman stood there over her prey, stanced for a fight, her spider legs primed for battle.

"Gaz!" Sam cheered.

"When I said 'stay in the car'," Gaz said, not so much as turning around, or changing the expression on her face, "It wasn't a freaking suggestion!"

Skullker struggled to his feet.

"Who are you?" He demanded of his assailant.

"DUH." Gaz sneered, "Were you not paying attention the last time I wasted your sorry behind?

I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!"

Gaz and Skullker roared at each other as they charged forward into battle.

Danny dodged blast after blast as Desiree tried to shoot him out of the air.

The ghost boy finally found an opening and blasted Desiree with a powerful ecto beam.

Suddenly, another of his old foes checked Danny hard to the ground.

"Well, well. Remember me, concert crasher?" Ember cackled deviously.

"Of course I remember you, Ember McLame-o," Danny said as he charged Ember. The rocker ghost darted out of his way just in time. Ember then flew at Danny and bashed him in the gut with her fist. Danny reeled over hard, but before he could recover, Ember flipped him over her shoulder. Danny hit the ground and skidded up against the wall.

"You hurt my feelings, ghost child," Ember said with a scowl, as she slung her guitar over her shoulder and amped up the volume, "No matter. You won't think I'm a lame-o after you hear my new ear-hurting hit!"

Ember slammed down hard on her strings and slid in hard on her high notes as a blast reverberated from the guitar. Danny gasped and dove out of the way as the blast blew a large chunk out of the wall where he'd just sat.

"Heard it!" Danny cracked wise, "It sucks!"

"Hear this!" Ember jammed hard again and aimed right at the ghost boy. Danny tried to dart out of the way, but it was too late. The reverb hit Danny hard and held onto him as Ember slid in high again, harshly tapping her high strings and cackling maniacally. Danny screamed in pain as the reverb beam ripped through him.

As Ember let go, Danny fell back down to the ground harshly, ghostly bluish smoke steaming from his back. Danny tried to regain his composure, but there was a harsh, painful ringing in his ears.

"NOW, how do you like my new hit, you little punk?" Ember cackled again.
All Danny saw were Ember's lips moving. He couldn't hear a thing she said. There was too much static noise.

"WHAT?" Danny yelled. He could barely hear himself.

Vlad chortled evilly. "That was magnificent, Ember! You made him deaf?"

"You got it, pops!" Ember smiled, "I put him under my Too-Close-to-the-Amp Spell. All he can hear is the ringing in his ears! Now he won't hear his friends' cries for help or that big ghost that's about to sneak up behind him."

Sure enough, Walker two-fisted Danny back to the ground from behind. The crooked Ghost Warden smiled deviously as he grabbed Danny by his collar.

"I've finally captured you again, Ghost Child." Walker grated.
Danny still couldn't hear him.

"HUH?"
Walker sighed in annoyance.

"I'VE FINALLY CAPTURED YOU AGAIN, GHOST CHILD!" he yelled in Danny's ear, in hopes that Danny could hear him.

"I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Danny screamed.

"YOU'RE GOING BACK TO JAIL!" Walker bellowed so hard that the ground beneath them shook.

"I DON'T HAVE A BLACK SNAIL!" Danny yelled back at him, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

Just then Technus flew up to Ember.

"HEY!" he yelled, straight into her ear, "WHAT ARE WE YELLING FOR?!"

Ember swung around hard.

"WHY YOU LITTLE…" she screamed, before she punched Technus' lights out.

"And now," Joxer said as he closed in on Jenny, "Here's the part where I end your miserable Life…"

Just then he contorted his hands into small fin-shapes on the top of his head and scrunched his face up in a complete mockery of his android adversary.

"…As a Teen-age Ro-bot!" he teased in song.

"Oh, no you DIDN'T!" Jenny seethed as she back-flipped onto her hands, and then sprung off of them, kicking Joxer in the chest as she landed. The evil clown flew straight across the room and into the wall several feet away.

Suddenly Vexus threw a punch toward Jenny, but Jenny ducked out of the way just in time, grabbing a hold of Vexus' arm. Jenny yanked Vexus forward and kneed the evil former-queen in the faceplate. Vexus braced for impact, but swung around and leg-swept Jenny off of her feet, felling XJ-9 once more.

Thinking quickly, Jenny landed on one of her hands, and rotated her waist quickly. As she did that, she raised her leg and bashed Vexus again and again in the face with her feet at high RPM. Vexus reeled back hard, stepping back twice before she landed on her knee.

Jenny smirked as she righted herself.

"You're losing it, you old piece of junkware!" Jenny said smirking.

"Don't be too sure of that, XJ-9!" Vexus snarled.

"Let's cut to the chase," Jenny growled back at her, "Where's my mom? If you hurt her, I swear you won't live long enough to regret it!"

"Worried about dear old Mommy, are you, XJ-9?" Vexus taunted her opponent, "Don't worry, she's still alive in high security in the brig on my ship, however she won't be for very long. As soon as this pathetic little world is ours, I shall take her into the farthest reaches of space and jettison her out into the cold vacuum through the garbage chute."

Joxer staggered back up to where Vexus was standing, glaring and fuming at XJ-9 as a stream of blood dribbled down the side of his sheet white face.

"Meanwhile," he growled, "I'm going to rip you apart with my bare hands, circuit by agonizing circuit…" he then started to chuckle with murderous bloodlust, "…And I'll make sure you're still FUNCTIONING while I do it, so you feel each and every wire ripped from your body!"

"And then if you're lucky," Vexus finished with a smirk, "I shall jettison your dismantled carcass along with her."

Jenny, Vexus and Joxer circled around each other. Jenny was trying to compute, as fast as electronically possible, how she would be able to take on two villains at the same time. More importantly, how was she going to get herself and her friends out of this bind and rescue her mother?

"I know what you're thinking, girlie," Joxer grated, "Oh dear, how'm I gonna save my poor defenseless little Mommy?"

"What you fail to realize, XJ-9" Vexus hissed, "Is that you'll be completely destroyed long before you'll be able to do anything about it."

"We'll see about that." Jenny said, scowling at her opponents.

An airborne Ninjetta crashed into another sculpture with a loud "OOF!"

As she regained composure, Kimi looked up to see an airborne Assassina, getting ready to pounce on her. Quickly, Ninjetta curled up her legs and kicked Sassy as hard as she could while the villainess was still in mid-air. The force of Ninjetta's blow contorted Assassina so much that as her midsection took the brunt of Kimi's blow, her upper body still traveled forward with the momentum stretching just a little more than humanly possible. Ninjetta quickly seized Assassina's elongated neck and punched her as hard as she could, square across her face. As Assassina's Body snapped back into humanoid form, Ninjetta used the momentum to send her flying again—straight at her second adversary. Ninjetta focused her powers on the Ninja Ghost, putting every last ounce of strength into the blow. Unbeknownst to her however, she began to glow with somewhat of a golden aura. Suddenly, just before Ninjetta could strike, the Ninja Ghost went intangible.

However, Kimi's brain didn't have enough time to swear before she felt the blow actually make contact with the intangible Ninja Ghost. He appeared into plain view again rocketing airborne through the exhibit hall, ricocheting off of a pillar before crashing completely through another sculpture and again into the ground, uprooting the tile and exposing the cement under-floor.

Ninjetta was taken aback.

"Wow!" she said to herself, "how did I do that?"

The Ninja Ghost staggered to his feet, angrier than ever. Screaming and sword drawn for attack, he charged Ninjetta with tremendous speed. Quickly, Ninjetta jumped into the air, as high as she could, somersaulting. As she flipped around, she noticed that Assassina had been charging her as well from behind. Sassy and the Ninja Ghost collided harshly as Ninjetta grabbed onto a pillar and stuck to it. She almost let go of it from laughing so hard.

"Well, you can certainly file that one in the 'Bumbling Goons' files," Ninjetta mocked.

Rubbing his head, The Ninja Ghost glared at Ninjetta.

"Get down here!" he screamed as he ran up and kicked the pillar, cracking it to the point that it started to topple.

Ninjetta jumped from her perch, landed squarely on the ground and grabbed her katana from underneath a pile of pulverized sculptures.

Assassina and the Ninja Ghost faced Ninjetta. The Apparition bared his sword, and the Djinn formed her own from her hands. The White Kurenai slowly stood up, stancing herself for battle. She glared down her opponents as they returned their poisonous gazes.

