Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does. I would never dream of making money off his work, this is but one fanatic's homage. So please don't sic the rabid lawyer hordes upon me, there's not much for them to sue out of me.
Author's Note: Eep, sorry this took so damn long to get out! Real life has kinda been kicking my tail this semester!
Part Two: Home Again
"So here's to the good times, here's to the bad
Here's to the memories that we all had
Here's to tomorrow, let yesterday pass us by"
-"Starting All Over Again" - Bon Jovi
"Ugh, were all those speeches really necessary?" I griped to no one in particular as I stood in the elevator.
"Not really, but it made people feel better." Paulina replied to my rhetorical question.
I shrugged. It had been a long day, celebrating the dedication of several new buildings. With Phantom gone for good, Vlad Masters had come out of hiding; and to my surprise the old geezer still had enough of his fortunes left to invest in rebuilding Amity Park. We still had a long, long way to go to rebuild the city, but thanks to him we now had something resembling a central government again.
First was the new government building. Paulina was still recognized as the city's unofficial mayor, and I had little doubt that the position would become official; she had been the one to organize the survivors, she had taken on the task of helping the masses get on their collective feet again. Most of the offices were empty or stored various goods rather than civil servants, but in due time the building would serve as a proper administrative center for the city instead of an emergency coordination headquarters.
Vlad had also put up the funds for a education complex since it had been deemed almost unanimously vital to get the children back into a "normal" routine. Sure, all the adults had been traumatized by the siege and then the destruction of literally everything, but we could cope better. The little kids were... well, they were little kids! The adults could at least understand most of what happened, but the kids didn't know. They couldn't understand why that ghost was bent on hurting people; why people they knew and cared for had been killed; why they had been forced to endure such terror.
In the same vein, it had been deemed vital to get a new hospital facility built and staffed. That was just common sense. Most of the time when we found people in the ruins, anybody buried in the rubble was already dead; but there were plenty of survivors who had crippling injuries that needed better treatment than we could give them out in the ruins. In a display of generosity that was very nearly out of character, Masters had ponied up the cash not only to build the new hospital; but to bring in doctors and nurses and specialists to augment those medical personnel who had survived the siege itself.
Last of all, there was the building we were standing in. I had been surprised, but the survivors had all but demanded a new headquarters for the Amity Park Ghost Patrol. My best guess is everyone was so conditioned to fear ghosts that they felt they needed a specific task force to protect them from the otherworldly threat. I figured that with Phantom gone, we didn't really need a full force anymore, but I was outvoted.
I had to hand it to Vlad; the new building was far more ideal for the Patrol's purpose than FentonWorks had been before. Granted, the Patrol's mission had expanded quite a bit since those days as well. We were serving the quadruple-roles of police force, anti-ghost defense, ghost research, and search and rescue; and the new headquarters was built to serve as Patrol headquarters, military barracks, research lab and armory. While nobody could pinpoint who had started it, the building had already earned itself the apparently fond nickname of "FentonWorks II."
"So, what did you want to talk to me about after all the pomp?" I glanced over at Paulina as we stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor of the building and headed toward my new apartment.
"Well, you remember when you told me about what really happened to Danny?" The Latina asked.
I nodded absently while unlocking the door. Other than Vlad, Paulina and I were the only people still living who knew the truth about Phantom; the fate of Danny Fenton and how it all went back to the CAT. I don't think Vlad knew about Sam and Tucker though, or about Danny's existence in the Ghost Zone. That was a revelation shared only between me and Paulina.
We both walked into my sparse apartment and I shut the door. It was just simply weird to think of it as 'home', after the six months roughing it in the wastelands. After so long without any promise of safety, I had a hard time convincing myself that I was truly secure within those walls. The apartments for the Patrol's ranking personnel weren't anything fancy, but after months of having nothing, it was a luxury.
"Well, the new lab has a portal..." Paulina trailed off, looking a bit anxious about whatever she was getting at. "... And you said you wanted to talk to some of the ghosts anyway-"
"And you want to go into the Ghost Zone and see him?" I quirked an eyebrow. "He's probably hooked up with Sam by now, you know."
"I always knew those lovebirds would get together." Paulina agreed before looking sheepish. "I just feel bad, you know? I treated him pretty badly our freshman year of high school, and I never got the chance to apologize, since he was already dead by the time I figured out the truth."
