Author's Note: I just want to say thank you all again for the fantastic reviews, I'm so happy this is being so well received and I hope you all continue to enjoy it. Please do continue to review it's greatly appreciated.
As for updating I realize there was a bit of a break, Monday-Tuesday are 16 hr days for me, I get up at 4:30 and am on my feet until about 8:30 at night with zero free time. but I'll try to get you guys some chapters on my less busy days as you all are waiting so patiently. 3
Superfluous Attempts at Classical Villainy
It was mid-June.
Danny was finally finished with work for the day, and it was Friday.
Movie night.
At least… it was movie night when Sam and Tucker were still around…
Danny started his walk home, a wave of numbness was washing over him, and his heart was seizing up. Taking a deep breath, he took the first few steps towards home. In ten minutes of walking he reached the video store and stepped in. He skipped his usual perusal of the PDA's and computer games and went straight for the movie section, more specifically the cheap action films and scifi horrors he and his friends had always reveled seeing in theaters.
Of course, he wasn't so big on theaters anymore. Something about the wide-open dark rooms surrounded by strangers, and people he never knew. Something about the empty red-cushioned seats beside him and the bag of popcorn he could never finish by himself.
Some things… were just too much.
Even for him…
As he reached the DVD's he found that store was having a sale on Trinity of Doom and its related franchises, including The Predator's Bride, Terminatra, and a Nightmare on Maple Street. He remembered immediately how psyched Sam had been when she first heard they were combining the lead characters of all three movies into one, and he remembered…
He felt the lump forming his throat and put a hand to his chest, right over the spot where the white 'D' would be emblazoned across his chest whenever he became Danny Phantom… A shudder worked its way through his chest and expelled the air from his lungs; he took all four movies to the register.
The clerk was ringing him up, a cute pony-tailed brunette who eyed him when he walked in, she smiled readily when he approached the register.
"Will that be all?" she asked as she put the movies in a plastic bag for him. He was about to nod in response when a loud and ostentatious cry of disgust erupted from behind him. Naturally he turned to see who was making all the noise.
A short, overweight man with long unkempt red hair and costume-like clothing was fuming over the contents of a bulletin board hung on a display near the center of the store. With a far from intimidating and decidedly over dramatic flourish he pulled what looked like a customized remote from inside his costumed overcoat.
Smashing his thumb down on the buttons the remote emitted a flash of bright red-light in Danny's general direction.
As he blinked away the after images left by the intense inferred beam, the cashier behind him suddenly shrieked in terror. Danny spun around to find the young woman several feet in the air with lines of electrical cable snaking its way around her waist and torso. Her eyes were wide and hysterical.
"Look out!" she shrieked
Danny ducked just as a flock of possessed video tapes and DVDs rocketed off the shelves. One of the cases smashed open and the disc inside sliced through air and tore a small hole in his pant leg. Danny flinched but suppressed the urge to use his ghost abilities. Instead, he waited for the wave upon wave of ricocheting merchandise to die down long enough for him to reach over the counter where he knew the switch was for the silent alarm.
There was a lull in the chaos, for just an instant. Danny seized the opportunity and lunged over the counter for the switch underneath. His fingers just brushed it hard enough to flip the molded plastic when something plowed into him, sweeping him away from the counter and throwing him violently into one of the stores many metal shelves. The shelf tipped backwards into the store window, shattering it and coming to rest at an awkward half-fallen angle, Danny laid slumped in front of it, showered in shards of broken glass.
"I saw what you tried there, don't think I didn't hero boy, that character arc is so cliché and predictable." The nasally voice of the overweight man sneered through the fog in Danny's head as he fought through the cotton stuffing his brain after such a violent assault.
His head was pounding and when he put a hand to the back of his skull, he felt a warm sticky sensation, his hand came away red.
Blinking away stars, he looks up toward the register. The surly, under-washed nerd was standing on top of a large, reanimated flat screen, using its power cables to move on its own accord. The television and its new master were bearing down on the entangled cashier.
"Okay. Either you admit that Warp Trek Five, which reunited the entire original cast of the classic TV series, deserves to be on your "Favorite Rentals" list, or..." waving his remote, the man brought to life one of the many fearsome looking cardboard cutout monster displays. The cutout roars at the young terrified woman. She screams.
"Please! I don't even know what Warp Trek is!" she wails as the cutout advances toward her with a threatening glare. The man simply laughs, an overdramatic and hideous cackle of someone far too engrossed in the world of make believe.
"And that, my little tribble," he snickers "Is why you must be destroyed!"
With another exaggerated flourish of his remote and a surprisingly nimble display of movement he leaps from the living television and the screen with its malevolent grin, approaches the girl wielding cables whose frayed ends spark viciously.
Danny struggles to his feet, the ectoplasmic energy sparks to life around his hands and his eyes glow green. It felt like Technus all over again. The living electronics and appliances, the overdramatic demands, and superfluous attempts at classical villainy. More and more reminders of the life he abandoned.
He welcomed the similarities, and relished the pain, but…
His hands clenched into fists.
But somedays…
Somedays… he wished it all would just end.
And then, just like that, with a deafening roar a blast of visible sonic waves smashes into the flat screen, blowing it to pieces. The ectoplasm around Danny's fists vanishes instantly in a wisp of green smoke and he dodges behind the nearest shelf, slicing open his palms and knees on the broken glass as he does so.
The electrical wiring releases the cashier and she crashes to the floor. Not wasting a moment, the girl scrambles behind the candy counter and disappears.
Danny remains with his back pressed against the shelf, his knees are drawn to his chest and his shaggy black hair shields his face. He's in perfect view of the front door as the Titans come pouring in, and they waste no time in engaging the various modes of merchandise now coming to life all around them as the pudgy nerd begins his retaliation.
Danny made for the door. Normally he would force himself to stay and watch, but today he had been moments away from using his ghost powers for the first time in over a year.
He'd seen enough…
Amazingly, his four movies had survived the assault and his shopping bag was resting amongst the debris just beside the door. He snatched the bag up as he limped out of the store, turning his back on the memories pressing in on him.
He walked away from the store front, bloodied and bruised with his clothes torn. The nightmares were nipping at his heels and would return with a vengeance in the night, but for now the voices were whispering in his mind.
He was a failure, the Titans were the world's heroes now, and he was just a washed up freak with a broken dream.
No, worse. A washed up freak with a broken dream, and a murderous villain waiting just under the skin.
A villain whose poison was breaking him…Even now…