All was silent.

Suddenly, The Ninja Ghost emitted another deafening war cry and Assassina shrilly followed suit, the both of them charging Ninjetta.

Gaz's spider legs clanked across the floor noisily as she and Skullker circled each other. The two opponents glared ferociously as they waited for the other to attack.

Suddenly, a glowing green blade jutted out quickly from the gauntlet of Skullker's armor as he lunged for Gaz. The dark woman however, raised her spider legs, safely extending her body out of the way, while using two of them to strike Skullker from behind. Skullker's face hit the ground as he tumbled underneath Gaz. She jumped over him using her spider legs as he tumbled back to his feet. Gaz stuck two spider legs into the wall on either side of her high above her head and pulled herself up by them.

As Skullker stood back up, Gaz hurled herself at Skullker, kicking him square in the head, felling him again.

Skullker recovered back to his feet, growling in anger. Skullker lunged at Gaz again, but she quickly dove out of the way of Skullker's blade.
"Hold still you!" growled Skullker.
"Now how stupid would that be?" Gaz asked, smirking as she dodged another of Skullker's parries.

Gaz used two of her spider legs to sweep Skullker to the ground again. But as Skullker fell, he grabbed the spider legs that tripped him and yanked Gaz down with him. Gaz winced in pain as she hit the ground, but Skullker got up before she did—still holding onto her legs.

"I have you now, spider-woman." He growled with an evil grin. He yanked Gaz toward him and grabbed her neck.

"Argh...Let me go, Jackass!" Gaz yelled. She tried to struggle free of his grasp, but Skullker's grip was too strong. Suddenly Skullker hurled Gaz across the hall into a diorama display. Gaz plunged head-first into one of the papier-mâché velociraptors that was set up attacking a smaller dinosaur.

Gaz pried the small, be-feathered raptor off of her head in time to see Skullker flying at her, weapons deployed. She quickly dove out of the way Skullker crashed down onto the unfortunate raptor. Skullker wheeled around quickly as Gaz bounded out of the diorama and shot at her with his proton gun. The blast slammed Gaz back into the ground, landing a direct hit on her PAK. Too damaged to do anything else, the PAK's emergency damage control system auto-retracted the spider legs.

"Great," Gaz glowered as Skullker charged her again, "Where's my freaking bat when I need it?"

Skullker grabbed the now-defenseless Gaz again and disposed of her by throwing her into another diorama.

Danny was having a little trouble of his own trying to fend off his own opponents. However, without the ability to hear, it was easier said than done as one ghost would attack from the front and two others would attack from the rear. In no time at all, the ghosts were starting to overpower Danny.

Sam, Tucker and Tommy, had taken cover behind a Stegosaurus.

"Danny's in trouble out there!" Sam said, "There's got to be something we can do to help!"
"But what can we do, Sam?" Tucker said, "It's a veritable melee out there!"

"Man," Sam grunted in frustration, "If only I had my backpack! Then I'd have the Specter Deflector and the Jack-O-Nine Tails!"

"The Specter Deflector?" Tommy asked incredulously, "and the what-a-nine?"

"They're ghost weapons!" Sam explained, "And if I had them right now, I could really get out there and kick some—"

"SHHHH!" Tucker said as he hushed Sam and Tommy and made them take cover just as Ember floated by.

Ember had broken off from the brawl to step back and admire her handiwork.

"Hmmph," she chuckled, "That little whelp will never be able to win a fight if he can't hear anything. Soon, I'll have that little punk out of the way, and then I'll finally have my name up in lights: Hello Ember McLain, and good bye Danny Phantom!"

All the while that Ember was talking, Sam was fuming.

"You…Little…Twerp!"

Suddenly, Sam jumped out quickly from her hideaway and charged Ember, knocking the ghost into a display case.

Ember got up growling and grabbed Sam by her throat. Sam struggled, but she couldn't make Ember release her powerful grip.

"You little Phantom-Groupie!" Ember yelled as she began to squeeze, "I'm going to wring your scrawny little neck!"

Danny tried to beat back all the ghosts that had surrounded him, but they'd all started ganging back up on him at once. Suddenly, his breath froze again warning him of even more danger. He looked up and saw Ember, fiercely clutching Sam's neck as she tried in vain to wriggle free.

Danny immediately flew into a blind rage and knocked two ghosts head together in front of him. Walker tried to Grab Danny' ankle, but Danny kicked him in the face as hard as he could, and then instinctively swung around, smashing the advancing Skullker with a mighty kick. Any other ghosts that tried to grab him were suddenly met with a harsh blow from an ecto-beam. Suddenly free of the brawling ghosts' grasp, he charged quickly at Ember.

"LET HER GO!!" He yelled just as he rammed into her with all the force and speed he could muster. The blow caused Ember to let go of her victim and go flying straight into the wall on the other side of the exhibit hall.

Danny caught Sam in his arms and she stared at her hero in a romantic awe. Suddenly, Sam remembered that she wasn't supposed to be looking at Danny quite like that.

"You saved me!" Sam said, blushing bright red, "Thanks!"

"No Probl—" Danny stopped immediately, realizing that he'd suddenly regained his ability to hear.

"Hey, I can hear again!" he cheered, "Taking out Ember must have…"

"Look out!" Sam yelled as Technus tackled Danny to the ground.

As Vexus charged Jenny, the Teenage Robot ducked out of the way of Vexus' blow. Jenny jumped up and kicked Vexus hard in the back of her head, knocking her back. Joxer then charged Jenny, swiping at her with his cane blade. It nicked her arm hard, gashing her shoulder armoring.

Jenny screamed in pain as she favored her arm. Vexus came up behind her again and kicked her down hard. As she hit the ground, Joxer assisted by heel-kicking the android in her midsection.

Tuck, meanwhile grabbed onto Brad as they watched their heroine go down.

"B-Brad….Jenny's going to be okay…right?" Tuck said, on the verge of tears.

"I hope so…I mean, yeah" Brad said, trying to reassure his scared little brother (and himself as well), "Jenny's going to be okay, she always wins, right? She can take these clowns."

However Jenny was having a little more trouble than Brad would admit. She did however manage to get away from Vexus and Joxer, for a little while at least, but as she tried to rocket up into the air, she was shot with acid again on the sole of her foot.

Her rockets damaged, Jenny crashed back down to the ground. Jenny tried to get up but before she could move a motor, Vexus jumped back on top of her and grabbed her head.

"Well, well," Vexus cackled evilly, "It looks like the end of the road for you, XJ-9!"

"It's not over yet, Vexus!" Jenny said in defiance. However, upon hearing that, Vexus slammed Jenny's face back into the ground, making her eat the marble flooring.

"Oh, it's pretty damn over," Joxer cackled along, "But before I completely destroy you, allow me to do one thing first."

Joxer raised his blade, but then suddenly stopped.

"Well, it's not like you'll actually allow me to, but I was just being ironic…" he said, derisively.

"Oh, will you just get on with it?!" Vexus hissed.

Without any further ado, Joxer plunged his blade into the gash he had already left in Jenny's arm, and wriggled it harshly. Jenny screamed in an agony only a robot could understand.

Joxer retracted his blade with a turning motion as oil began to pour out of Jenny's arm servo. The motor controlling Jenny's arm movements immediately seized, and her arm went limp.

Vexus took out her gem, and held it under the stream of oil until there was a thick coating covering the gem.

"Yes" Vexus hissed, "We have one."

"And now," Joxer said to the struggling Jenny, "my uniplegic android, now is the time to destroy you!"

"No." Vexus said, "We are under strict orders. We must collect her blood and leave."
"What?" Joxer snarled, much like his father had always done to him, "I came to destroy something, I threatened to destroy her, and I plan to do it, now get off of her so I can rip her apart."
"Stand down," Vexus hissed at Joxer, for what seemed to be the millionth time he'd been told that today, "Firstly, if anyone is to destroy XJ-9, it shall be ME, and secondly, we are about to release a demon upon humanity, the likes of which she won't be able to defeat anyway. Now let's go!"

"No!" Joxer stood in defiance.

Suddenly, Jenny grabbed Joxer's leg with her good arm and swung him around to the ground. Vexus tried again to subdue Jenny, but Jenny bucked her partially off of her body. Jenny quickly kicked Vexus off of her and staggered to her feet. Joxer tried to charge Jenny, but Jenny swung her limp arm around and whacked Joxer as hard as she could with it, knocking him out.