I considered Paulina's request. It was true I wouldn't mind seeing Danny and the others again, and I certainly couldn't complain about how any of the ghosts had acted toward me at that spooky party; but the idea of plunging right into the Ghost Zone was at best totally nuts. I was moderately confident I could find my way from Vlad's portal in Wisconsin to Dora's castle, but that would probably be all of no use in trying to get anywhere from the Patrol's new portal.
On the other hand, when I had ever been one to listen completely to common sense?
"My only concern is how would we even find Danny in there? I had a guide to that party, remember."
"It's really that big?" Paulina raised an eyebrow. "I didn't get to see much of it when the entire town got pulled in."
"It's massive." I nodded, recalling all too well the vast expanse of the Ghost Zone from my handful of times in it. "In all directions, and without much in the way of landmarks. Just... islands occasionally. And doors. I don't think they hold fixed positions, either."
"Maybe we could ask a ghost for directions?" Paulina suggested, which momentarily stopped me dead in my tracks.
Why didn't I think of that?
"That... could work." I admitted slowly. "Assuming we find a ghost that knows where to go, and is willing to give us the directions."
"And if we don't?" Paulina raised an eyebrow.
"If we don't, be prepared for a fight." I crossed my arms. "We can set some sort of beacon on the inside of the portal, so at least if we get lost we can follow that back."
"So we're going to do it, then?" Paulina grinned slightly.
"Looks that way."
---
We decided the best time to attempt the expedition was at night once everyone else was asleep a few days later. No matter how cautious we would be, it was obvious that no one would appreciate the city's number one ghost hunter and its unofficial mayor both taking what would seem to be a reckless risk. Though to be fair, running into the Ghost Zone with little more than a vague plan was pretty reckless.
I had procured a homing beacon and already installed it just inside the Ghost Zone side of the portal the night prior, and I was waiting in the basement laboratory with my new jet sled when Paulina came down the stairwell.
"You're sure you want to go through with this?" I asked one more time as I set the sled down and hopped on it.
"Having second thoughts, Valerie?" Paulina jibed, though I knew from her tone she didn't mean the barb.
We did a final weapons and equipment check; we weren't looking for a fight in the Ghost Zone, but it would be pure stupidity not to be prepared in case a fight found us. I had a new ecto-rifle with an attached grenade launcher and a compact autocannon; Paulina had a larger beam gun and a new bazooka. The Patrol certainly had no complaints about the newest equipment Vlad had provided. It certainly beat the gear we'd used since the siege; equipment that had well exceeded its planned life expectancy despite poor maintenance after the shield fell.
"Then let's go, before anyone misses us." I powered my sled up, pleased with the soft purr of its engines idling. "And remember, if we haven't got a lead in two hours, we head back to the portal."
"Got it." Paulina agreed, her own sled lifting a few inches off the ground. "Besides, if we don't find them tonight, we can always try again!"
I punched in the code to open the portal, shielding my eyes briefly against the vivid green light as the vortex was revealed. We would have to leave the portal wide open while we were away, but to be honest I wasn't overly worried. Back in the day, the Fentons had left their portal wide open for occasionally days at a stretch, and there had been no ghostly catastrophe. Unlike back then, the portal was guarded not just by a half-ghost teen who was figuring things out as he went along; it was guarded by an entire trained and heavily armed force.
"Here goes nothing..." I muttered under my breath as we flew right through the whirling mass of green light.
I called a halt as soon as we were on the other side. Paulina sat down heavily on her sled, simply gaping with eyes wide and jaw hanging open at our surroundings. Meanwhile, I double-checked to make sure our tracking beacon was fixed firmly to the portal's frame. It was odd how the portal's framework seemed to be duplicated on the Ghost Zone side of the warp. Vlad's portal wasn't like that, though his was a much older model.
"It-it's... so-!" Paulina gaped, apparently unable to form a coherent sentence just yet as she gestured at a handful of doors floating in the aether.
"Big? Empty?" I supplied my own descriptions to complete her thought. "Well, the beacon's set."
I surveyed our immediate surroundings, raising an eyebrow at a strangely familiar octagonal door frame some distance off. If distance in the Ghost Zone at all matched anything in the real world, that defunct gateway could only be the Ghost Zone side of the Fentons' original portal. I deemed it strange but of little importance; I didn't know my way to anything in the Ghost Zone from the old FentonWorks portal.
It took Paulina a few more minutes to fully shake off her initial shock; and while I was impatient to get going, I couldn't blame her for her reaction. There's certainly no small sense of vertigo from being surrounded by empty space in all directions. Even I felt a little dizzy despite my best efforts.
"Where should we go?" Paulina squeaked once she could form a sentence again.
"Pick a direction." I remarked dryly. "We've got no leads yet, after all."
"Might as well go straight out, I guess." Paulina gestured ahead of our current position.
"Sounds good." I nodded. "Stay sharp for ghosts, our radars are basically useless in here."
For a place supposedly full of ghosts, the first hour of our exploration was remarkably uneventful. I think we spotted all of two ghosts; both apparently harmless animals that had no interest in the two humans flying past. We passed some interesting scenery; islands supporting a variety of terrain, huge clouds of rocky debris that looked to me like the end of an explosion.
Probably Phantom's handiwork. I assumed. Gravity in the Ghost Zone seemed to be a largely voluntary thing, so it would make sense for the remnants of a big explosion to spread out in all directions, leaving a huge cloud of pulverized debris hanging roughly in the vicinity of whatever had exploded.
To my dismay and Paulina's as well, our designated two hours ran out; and we were none the wiser as to the whereabouts of Danny. We'd had to drive off a couple of hostile spooks, an eel and some sort of ghost shark, but otherwise we'd found nothing to help track down anyone familiar. A shame, but I had been hoping we'd run into Skulker and Technus, or perhaps Dora Mattingly. If we had been really lucky, we might have found Danny, Sam, or Tucker themselves.
With nothing to show for it, we started back to the portal when a low voice sounded suddenly from right behind us.
"Beware..."
Paulina yelped and spun with her weapon ready; but I just rolled my eyes, recognizing the line, even though the voice was still not entirely familiar. I turned around at a more leisurely pace, recognizing the ghost that had come up behind us from that party a few months back. He looked far more intimidating than he had in years past; he stood taller and looked far more like the stereotypical grizzled dock worker he had resembled only in caricature years ago.
"Hey, Box Ghost." I kept my weapon down and non-threatening. "What's up?"
My reaction seemed to catch the generally dim-witted ghost by surprise, given he dropped the spooky look and just looked momentarily confused. He was the first sentient ghost we'd come across, and I had no intentions of wasting the opportunity to get some useful information.
"What are two ghost hunters doing here?" Box Ghost gaped, coming out of his initial stupefied response.
"Looking for ghosts." I smirked.
Having thought about it, I had decided I rather liked the Box Ghost, even all those years ago whenever I was trying to hunt him down along with any other spook that crossed my path. Compared to the more powerful spooks like Skulker, Box Ghost was lovably incompetent. At least he always seemed to be more of a goofy slapstick comedian than any sort of a real threat. Besides, he was a father now (ew!) and from what little I had seen at that party, the job had treated him well.
"We haven't come through your new portal-!" The ghost tried to protest, apparently assuming we were there to kick some spectral tail.
"Nonono, not hunting ghosts, trying to find one!" I interrupted. "Do you know where Danny is? Y'know, the ghost kid who isn't a raging psycho?"
Box Ghost got an amusing look of concentration on his face as he considered my question. While I waited, I noticed for the first time that he was by himself and that his tiny daughter wasn't with him.
"Hey, where's your daughter?" I couldn't help but give voice to that observation.
"Daughter?" Paulina gaped first at me, then at the ghost in front of us.
I refrained from snickering at the look on the Latina's face. She didn't say it, but I could read it clear as day on her face: EW!
"She is with the babysitter!" Box Ghost boomed, apparently remembering something. "The spooky girl babysits her! And I am late to pick her up!"
Paulina and I exchanged looks. "Spooky girl?"
"Hey, could we meet this babysitter?" Paulina addressed the spook, apparently having the same thought I did.
Box Ghost didn't answer, but instead spun and flew off in what seemed a random direction. I glanced at Paulina again, then at the retreating spook.