Vexus ran to grab Joxer, and pulled out a teleportation portal.

"This isn't over yet, XJ-9!" Vexus said as her portal opened, "Your hour of doom is at hand, and once we release Asteroth upon humanity, you will NEVER be able to save the world!" With that, Vexus jumped back through her portal, cackling and carrying an unconscious Joxer with her.

Ninjetta blocked her opponents' advances feverishly, as the Ninja Ghost attacked her with his blade and Assassina attacked her with two. Assassina slashed Ninjetta high and low at the same time, forcing Ninjetta to jump and block the thrust to her face all at once. Suddenly, the Ninja Ghost made a swipe for her side But Ninjetta swung her sword around and blocked as she kicked Assassina in the midsection.

The Ninja Ghost swung his sword around again to go for Ninjetta's other side, but Ninjetta blocked that as well, forcing his blade off of her. Suddenly, the Ninja Ghost struck down low and Ninjetta jumped again to avoid his swipe. The Ninja Ghost swung his sword around his back into his other hand and made another swipe for Ninjetta's head. Ninjetta blocked that and swiped at the Ninja Ghost, but he blocked her and swung back around, flourishing his sword as he made another swipe for Ninjetta's side. Ninjetta didn't have time enough to swing her sword over to block before the Ninja Ghost's blade nicked her in her rib. Ninjetta let out a wail of pain as she spun around swiping clean through the Ninja Ghost's head in a fit of agony and fury. Suddenly, a glowing reddish flare trailed from her sword, marking the swath it had traveled in Ninjetta's intently focused swipe.

The Ninja Ghost reeled back clutching his head. It was still in one piece, but amazingly, pain shot across his head right through where the swath of Ninjetta's blade went through. Ninjetta also reeled back, clutching her side as blood dribbled through her fingers.

Taking advantage of the situation, Assassina quickly enlarged her hand and grabbed Ninjetta all in one fist and slammed her into the wall. Ninjetta tried to peel herself away from the hole in the wall she had made, but Assassina hit her again with her other fist and held her there as she slithered up to her.

"Not so good as we thought we were, eh sweetheart?" Assassina laughed.

"RRRRGH!" Ninjetta grunted as she tried to struggle away from Assassina's grasp, "Let me go!"

"Let you go?" Assassina hissed, "Now why would I do such a stupid thing like that?"

The Ninja Ghost shook his head and ran back up to where Sassy and Ninjetta were.

"You little wench!" he grated, "That is exactly where Sakinako hit me when he killed me. And you have aggravated my old wound!"

"I thought you were dead," Assassina looked at the Ninja Ghost incredulously, "You can't feel anything."

"I felt that!" The Ninja Ghost said, "I don't know how, but she has some sort of mystical power that cam make me feel fatal pain!"

"And yet you're already dead." Assassina chuckled, "So she can just keep doing it again and again and again…"

"AAARRGGH!" The Ninja Ghost wailed, "That causes me pain just thinking about it!"

"Come to think of it," Assassina said, "I thought that was pretty weird how your sword glowed like that. How'd you do it?"

"Eat it, you old hag!" Ninjetta yelled back.

"Touchy, touchy," Assassina growled, "All we wanna do is kill ya."

"Let me do it!" The Ninja Ghost said, raising his sword, "She must pay for making me feel pain!"

"Hold it, Doofus!" Assassina said, "We need to get her blood first."

"Well, why not let me kill her now?" The Ninja Ghost complained, "We'll still get her blood!"

"You and your sick little obsessions are just going to have to wait while I do this." Assassina said, glaring at the Ninja Ghost. He was really starting to annoy her.

Besides, what makes him think he should get the privilege of killing Ninjetta? If any one should, it should be her.

Assassina moved her enlarged thumb out of the way and grabbed Ninjetta's side, right where her wound was, making it bleed even harder. Ninjetta screamed in pain as Assassina squeezed harder, at the same time, reverse-swallowing the gem she had been carrying with her the whole time. Ninjetta's blood oozed over it, coating it with a deep red tint.

"Got it." Assassina said with an evil smirk as she held up the now-ruby-red gem in her hand.

"NOW can I kill her?" asked the Ninja Ghost raising his sword.

"No." Sassy said, turning her nose up at him.

"Woman! Step out of my way!" the Ninja Ghost said, baring his katana to her.

Assassina growled in anger. With a quick tendril, she disarmed the Ninja Ghost and grabbed him, holding him up in the air. The Ninja Ghost tried to go intangible, but he couldn't. He was trapped in Assassina's clutches.

Danny Kicked Technus off of him and shot an ecto-blast at him. Technus answered back with several blasts of his own. Danny quickly flew out of the way, dodging each of them.

"Thought you could trap me in Level 0, huh?! Well, the only Zero here is going to be you!" Technus laughed evilly, "For I am Technus, Master of Machinery, Lord of Electronic Mayhem, Wizard of——".

He stopped suddenly as an ecto-blast from Danny hit him (thankfully) square in the mouth.

"Don't you ever shut up?" yelled Danny, "More like Earl of Elongated Egomaniacal Lectures!"

"Enough of this foolishness!" Vlad said, finally stepping in, "This fight has gone on long enough! Time to end this, Phantom!"

"Oh shut up and fight, Pixie Ears!" Danny remarked as his hands began to glow a bright green. Vlad answered back with a bright red blaze of energy of his own. Danny dodged Vlad's shot, and fired off a salvo of his own in Vlad's direction, but Vlad beat them off as if they were nothing, and flew at the Phantom. Danny Field-Goal kicked Vlad in the face as hard as he could. Vlad reeled back and shot off another energy blast at Danny. Danny dodged again and flew hard at Vlad, attempting to ram him, but Vlad punched Danny across his face and sent him into a wall. Danny reeled back off of the wall and looked up to see Vlad charge him again. Danny quickly few out of the way but Vlad turned around and bounded off the wall. Danny landed back onto the ground and turned around. He didn't have enough time or room to use his wail, so Danny did the only thing he could do at a moment's notice. He formed an energy ball with his hands and compressed it full of as much ghost energy as he could fit in it. Vlad started to charge Danny again, but Danny was ready for him Danny shot off his energy ball at the oncoming Plasmius.

Plasmius rolled his eyes and chuckled at the naïve little ghost boy.

Vlad stopped suddenly, and raised his ghost shield to the blast. However, instead of deflecting it, the energy ball was absorbed and enveloped into it to form a bright pink energy ball. All the ghosts and humans in the room gasped in amazement as Vlad grabbed the energy ball and focused it at Danny Phantom.

"What the—" was all Danny had time to scream before the enormous energy ball impacted him, not only blowing him clear across the exhibit hall, but even blasting the wall out on the other side with a tremendous explosion. Danny Phantom lay injured among the rubble of the wall on the ground and lost control of his ghost powers, phasing back into his human form. Danny groaned in pain as he tried to get up, but Plasmius grabbed him by the shirt collar.

"You want to know an awful truth, Daniel?" Vlad cackled evilly, "All this time, throughout all the fights we've had in the past year and a half, I have been holding out on you. You could not even begin to understand the amazing power which I possess, which you, young Phantom, may never even realize on your own yourself."

"You…you can't win, Vlad." Danny struggled, "Whatever it is that you have planned, me and my friends will stop you."

"My, my, my." Vlad chortled, "Defeated for the second time today and still trying to front such bravado of defiance. I hate to be the bearer of bad news Daniel, but I have won. I have defeated you, and all your other friends have been defeated as well. Your sorry, pathetic excuse for a hero team has been vanquished by a much stronger foe than you ever could have hoped to defeat. It's over."

Danny grit his teeth together, "You're lying!"

"I play dirty, Daniel," Plasmius cackled, pulling out his knife, "but I never lie."

With that, Vlad stabbed Danny in the arm with his knife.

Danny howled in agony as Vlad produced his gem and coated it with Danny's blood. As Danny's blood completely coated the gem, a harsh crackle of lightning filled the sky, accompanied immediately by an almost unbearably loud boom of thunder.

Assassina looked up to see the lightning and winced with pain as the thunder clapped harshly in her ears. She dropped Ninjetta who fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, shortly crying out in pain as she jarred her wound.

Assassina began to breathe harder, half with excitement, half with apprehension.

"The Spirit of Asteroth has been awakened." She hissed, with only a slight sense of fear in her voice, "I sense a great fury looming over us, waiting to be freed."
"But Ninjetta…" The Ninja Ghost said, still bound by Assassina's tendrils.

"Forget her." Assassina said, "Once Asteroth is freed, she's a dead duck anyway. It's time for us to go." With that, Assassina stole away with incredible speed stretching down the hall and flowing like a black airborne stream through the air, the Ninja Ghost still in tow.

Vlad looked back up at the sky as the storm, which had only seemed like a normal thunderstorm before; grow fiercely into a tempest such as he had never seen before in his life. He threw Danny back to the ground, jarring the gash on the boys arm. Danny roared in pain again, but Vlad turned back around to him.

Without warning, Vlad shot a small ectoplasmic beam square at his stab wound. Danny howled in pain again.

"That was a cheap shot!" Growled Danny as he favored his burnt arm.

"Quiet!" Vlad said as he turned his attention back to the storm and back at Danny.

"I've burnt your wound shut," Vlad said, "Pray that you live long enough to thank me for it."

Vlad turned his attention back to the ghosts gathered around him.

"Let's go," he said to them as he walked toward them.

"But," protested Desiree, "What do we do with Danny Phantom and the humans?"

Vlad turned back to see Sam, Tucker and Tommy run up to attend to Danny.

"Leave them." Vlad said, "Once Asteroth is released, they won't stand a ghost of a chance."

With that Vlad disappeared in a swirl of pink smoke and the rest of the ghosts followed.

Ninjetta struggled to her feet and looked back around for her foes, but they had indeed vanished without a trace.

Kimi looked back out the window to the storm looming dangerously overhead. Suddenly, a shrill jar of fear ran up her spine and she froze in utter horror as her Ninja sense buzzed forth from her head with such intensity that it actually began to hurt. That wasn't a normal storm.

Ninjetta started to run back towards the lobby to try and warn the others, but her side sill hurt. She checked her wound to see if it had started to heal yet, but it had only now cauterized itself and stopped bleeding.

Danny was propped up onto Tucker and Tommy who here helping the worn-out Ghost Boy down the hall toward the center lobby. There they met Ninjetta who had just made it there herself.

Tommy saw Ninjetta holding her bloody side.

"Kimi!" He said, running to her, "You've been hurt!"

"It's okay Tommy," Kimi grunted, "It'll heal soon enough…where's Jenny?"

No sooner than when she'd said that, than a staccato of whining motors heralded Jenny's limping advance down the hall. Brad did his best to try and hold her up, as did Tuck, although he was only tall enough to hold Jenny's damaged arm.

"Great," Danny sighed, "We're all hurt, now what do we do?"

Tucker started to panic. "This is horrible, they're going to release Asteroth and the world's going to end and we'll..."

Sam grabbed Tucker and slapped him across the face, calming him down.

"Thanks," Tucker said, though still a little jittery, "I needed that."

Gaz, a bloody mess herself, limped forward. Her teeth clenched tightly together in utter hatred, and her equally tightly clenched fists shuddered with repressed rage.

"If I ever find that Skullker A-hole again…I. Will. KILL HIM! AGAIN!"

As the heroes hobbled back to Gaz' black car, Gaz retrieved her book again.

"Right now, we have an enormous problem on our hands." She said, "According to al the research I've learned from Dr. Wakeman, this storm is due to the fact that Asteroth has been awoken from slumber in suspended animation, and is ready to be released. There has to be something in this book somewhere that tells us how to defeat—" Gaz stopped suddenly as she peeled apart two pages that had seemed to be stuck together. She immediately combed the book for anything that might help. Unfortunately, she found quite the opposite. Gaz' eyes widened with horror as she read.

"What?" Kimi said, "What is it?"

"Oh no." Gaz said in horror, "No…No!"

"What? What is it?" They all asked.

"It...It says here," She stammered in wide-eyed disbelief, "that...that Asteroth, when released, will listen to no one, and he will ally with no one. It goes on to say that he will immediately seek revenge by systematically wiping out humanity for their part in imprisoning him. All that is certain is that the ones who release him will be the last to fall."
"Does it say how to defeat him?" Tommy asked.

"No," Gaz said,"It all but says 'Abandon Hope All Ye Who Read This!'"

Suddenly, Jenny perked up in attention. Her inboard tracking device blipped as she scanned the sky for a disturbance. A ping ricocheted back to her almost immediately.

"Guys!" she said, "Just through those clouds, is Vexus' ship! I just read its radar signature!"

"Vexus' ship?" Ninjetta said looking straight up.

"Ninjetta," Jenny said frantically, "She's got my mom trapped on there! We have to rescue her!"

"But what about Asteroth?" Gaz said, "We can't just up and drop what we're doing just to go on a recovery mission!"

"Gaz," Jenny said, "You've said yourself that Mom has extensive knowledge about Asteroth, and she may be able to find a way to stop him! I'm sure she can help us if we hurry! Besides that, they're going to kill her!"

"She's right, Gaz," Ninjetta said, "We can't leave her behind! Besides, we need all the help we can get!"

"You have a point." Gaz said, "But that ship is up there, and we're down here. How in the heck are we going to get from down here to up there to save Dr. Wakeman?"

Brad suddenly interjected.

"I'm sorry for interrupting, but what is going on here?" he said, "Why did Vexus kidnap Dr. Wakeman, and why is she working with a really freaky looking clown?!"

"Freaky looking clown?!" Ninjetta said, spinning around, "You mean Joxer is here too?"

"Eh…" Brad shrugged, "I think that was his name…"

"Listen, we'll explain what's going on later. Right now, we got to save Mom!" Jenny said.

"But we still don't know how we're going to get up to that ship!" Gaz persisted.

"I think I know of a way to get to her," Jenny said thoughtfully, "with the new vehicle she built last week. It's sort of like an inner-space shuttle for Earth-to-Moon transactions."

"Dr. Wakeman built a space shuttle?!" Brad said excitedly, "This is wicked awesome! Can I drive?!"

"NO!" Jenny and Tuck said in emphatic unison.

Soon, Gaz and Jenny burst into the shuttle bay of Dr. Wakeman's underground laboratory. Danny, Kimi, Tommy, Sam, Tucker, Brad and Tuck followed them in as Gaz went straight to the computer in the shuttle.

"Jenny," Gaz said, "do you still have a lock on Vexus' ship?"

"Yes," Jenny said, still scanning the sky, "It's headed for downtown Los Angeles."

"Good," Gaz said, "keep your sensors on it. We can't afford to lose her trail."

"Downtown Los Angeles…" Ninjetta grated, "and Joxer is running around here too. That can only mean one person is behind all of this."

"Who?" Tommy asked.

"Matthews." Kimi said.

"You mean the Shadow Man?!" Tommy gasped.

"Bingo."

"But why can't it be Joxer and Assassina by themselves?" Tommy said, "Not to mention that Vexus lady and that creepy Vlad Plastic guy."

"Plasmius," Danny corrected, "and anyway, Vlad is pretty conniving, but this is too much for even him."

"Or Vexus." Jenny added.

"Or Assassina," Kimi added, "And Joxer is too much of a goof-off to even come up with anything this contrived. But Stan Matthews is probably the only one who could have come up with this idea, and it might have been aided by Vlad, Vexus, Joxer and Assassina."

"Well according to the book," Gaz said, "this storm is going to be centered around wherever the Gems are as long as they're in reasonable distance from each other. So all we have to do is find out where this storm is centering, and we'll know for sure who's behind it."

"And what if the gems touch each other?" Brad gulped.

"Then Asteroth is released," Gaz answered grimly, "And all Hell breaks loose."

Suddenly, Gaz' screen blipped, and she pecked furiously at the keyboard.

"The storm is centered over the business district of downtown L.A., over the…Matthews Building."

"I knew it," Kimi spat.

"I don't understand though," Jenny said, "If they have all the gems, why aren't they releasing Asteroth?"

"They're waiting for us." Kimi said, glaring.

"Then we'd better not disappoint them." Gaz said, also glaring as she flipped the toggle switches on the headboard of the shuttle's ceiling. The shuttle's engine's fired up as Gaz motioned for the heroes to board.

Before closing the door, Gaz turned to Sam.

"You stay here," she said, "And I mean it. You need to stay out of harm's way and hold down the fort, clear?"