"There's only one spooky girl I could think of that would like to babysit a creepy ghost." Paulina declared. "Do we follow him?"
"Or let this chance get away?" I quirked an eyebrow, kicking the engines on my sled into gear. "Let's move it!"
The Box Ghost wasn't difficult to follow through the Ghost Zone. Despite his slightly more fearsome appearance, he wasn't much faster than he had been years ago. He certainly had nothing on Phantom's terrible agility and strength; and even on a bad day I was able to keep pace with that spook.
I noticed that the direction we were traveling was taking us back toward the Patrol's portal, and I quirked an eyebrow as we passed scenery that was now slightly more familiar than it had been two hours prior. If what we were after was somewhere near the portal, I swore I would kick myself for somehow not seeing it.
We caught up with the ghost not far from the portal, actually. In fact, Box Ghost was fussing with what I had thought was merely the defunct remains of the Fenton Portal. Paulina looked ready to say something when the ghost grinned at whatever he was doing, and floated back a few feet from the metallic frame.
And then the portal whirred to life.
"Wha-?" I gaped at the swirling blue vortex. "Shouldn't that be- I remember when the portal was destroyed!"
"This is not that portal!" Box Ghost declared, diving through the portal.
"If it's not the old portal..." Paulina frowned. "Then what is it?"
"Got me." I admited. "I wouldn't have a clue what it is if it's not the remains of the Fentons' portal. Or where it leads. Or if it's even safe."
Okay, so I hadn't forgotten what happened the first time I'd recklessly thrown open a door of any kind in the Ghost Zone. Even Danny had been rattled all those years ago at the sight of a demonic train engine hurtling at the two of us that one time. If this portal was just another type of door, there was no telling what was on the other side. Then again, this was apparently where the Box Ghost left his kid with a spooky babysitter. No father would leave their child somewhere dangerous, right?
"Well, there's only one way to know for sure." Paulina glanced at the portal. "Besides, it can't be that dangerous if he left his... ew... daughter there."
"Like you read my mind." I mused. "Well, shall we?"
Flying through the portal was seriously like stepping backward in time, and for just a moment I had to wonder if Clockwork was messing around as we both stopped dead on the other side, jet sleds hovering a few inches off the smooth metal floor panels. I spotted the Box Ghost disappearing up a set of strangely-familiar stairs across the room. Voices drifted down from above, and while muffled they seemed familiar.
Paulina yelped in surprise and actually tumbled off her jet sled from stopping the device too abruptly. I couldn't blame her, it was nearly claustrophobic to be back inside four walls after two hours combing the vast expanse of the Ghost Zone. Heck, I had to fight back a few tears at the heartbreakingly familiar scene. It was a basement lab, slightly cluttered with papers and computer stuff. It was very nearly an exact duplicate of the FentonWorks basement from a decade ago.
"This is-!" Paulina got to her feet, trying to form a coherent sentence.
"C'mon, they've got to be upstairs." I interrupted, shutting off my jet sled and leaving my weapons. It seemed wrong to barge in fully armed.
Paulina did likewise after a long moment and we cautiously approached the stairs. In hindsight, it made sense. If Danny was going to make a lair for himself in the Ghost Zone, why not place it near the FentonWorks portal? Why not make it like the home he had lost all those years ago? There were differences though, we quickly discovered. For one, the staircase didn't go straight up to the next floor. It coiled around itself in a tight spiral, and I'm pretty sure it flagrantly disregarded physics a few times before we got to the next floor.
In fact, there were a lot of differences that became apparent as we stepped into what looked like a kitchen. The voices were clearer now, coming from a neighboring room; though what had been a simple opening in the wall between rooms at FentonWorks was now some sort of warped, almost gothic tunnel. The kitchen itself bore a close resemblance to its long since destroyed counterpart in the real world, but with subtle differences. A great deal more black and purple in the decor, for starters.
"Yech... who did the interior design on this place?" Paulina made a face. "I know the Fentons weren't that great at it, but this-"
"Looks an awful lot like Sam's handiwork." I guessed, interrupting Paulina again.
Box Ghost emerged from the tunnel connecting the rooms, smiling happily with his daughter riding piggyback and waving when she saw us. Clearly the little ghost had not yet learned anything about humans yet; she looked like any other three year old child. Well, aside from the pale blue complexion, at least.