Sam glowered for a second, but then sighed.

"I understand." She said, as she, Tommy, Tucker, Brad and Tuck stepped back.

The door to the shuttle closed and it moved forward into the exit shaft. Danny, Kimi and Jenny strapped in as Gaz accelerated quickly out of the tube and launched straight into the air.

As they flew up toward the storm, a large bolt of lightning struck across the sky. Gaz quickly jerked the shuttle to avoid it, and guided the ship up into the clouds.

"Hold on," Gaz said, "this is going to get a little jerky."

No sooner did she say that, the ship lurched back and forth as Gaz held the controls firmly, trying to negotiate the turbulence. The three other occupants bounced back and forth in their seats. Suddenly, Danny was thrown back into his seat harshly, jarring the wound in his arm.

"AAAUGH!" he growled, "my arm!"

"At least your arm still works." Jenny remarked.

Kimi checked her side to see how well she'd started to heal up. Her gash started to shrink just a bit, but it was still rather large, and was still sore.

As the shuttle exited the furious storm cover, Gaz straightened out. Outside the front windshield, Vexus' ominous warship came immediately into view.

Suddenly, the shuttle's onboard computer blipped, and a red light on the control panel flashed. Ninjetta immediately sensed impending danger.

"They've seen us!" Ninjetta yelled, "They're preparing to fire!"

Gaz turned around to Ninjetta.

"How the heck do you…?"

"Gaz! Look out!"

Gaz turned back around suddenly, to see a large energy beam shooting straight at the shuttle. Gaz jerked the controls harshly and nosed up the small craft as the energy beam skipped along the bottom and rocked the occupants of the ship, again aggravating Kimi and Danny's wounds.

"Hang on!" Gaz said as she began to take evasive maneuvers.

The shuttle dove again, avoiding another blast and then curved up again.

"Jenny," Gaz yelled, "doesn't this stupid thing have any weapons?"

"No!" Jenny said, "It's only meant for transit!"

"You call this transit?" Gaz screamed as she dodged another blast, "I call this suicide!"

As the Ship lurched to its side as Gaz swung around to avoid anther energy blast, Kimi grabbed Danny.

"Danny," she said, "Can you make other objects intangible besides yourself?"

"Well yeah," Danny said, "As long as I'm touching them, but I've never ghosted anything this big and heavy before!"

"You've got to try, Danny!" Ninjetta said, "It's our only hope!"

"Come on Danny!" Jenny said, "You can do it."

"Wait," Gaz said, "We'll ghost too, right?"

Danny grit his teeth in determination,

"There's only one way to find out." He said, "We're going ghost!"

Danny put his hands on the walls of the ship and started to ghost them. However, he was only managing to get the side walls.

"This ship is just too dense!" Danny yelled as he started to struggle with the rest of the shuttle

"Come on Danny!" Kimi said, "You can do it!"

Danny bore down even harder and focused all of his strength into his hands, as even more of the ship began to disappear.

"That's it Danny!" Kimi and Jenny cheered, "You can do it!"

Danny struggled, as the ghosting started to slip back along the sides of the ship, he concentrated even harder.

"Yo, Ghost Boy!" Gaz called back to him, still trying to evade energy blasts from Vexus' ship, "we're not getting anymore invisible!"

"Quiet Gaz!" Ninjetta said, "He's trying!"

Danny started to grunt under pressure as he labored to ghost even more of the ship. Sweat started to bead on his forehead, but he finally got the back three quarters of the ship to ghost. Ninjetta and Jenny disappeared into intangibility with the rest of the ship as Danny focused on ghosting Gaz before getting the rest of the shuttle.

Suddenly, the nose of the ship and the lower half of Gaz' body ghosted abruptly as the ship progressed straight forward. Gaz looked down at the rest of where her body should have been in shock.

Right below her, was a little girl with white hair. She seemed to be struggling about as much as Danny, but still took the time to look up at Gaz and wink at her before ghosting the rest of Gaz' body. Thinking she was hallucinating, Gaz blinked and looked back down, but when she opened her eyes, the little girl was gone. Gaz could now see herself, the Odd Trio, and the rest of the ship, albeit transparently, but the little girl she could have sworn seeing was now gone. Gaz looked ahead to see shots still being fired at the ship, but they went completely through it. Gaz felt each beam as it passed through her, but it didn't hurt, and it couldn't make contact. She turned back around with a surprised and confused look on her face as the shuttle passed straight through the hull of Vexus' warship into a storage bay. Gaz set the ship down as Danny let go of his intangible hold on it. Suddenly Danny collapsed and phased back into his human form.

"Danny!" Jenny cried as she grabbed him and propped him back up against the wall.

"Danny! Are you alright?" Ninjetta said.

"Yeah I'm okay," Danny said, "That just really took it out of me."

"I bet he's still weakened from his fight with all those other ghosts." Gaz said, "Plasmius beat him pretty bad."

Danny stood up and phased back into the Phantom.

"I said I'm fine." He said fervently, "Let's go."

"Wait," Gaz said, "Did anyone else see that little girl?"

Danny's eyebrows quirked.

"What little girl?" he said.

"Yeah," Ninjetta said, "I didn't see any little girl."

"Me neither," Jenny said.

"You saw a little girl?" Danny persisted.

Gaz shook her head.

"No…" she said, waving her hand, "If nobody else saw it, then maybe it was just me. It's probably some sort of hallucinogenic side-effect from playing all those video games when I was a kid. Forget I said anything."

"Oh" Danny said, with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Gaz and The Odd Trio snuck out of the shuttle into the cargo bay of the ship. The roaring of the motors could be heard in the tremendous din that pulsated through the room. After she was satisfied that there were no guards around, Ninjetta huddled everyone together.

"Okay," She said over the roar of the engines, "We need a plan of attack. Jenny, is there any way you could find out where your mom's being held?"

"I think so," Jenny said, "I'd need a port somewhere so that I can hack into the ship's internal computer. From there I could find the brig, which is where Vexus said she was holding Mom."

"But where is there a port around here?" Gaz said impatiently.

"You have a better idea?" Jenny questioned.

"Well," Gaz said, "All the crew members of this vessel are linked to the same system as the ship's internal computer, aren't they?"

"I don't know," Jenny said, "They might be."

"Well for the sake of argument," Gaz said, "Let's just assume that they are. I say we overpower one and hack into the mainframe using him."

"Bad idea," Jenny said, "If these new cluster drones are anything like the old ones, they have a security system. If one's attacked, it sends a distress signal through the entire network."

Gaz grunted and pinched her eyes together.

"But if you successfully hack into the mainframe, you can override it, and they'll just write it off as a false alarm."

"I don't think that's going to work Gaz," Jenny said.

Gaz cut her off.

"Why the heck not?" she demanded.

"Guys, guys!" Ninjetta said, "Look we don't have time to argue. I think we should stick to a plan that isn't going to alert the whole New Cluster to our presence, false alarm or not. We have to get through this without being detected! We can't just go in guns blazing!"

Suddenly, two ant-shaped Cluster drones, which had been patrolling the cargo hold, spotted the heroes.

"Hey!" one of them said, "Hold it right there, humans!"

"So much for not being detected," Gaz said, rolling her eyes.

"Guns blazing it is, then!" Ninjetta yelled as she and the others scattered out of the way to avoid energy blasts from the drones.

"Alright, guys!" Ninjetta called, "Odd Trio, Attack!"

"Ahem!" Gaz cleared her throat loudly.

"Okay—Odd Trio and Gaz," Ninjetta added, "Attack!"

Danny formed an energy ball with his hands and blasted away the two drones before they could fire again as Jenny and Ninjetta rushed them.

Gaz stood back and attempted to open her PAK again. However, only two legs extended.

"Eh," Gaz shrugged, "better than nothing."

Four more ant drones flew in on wings and opened fire on the heroes. Danny and Jenny flew up at them, dodging their blasts. Suddenly, Danny disappeared as the drone that had been firing at him stopped short to look for where his adversary had disappeared to. Suddenly, Danny reappeared right in front of his face, dukes primed and ready.

"Boo!" Danny said as he threw a mighty punch at the drone, knocking his head clean off.

"That was it?" Danny said in surprise, "what a cheap hunk of—"

Suddenly, Danny was knocked back hard by another blast from a drone. Danny regained composure, and aside from jarring the wound on his arm, it didn't hurt.

It did however, really tick Danny off.

"You little punk," Danny spat as he flew into the offending drone, bashing it in the midsection and then flying back and sweep kicking its head off also.

"Huh." Danny thought, "That was way too easy, something must be up with these things."

Meanwhile Jenny was busy exchanging disruptor blasts with one of her own. She suddenly dove to avoid a blast aimed straight for her head, and then she swung her disabled arm hard into the ant drone's side, ripping off a side panel. A small spark shot from the injured drone's side as it twitched, too preoccupied to counter attack.

Jenny grabbed his arm and wrenched it behind him so hard that it broke off as she delivered a mighty kick to the drone's middle back, sending only its torso flying into and destroying the drone that Gaz was battling, as the legs, head, and remaining am stayed in place momentarily before gravity reached up and pulled them crashing to the floor.

Ninjetta found herself surrounded by two other drones. She stanced herself, katana at the ready as the two drones closed in on her. Suddenly Ninjetta drew back, flourished her sword and let out a loud "EEEEEEEEEEEEYAAH!" before she swiped at the heads of the drones.

The first drone held his arm up to block Ninjetta's blow, but it was immediately cut clean through as it swiped through the drone's other shoulder, effectively lopping both of its arms off in one strike. Ninjetta swung up again, but before she could decapitate the drone, it kicked her hard in her stomach, causing her to reel forward, clutching her wounded side. Both robots began to advance again, but Kimi just looked up with a smirk.

"Gotcha" she said as she swung her sword around slicing clean through the armless robot diagonally, and then wheeling around and swiping through the other drone several times in a repeated figure eight motion before finally skewering it straight through its oil pump and roundhouse kicking him off of her blade. The robot disintegrated into several shards of scrap metal before hitting the ground with a raining of small clangs.

"I'd have had that Jenny!" Gaz growled as Jenny landed next to her.

"Sorry," Jenny said, not really paying attention as she bent down to pick up the head of the barely-functioning robot that she'd disabled for Gaz.

"Hope this still works," she said as she extended a large plug from her finger and ripped off a panel on the drone's head to reveal several ports leading to its internal brain.

"Be sure to cancel the intruder alert," Gaz reminded her as Jenny plugged her finger into the drone's head.

The drone twitched and flailed, hooting in pain as Jenny hacked into his motherboard, shot down his firewall, and connected to the system. As she accessed the ship's floor plan, she mentally entered in "brig" and found the quickest path. Going farther, she accessed the vital readings of any prisoners in the brig. Wakeman was the only prisoner, and she was still very much alive, and still trying to break through the plastic casing that was entrapping her.

"Jenny!" Gaz said, "Hurry, before more drones come!"

Jenny quickly downloaded the floor plan, along with the quickest route to the brig and started accessing the security system. Suddenly, a powerful surge zapped Jenny hard, as Jenny ripped her finger out of the port with a yelp. Jenny jumped back and hit the floor hard with a shocked look on her face.

Her eyes suddenly went dark.

"Crap!" Gaz exclaimed as she ran over to Jenny, "they've nuked her!"

Kimi and Danny raced over to see what Gaz was talking about.

"What do you mean?" Kimi said worriedly.

"I mean," Gaz said, "she was hacking into the mainframe to find Dr. Wakeman when the droid zapped her! I think she's fried!"

"Fried?!" Kimi yelled

Suddenly her eyes lit up again, and a blue bar loaded across her eyes.

Below that was the word "restarting" with three little dots in an ellipsis lighting up sequentially as Jenny restarted.

"Man!" Jenny said as she fully came to, "The Cluster's Hacker-Zap system…How could I forget about that?"

The other three breathed a sigh of relief.

"You mean you're not fried?" Danny said.

"Well", Jenny said, "I could have been if I didn't disconnect when I did. Luckily, the system gives off a 1/8 second warning before it zaps you, so I didn't get the full force of the power surge. It only caused me to freeze and then restart."

"But you got the way to get to the brig, right?" Gaz said, "And you disarmed the security system?"

"Brig yes," Jenny said, "Security system, no. I couldn't get to it before they zapped me."

"Crud." Gaz glowered.

"All we have to do is go out that door, and loop halfway around the outer corridor of this level, and the brig should be on the right. But the intruder alert is still very much

in effect, so we may have to end up fighting our way there.

"Double crud." Gaz glowered again.

"Well," Ninjetta said, "Then we cut down anyone or anything in our path."

As they ran up to the door Ninjetta's Sense went off. She stopped short and readied her blade. "Victim number one, right through that door," she said.

"Well, technically, that'd be victim number seven." Danny said.

Ninjetta put her hand on the door to try to see if she could sense a better idea of what else they were coming up against. She withdrew her hand quickly with a gasp—there was a veritable army on the other side of that door, waiting for them.

"Okay, victims seven through one thousand seven," Kimi said, "right through that door."

"Triple crud."

"What?" Danny said, "Let me see!"

Danny disappeared and phased into intangibility as he stuck his head through the door. He was met with a sight of more robots than he dared to count. They resembled cockroaches, and all of them were armed to the teeth, weapons primed and ready to fire as soon as the doors slid open.

"Yikes." Danny said as he slipped back onto the heroes' side of the door.

"I was thinking 'eew', personally," Ninjetta said, "By there's no way we're gonna take on all of those. Especially since none of us are back up to 100 power yet."

"Speak for yourself," Danny said winking, as he ghosted back through the door.
"Danny!" Kimi yelled quickly, but Danny had already flown to the other side of the door.

Danny flew invisible and intangible through the army until he got to the back of the ranks. He then materialized suddenly, and landed, drawing the attention of the roaches in the back.

"Hey you!" Danny teased as they al turned around, "Yeah, I'm talking to you; ya bunch of big, overgrown pests! Guess what?! Your mother wears combat boots!"

Danny pulled his lips apart with his fingers and razzed at the army.

Now being that they were cockroaches, the entire battle unit took this greatly into offense because they all had the same mother.

"GET HIM!" they yelled in unison before charging.

"Later!" Danny yelled as he suddenly disappeared.

He reappeared somewhere in the middle of the ranks in front of another roach.

"Hey, ugly boys! Over here!" He yelled as several of them turned around to face him. They opened fire all at once, but Danny disappeared immediately, and they only ended up shooting each other to bits and blasting a huge hole in their ranks. Danny did this several more times, each time, causing the roaches to blow each other up instead of hitting him.

Hey, Danny figured, while I'm at it…

Still invisible, he formed an energy ball with his hands and fired off at the robots one by one, but from scattered points. This only confused the roaches more as they continued to fire up at the ceiling, at the last point they'd seen any energy blasts coming from. Suddenly, a loud creaking was heard, and before any of the roaches could react, a large section of the ceiling caved in and came crashing down onto them, crushing the better part of their defenses.

Back inside the cargo hold, the girls winced with each and every blast they heard, occasionally sighing with relief every time they heard a taunting laugh coming from Danny. Suddenly, the doors to the cargo hold flew open, revealing an unscathed Danny Phantom.

"C'mon, girls!" Danny said grinning, "come and join the party!"

He flew aside to reveal only two roaches were left, and neither of them had any arms left on their bodies to speak of. As much as any look can wash over the face of a stationary-faced robot, a look that said nothing less than "Oh, crap," washed over the faces of the two doomed roaches.

Following a quick slash and a light bluish flash of a proton gun, The Odd Trio raced down the corridor, Jenny carrying Gaz, as they made their way to the brig as fast as they could.

Wakeman still sat in her prison chamber trying to mix together two chemicals she just happened to have on her, in hopes that the reaction would be powerful enough to eat through the plastic enclosure.

Suddenly, the door to the brig blasted open violently, jarring Wakeman, and causing her to toss the chemicals together onto the plastic casing. The two chemicals mixed together, but nothing happened.

However, on the other side of the blasted door, stood Danny and Jenny, the Ghost Boy's hands were smoking a light green wisp, and Jenny's laser gun extended and smoking an even heavier light blue.

Jenny stood up quickly retracting her gun.

"Mom!" she yelled.
"XJ-9!" Wakeman cheered as Jenny ran up to the plastic casing.

"Stand back, Mom!" Jenny said as she pulled her fist back and started hammering away at the pane. The plastic shook harshly with every blow but still didn't break.