"They're in there!" Box Ghost boomed, making me briefly wonder if the spook could ever speak in anything less than a shout.
"In'ere!" His daughter parroted, pointing at the black tunnel.
I just stared briefly, still distracted by my thoughts. Luckily Paulina picked up the slack.
"Thank you for showing us the way here." The Latina told the two ghosts. "We really appreciate it."
I shook myself out of my introspection and nodded agreement. "Yeah, thanks guys. I don't think we would have found the place without your help."
"It was no problem!" Box Ghost declared, pausing at the staircase. "It was much nicer than being scooped up in one of your cylindrical containers!"
With that, he turned and flew down the stairs with a final shout of "BEWARE!", leaving Paulina and me in what had to be Danny and Sam's lair. I glanced at the Latina and she nodded.
"Let's go!"
We walked down the tunnel connecting the rooms; like the staircase, it seemed to twist and invert in ways that gave me a headache trying to think about. The connecting tunnel had to be Sam's handiwork; there was no way Danny could come up with something quite so twisted.
Apparently the Box Ghost hadn't warned anyone on the other end of the tunnel that they had guests. The two ghosts stopped short in surprise as Paulina and I emerged into the family room; black and purple and looking only slightly like the Fentons' old living room. I was a bit more prepared, having already met the ghosts at the party a few months ago. Paulina, on the other hand, stopped in the doorway, gawking. The expression was mirrored on the two ghosts, and after a moment of surprised silence, excited chatter flooded the room all at once.
"Paulina?"
"Danny!"
"Valerie! What are you..." Sam flew over, glancing at me and then warily at Paulina. "...and Paulina doing here?"
"Don't be too hard on Paulina." I whispered so the Latina wouldn't overhear. "She's done a lot for the city; she's come a long way from being just a shallow cheerleader."
Sam didn't look entirely convinced, and I couldn't blame her as we glanced at Paulina; who had grabbed poor Danny up in a very enthusiastic hug. As a ghost, Danny had gained a few more inches of height, but Paulina still stood a little taller and her reaction had him at something of a loss. I couldn't make out all of what the Latina was babbling; I think it was partly a mushy apology for snubbing Danny in high school, partly an admonishment for not telling her that he was the ghost boy a decade ago, and partly a bunch of relieved nonsense about a familiar face after everything that had happened.
"That aside," Sam remarked dryly as Danny squirmed out of Paulina's greeting. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Looking for you guys, actually." I replied. "We're making progress with rebuilding the city, including a new ghost portal."
"So that's what that was!" Danny yelped before looking seriously over at me. "Please tell me there weren't any... accidents... with it?"
I laughed outright. "No, Danny. There weren't any accidents, and no new half-ghosts on the loose."
"But Valerie did have to threaten to demote a couple of Patrol members for messing around while it was being built!" Paulina added.
"Anyway-" I cleared my throat to get to the real reason I wanted to find the ghosts. "With tension between the Ghost Zone and the real world really low because of him..."
There was no need to clarify who he was. We all knew that nightmare entirely too well.
"I'm thinking now would be a good time to explore new... cooperative... possibilities."
So far, things were looking good. I could only hope that the ideas we were pursuing would bear fruit in the near future.
Author's Note: Yeah, I left it really open-ended. Mostly to lead in to the final "After the End" chapter, and partly because after all the angst and stuff in Jeremiad already, I kinda felt a super-sappy scene with Paulina meeting the ghosts of Team Phantom was unnecessary. That and after trying to make this chapter work, including scrapping the original three pages of it and starting over, I'm frankly sick of this chapter! I promise more action in the final installment of this little storyline though. Hopefully it'll have a couple of twists in it that you won't be expecting.
Before you go, two of my plot bunnies have been adopted, and I promised that I would plug the stories. So go check out "More Than a Thesis" by MissMune (http:// www. fanfiction. net /s/ 3189439/1/) and "Analogue" by Andrew Laplante aka Clueless1 (http:// www. fanfiction. net/s/ 3378398/1/) So be nice and leave them some feedback!
And as always, many thanks to my wonderful reviewers: Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, hammy ham ham, and passionateartist!