"What in the world is this?!" Jenny demanded furiously, "WHY—" she beat the casing, "WON'T—" she hit it again, "YOU—" and again, "BREAK?!"

An ant drone rushed up to the command deck of the ship.

"Overlady Vexus!" The drone said, "We're being invaded! XJ-9 has stormed the ship and she's brought company!"

Vexus wheeled around to face the ant, who immediately cowered in fear.

"Send in the roaches!" she bellowed.

"We—we already tried that, Your Excellency!" the drone said, "there was this human and he kept…disappearing, and he made the roaches all shoot themselves!"

"AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!" Vexus growled, "YOU INSIPID MORONS!"

With that Vexus produced a large laser rifle from her own arm and shot the drone's head off.

"Fine!" Vexus said as she stormed from the command deck, "I'll take care of this myself!"

As Jenny continued to hammer away at the plastic dome, Danny tried to get her attention.

"Jen!" He yelled, "Hey, wait up!"

"What?"

"You know the great thing about having a ghost friend is?" Danny said.

"Not now, Danny!" Jenny said, "I have to save my mother!"

"No, no," Danny said "hear me out."

Suddenly Danny disappeared again. He reappeared just as suddenly on the other side of the plastic casing, inside the cell with Dr. Wakeman, stopping quickly to introduce himself.

"Danny Phantom," he said holding is hand out to Wakeman, "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Charmed," Wakeman said warily, not quite sure of what she just witnessed.

"It's okay," Danny said extending his hand farther, "I'm going to get you out of here."

Wakeman slowly took Danny's hand. And as soon as they made contact, she saw herself, and Danny Phantom go completely transparent. They quickly flew toward the casing, but before Wakeman could flinch, thinking she would impact the plastic again, she found herself solid again, and on the other side of the plastic casing. Jenny suddenly grabbed Wakeman and hugged her—a little too tightly.

"Mom!" Jenny cheered, "You're okay!"

"XJ-9!" Wakeman coughed, "I need to breathe, dear!"

"Oh!" Jenny said, setting her mother back down, "Sorry! But man, do we ever need you! Vexus has teamed up with a bunch of other villains and…"

"Yes, I know," Wakeman interrupted, "They're going to release the demon Asteroth on Humanity!"

"Does she do that a lot?" Gaz said, "Interrupt people?"

"Well yeah," Jenny said, "she's a very intelligent woman!"

"Shame you didn't inherit any of it," Gaz glowered.

Jenny dropped her mouth open in offense, but before she could say anything, a spot on the plastic suddenly began to wobble and warp spontaneously. The heroes looked at it perplexedly for a second, when suddenly, like a filmstrip melting on the reel, a large hole seared itself through the casing, creating a hole that Wakeman could've crawled through.

Wakeman scoffed, "Oh, now it works."

Suddenly, the casing violently shattered on its own.

Jenny scoffed just as her mother did, "Oh, now it breaks."

"Well, that's that," Gaz said, "Let's get the heck out of here."

"Good idea," Ninjetta said, "Before more of those roaches come."

"I'm definitely down with that idea," Danny said as the team took off running down the corridor back to the shuttle craft.

Moments later, Vexus stormed into the brig to find the shattered remains of her plastic dome-trap.

Vexus started to steam and overheat. Turning angrily toward the door, she started to growl gutturally.

Vexus rushed off down the hall, only to see the battlefield of massacred roaches and various disembodied parts laying on the ground. Beyond that she saw the cargo hold of the ship, doors wide open, but even worse there was a huge, gaping hole in the hull of the ship, leading to the outside.

Vexus grit her teeth and clenched her fists in extreme anger, growling and then screaming out at the top on her audial transmitters:

"WAAAAAAKEMAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!"

The ship broke through the cloud cover and hurtled back toward Prof. Wakeman's house.

Suddenly, Ninjetta stood up quickly as her sense radiated harshly from her neck.

"Oh no!" Kimi said, "They're following us!"

"What!?" Gaz said, "you mean the whole ship?!"

"It looks like the ship is retreating!" Jenny said, reading her homing signal.

"No," Ninjetta said, "That!"

Everyone looked out the back window to see a large swarm of Cluster Bees shooting back through the cloud cover, hot on the ships heels.

"Oh great," Gaz growled, "Just what we need, more company."

Gaz slammed the throttle lever down and pushed the engines to maximum speed, propelling the tiny craft as fast as it could go, but it was no use. The Bees advanced threateningly behind them.

"Come on!" Ninjetta said, "We have to fight them off!"

"Are you crazy?!" Gaz said, "There has to be hundreds out there!"

"Actually," Jenny said, "there are 93. I counted."

"Well 90-whatever or not," Ninjetta said, "We have to stop all of them before they stop us!"

"Right!" Danny and Jenny said.

"Wait, wait," Gaz said, "Danny and Jenny I can understand, but, uh, reality check, Ninjetta—you can't fly!"

"Don't worry about me, Gaz!" Ninjetta said, "You just get Dr. Wakeman back to her house and figure out a way to stop this. We'll take out the trash."

"Fine then." Gaz scowled, "I won't then."

"Right then," Danny said grabbing both Kimi and Jenny's hands, "We're going ghost!"

With that, Danny ghosted himself and the girls out of the ship as they flew up into the fray.

"But you are aren't you?" Wakeman said after they had left.

"I am what?" Gaz muttered.

"Worried." Wakeman said.

Gaz turned to Wakeman with a very surprised look on her face. She was taken very obviously aback.

"Wh—what makes you…what makes you say that?" Gaz stammered.

"You ARE worried aren't you?" Wakeman said.

"Er…well…" Gaz hesitated again, "not really."

"Gaz…" Wakeman said.

"Well, look, she's just a kid okay?" Gaz said, "Of course I'm gonna be a little…"

"In fear for her life?"

"Not another WORD, Wakeman!"

Ninjetta bounded off of one Bee, slicing it in half just as she leapt off of its head. She screeched a shrill war cry as she charged for another one.

Danny and Jenny shot at them one by one; however, the Bee swarm seemed to be stronger than the Mantises.

"Danny!" Jenny said, "Do you have enough strength back to do that—that whoosh thing?"

"What whoosh thing?" Danny yelled.

"That thing you did earlier!" Jenny persisted.

"You mean the Ghostly Wail?" Danny said.

"Yeah!"

"Well, it's worth a shot!" Danny yelled as he grabbed Jenny again.

"Ninjetta!" Danny called back to the White Kurenai, "Clear out!"

Ninjetta bounded off of the Bee she had just sliced through and jumped back toward the ground, slicing through a few more as she made her way towards Danny, who flew up and caught her.

As Danny and Kimi hit the ground, Danny turned back around and faced the horde of attackers.

"Alright girls," Danny said, "Cover up your ears, or whatever you hear with."
Danny drew in a sharp breath and focused his ghost energy on his scream.

He let loose with his Wail, sweeping back several of the bees crashing into others and exploding, but the wail wasn't quite powerful enough to beat back very many of the advancing swarm. Suddenly, Danny cut his Wail short. He suddenly felt a head rush and swayed a bit.

"Danny?" Kimi said, "What's wrong?"

Danny shook his head and regained his composure.

"Nothing." He said, "Nothing's wrong. I'll try again."

Danny took in a deeper breath this time and let loose with another wail. However this one didn't do much either. The Bees were knocked back a bit but they overpowered the weak Wail and continued their charge. Meanwhile Danny stopped again and staggered back, falling to one knee.

"Danny!" Jenny yelled.

"Oh No!" Ninjetta yelled, "They're getting closer, and Danny's still too weak from that fight to—"

Danny suddenly stood up.

"Weak nothing!!" he said in offense, "Take cover! This could get ugly!"

Danny mustered all his strength, took a deep, determined breath and let loose his wail so powerful that, despite their speed, the Bees stopped dead in midair for a fraction of a second, before the reverberation of the Wail finally overpowered their velocity and sent them flying back into each other, exploding violently. Those that didn't collide with others tried to fight back against the forceful Wail, only to see legs and wings and other exo-skeletal panels ripped clean from their bodies, sending them crashing into and disabling other Cluster Bees behind them. Jenny took advantage of the situation and grabbed Ninjetta, carrying her airborne as Kimi shot off even more webbing at the condensed group of Cluster bots, Spinning them together into a tight cocoon. As the Wail stopped, Jenny set Kimi down onto a rooftop below and flew up to the ball of webbing and Cluster Bees and opened up her chest again producing the large cannon. Out of her arms came the laser guns and from her legs came even larger disruptor guns. Out of her sides came two banks of large stinger missiles.

"Oh, what's that?" Jenny smirked, "Your friends didn't tell you about this? Maybe THIS is why!"
With that, Jenny fired each of her weapons at once, sending off a deadly barrage that not only lit up the sky above Tremorton as it connected—it knocked Jenny back straight into the ground, plowing up a trail.

Ninjetta bounded off of the building and ran to Jenny.

"Jenny!" Ninjetta yelled, "Are you okay?"

Jenny stood straight up with a broad smile on her face.

"Am I EVER!" she laughed gleefully, "Did you SEE that?! I totally vaporized those creeps! Man, I guess I don't know my own strength!"

"Yeah," agreed Kimi, "That was Awesome…hey where's Danny?"

Jenny and Kimi suddenly looked off to where Danny had been standing.

He'd been laying there, completely unconscious, phased back into his human form.

"Danny!" The girls yelled as they ran back over to him.
"Jenny!" Kimi cried, "is he okay? How are his vitals?"

"They're sort of weak; his heartbeat is a little slower than normal!" Jenny said worriedly, "Should I try waking him up?"

"Man!" Kimi said worriedly, "I knew he was too weakened to do that Wail!"

Suddenly, Danny stirred with a sore-sounding moan, and stiffly clutched his aching head.

"Danny!" Jenny yelled, "You're okay!"

"Who're you calling 'weak'?" He smirked.

Ninjetta smirked back.

"You're such a guy." She said.

Later, from Jenny's house, a rather harsh and painful scream cut through the howling wind.

"Danny!" Jenny called to him as her mother's service bots welded her new arm back into place, "Hold still! That treatment's not going to work if you keep on flailing around like that!"

Jenny was laying on a tilted platform as the machines operated on her. She drank an oil can with her free hand. One of her lower legs was missing as more service machines repaired the rocket booster in her foot and re-paneled her sole.

"But…it…HURTS!" Danny howled.

"But it's working." Gaz said dryly as she operated the machine that Danny had stuck his arm into.

"I see your yelling strength is back," Kimi snickered as she paced around the room.

"But…it—YEOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!" Danny caterwauled again.

"You want a turn in this, Kimi?" Gaz said turning to Ninjetta.

"Er…" Kimi faltered, "No, I'm fine, I'm uh…"

Kimi checked her wound to see if it had healed up. A smallish scab still remained, surrounded by pinkish scar tissue, which fortunately, would dissipate in a few days. She prodded it slightly, to notice that it was still a bit tender, but otherwise didn't really hurt.

"I'm good." Kimi said.

Gaz simply rolled her eyes and turned back to "torturing" Danny.

Professor Wakeman meanwhile, had entered the room accompanied by the other teens and little Tuck.

Sam saw Danny flinching with his arm in the machine and it continued to work on him. She noticed that Danny had developed quite a muscular tone in his deltoids and biceps since he'd started fighting ghosts…No doubt his pecs too…she wondered…

"What are you starting at, Sam?" Danny said when he noticed that she wasn't really moving, but staring straight ahead with a rather intent look on her face.

Sam snapped herself back into reality. "Uh…nothing…nothing at all."

Suddenly Danny winced. The wince almost immediately turned into a grimace, which was then followed by a yelp, which—mid-yelp—turned into a full-bore scream.

"Danny!" Sam yelled as she ran over to him.

"Ah he's just being a big baby," Gaz said "he's done, anyway."

Sam turned around to Gaz angrily.

"Oh, and I suppose that you get a real kick out of hearing him screaming in pain." Sam shot back at Gaz.

"What the hell is that supposed to imply?" Gaz said, raising her voice in offense.

"You're a sadistic old bat!"

"You judgmental little—"

Tommy turned to Tucker.

"Is Sam always this protective of Danny?" he asked him under his breath.

"Yeah," Tucker said, rolling his eyes a bit, "More so lately."

"Wonder why."
"Oh she's got it bad," Tucker said, "That's why."

"Got what bad?" Tommy said.

"Oh, you know." Tucker said winking his eye.

Tommy chuckled, "Riiiight."

"YOU KNOW, COMMON SENSE WOULD SAY, 'Oh, he's saying, 'Ow!,' I guess that means it hurts, I'd better stop it!" BUT NOOOOOO! YOU HAVE TO KEEP TORTURING THE GUY!"

"WOULD YOU RATHER HE WALK AROUND WITH A BIG OOZING, FESTERING LESION ON HIS ARM?!"

"OH, LIKE THAT'LL MAKE IT GO AWAY!"

"Actually," Danny piped up, "It did!"

Sam turned to look, and on Danny's arm, just above his elbow, where the wound had been, was absolutely nothing. No scar, not so much as a scratch.

"Wh— how?" Sam stammered. She turned to Gaz. The dark woman just shrugged her shoulders tersely.

"I dunno," she said, "It's Wakeman's machine."

"And that," Wakeman interrupted, "Is a trade secret as to how it works. It's just a prototype, and I haven't gotten a patent for it yet. Even then, I should probably keep it a secret…"

"That's Amazing!" Kimi said, "Imagine how useful this could be in a hospital!"

"Quite." Gaz said, "Wakeman actually invented something useful."

Jenny scoffed in offense as the service bots began to reattach her lower leg. Gaz slowly turned around to her, glanced at her, said nothing, and returned back to the conversation.

"But now to the topic at hand," Gaz said, "How are we going to stop the bad guys from calling forth Asteroth, and if worse comes to worse, how do we stop him?"

"Yes, how?" Wakeman said holding her chin and tapping her foot as she so often did when she was thinking.

After a moment, Wakeman spoke again.
"Quite a complex conundrum," she said.

"Well, Mom?" Jenny said, "Do you have any idea how we can stop this from happening?"

"Well," Wakeman said slowly, and then paused again.

"Well," She continued, "I haven't the foggiest idea. I'm sorry, but I may not be of much help right at the moment."

A loud "WHAT!?!" rose up from the room as everyone yelled in unison.

"So what are we supposed to do," Gaz exclaimed, "Just sit by idly and wait for the world to end?!"

"Oh, heavens no!" Wakeman exclaimed. "But if we're going to develop a plan, then we'll need an intensely focused grounding session. I'm sure that, given enough time, Professor Membrane and I could devise a plan to stop this monster from annihilating us all."

"Of course." Gaz mentioned.

"However," Wakeman said, turning to the three heroes, "I need you three to go there and try to delay them as much as possible."

Wakeman then turned to the others, "You five will assist Professor Membrane and I."

"We won't let you down, Mom!" Jenny said.

"That's my girl!" Wakeman smiled proudly.

Meanwhile, back in Downtown Los Angeles, inside the Matthews Building, Stan Matthews stood at his window, arms folded behind his back, three puffs of cigar smoke escaped from his mouth as he watched the tempest storm assail the city below. Behind him sat Joxer, Assassina, Vexus and Vlad.

Joxer sat sprawled out in his chair, tapping his foot impatiently, his face stiffly resting on his clenched fist.

Assassina leaned over to Joxer.

"Why is he just standing there like that?" She asked him, "What does this accomplish?"

"Oh, don't you know?" Joxer said in a mocking tone, "It's what all evil Geniuses do."

"That's quite enough, Alan." Stan muttered from his perch.

Joxer grunted and crossed his arms in frustration.

Suddenly there was a slight tap at the door.

"Enter!" Stan boomed without moving.

Wilson entered timidly walking a wide arc around where Joxer sat, so as to avoid him. Joxer merely rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Wilson?" Stan said staidly.

"Sir, we have confirmation that the three kid heroes are on their way."

"Excellent."

"The Guards are primed and ready for attack once they get here."

"Good. Send the Guards home, Wilson." Stan said as smoke puffed from his mouth.

"Sir?" Wilson asked, confused.

"Send the Guards home, Wilson."

"But…why?"

"I was raised in the darkness, Wilson," The Shadow Man snarled, "This is something you wouldn't understand."

Red out is a reddening of the vision and possible loss of consciousness (similar to a blackout), which is the result of blood pooling in the head either from negative G-forces or hanging upside down for too long. Redouts are potentially dangerous and can cause retinal damage and hemorrhagic stroke.-source: Wikipedia