Finally! a glimpse of the disaster Vlad has caused, I wonder how many of you already did the connection before this chapter, I guess most of you guys did ;) or in other words...SATURDAY IS FINALLY HERE!! :D!! for the readers who don't remember read chapter 9 "Tucker" at the end XDD lol.
Poor Clueless Innocent Danny
He was looking at Amity Park from the sky. Looking at all those buildings whose lights slowly were turned on. Looking as the sun changed his brightness to the shadows of the moon. And as the minutes became hours, even Amity Park was absorbed by shadows. Now, all that Danny could see was darkness. Out of that darkness, he heard a horrid scream of terror that broke the deep silence.
The boy knew that voice; it was a girl's voice. With the sound came the image of her body falling slowly through the night and into the darkness. Her black hair was covering almost all of her face, and her purple eyes were nowhere to be found because her eyes where closed from fear.
Young Daniel couldn't do anything, almost as if someone had cast an spell upon him. He couldn't move, and his brain was crying out loud for him to do something, even if he couldn't do much.
He saw her falling in the darkness forever...
Danny shot up, awakened, to rid himself of the terrible nightmare. His heart was skipping fast, and the sweat forming on his forehead was already starting to move down his face. The halfa took some deep breaths to calm down and then shook his head to take away the image of Sam falling. Then, after realizing that he had awoken on his own, Danny took a glance at his new alarm clock and figured out that it was 7:27AM, which meant that his clock wouldn't go off until another hour and a half. He deactivated the alarm and stood up to start this new day.
First he went to the bathroom to take a shower, and then he changed into his clothes so he could make his way to the kitchen to eat some breakfast. The poor boy was starving since the previous day he hadn't eaten anything due to his guilt, which would have made him throw up.
But this was another day, and his hunger was so strong that he didn't even care if his breakfast attacked him again like it had done two weeks previous.
He entered the kitchen and found his mom drinking some tea and looking at some blueprints for a new, updated version of the Fenton Bazooka. Wait, was she actually drinking..."Tea, Mom? You're actually drinking tea?" His voice was disbelieving.
Maddie blinked and stared at her son in awe as she registered the fact that Danny was awake. "What? Umm, yes it is tea, why?"
"I thought you liked coffee better," her son answered in confusion.
"Yes, hon, it's just that I think the coffee is altering my brain," she smiled. "Shouldn't I be the one wondering why you're awake?"
"Okay, mom, whatever you say," he said, and, realizing that she had asked him a question, he continued, "I was just having a...bad dream."
His mom nodded and then stood up to make him a sandwich. After she was finished and had placed the food in front of her son, she commented, "Can you believe this? Jack decided to sneak into the Techno Convention before I could wake up. He left a note over the living room desk! I can't understand why he made me think that he wasn't going! He promised it to me!"
Danny swallowed his first bite of the sandwich and answered, "Really, Mom? Not again! Not in Amity Park!" He banged his head against the table a couple of times in annoyance, knowing that his dad was going to put him through constant ridicule again. But, pretty soon, his stomach asked for some food again, a request he pleasantly answered by eating some more of his sandwich.
"Oh, come on, honey, don't be so harsh with your father. I know he can be... too exited sometimes, and I'm mad at him too, but we have to understand that he's like that and we can't change it," she replied, sitting on a chair the table again and finishing her tea.
Danny sighed, calmed himself, and then asked, "And where's Jazz?"
"Don't you remember? She's at Axion Labs."
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot. Now where is Vlad?" And then something clicked in his mind, as if he had solved some kind of puzzle. His eyes grew wide as realization came in and he gasped though there was no ghost near. "Mom, I have to... call Sam, I promised I would when I woke up."
He rushed up the stairs, leaving a sleepy Maddie in the kitchen.
Danny went into his bedroom, locked the door, and went straight to his phone, dialing Sam's number. He hadn't really promised her that he would call, but he urgently needed to talk with her. The phone rang once, then twice, and then he heard his friend's voice, "Hello, this is the Manson family."
"Hey Sam, it's me, Danny," the boy said immediately.
"Hi, Dan," she greeted. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes, I know, I know. It's too early for my normal self to be awake, but I had this dream and well...whatever. Sam, I really need to talk to you now," he answered.
"Aren't we talking right now?" she pointed out.
"No, I need to see you since I know that Tuck is already at the convention with my dad and Jazz is in Axion Labs. You're the only one left," Danny replied.
"With your dad? I thought that your parents weren't going," she answered, then continued, "Well Danny if it's that important, I still doubt you could come in. My parents are all freaked out about yesterday's events so they decided to put some guards in the doorway and in the garden below my window."
"I thought my dad wasn't going too, I guess he lied to all of us. And that's terrible Sam at least you're finally where you belong: jail." Danny grinned at this and relaxed a bit.
"Ha-ha-ha you are hilarious," Sam replied sarcastically.
"Oh well, I think I'll call you later. I'm going on a walk to see if I can clear my mind. Bye, Sam," said the halfa, and, after receiving a farewell from his friend, the boy hung up. Standing up from his bed, Danny took his Fenton Thermos and Fenton Ear Phone and went out the street to take a walk to the park.
Walking, Danny arrived to the park and then sat in a bench under an apple tree to think. This wasn't something he usually did when he had a problem, but right now the best thing for the boy was to be alone in a peaceful place to clear his thoughts. Everything was starting to make sense somehow, and Danny wasn't sure why he hadn't figured it out before. He felt stupid, clueless.
The day he and his class had been invited to Axion Labs, the boy had seen something that had grabbed his attention. It was a huge photograph that was labeled with the word "president" below it. The photograph was one with none other than the face of his nemesis, the person who had been planning something since his arrival to the city, Vladimir Masters. He owned Axion Labs… and Jazz was there.
Before his sister had been invited to the famous trip, he had seen Vlad in the school, and now he was sure of the reason why. That day he hadn't been able to figure this out because another ghost, a ghost that had appeared for the first time the day of Vlad's arrival, distracted the halfa. Billtrand… He had been part of this the whole time! He had attacked Sam on purpose, distracted Danny when Vlad was at his school, and had been the reason why he had the confrontation with Valerie the day when she found out he knew her secret.
Now Danny knew that it had been all connected since the beginning. However, that would only explain Sam's, Jazz's, and partially Valerie's cases. What about Tucker, his parents, and the ecto-suit Vlad have given to Valerie? Well maybe Tuck and his dad weren't a problem for his nemesis. But then again… his mother was a good fighter and Jack had his moments.
Plus, Vlad wasn't so careless to leave Tucker out of his plans because Danny was sure that Vlad acknowledged the many times his friend had saved his life. Maybe the Techno Convention had something to do with it. As he had originally thought, the only reason he had let it go was because neither Sam nor Tucker thought that it was something to worry about.
So the Techno Convention would have explained Vlad's way to get rid of his parents and Tucker, even though it hadn't worked for Maddie because she had decided not to go at last. All of these would leave Danny with another issue: the ecto-suit. Why did Vlad give the suit to Valerie? What was it so important to have her as part of the plan rather than getting rid of her as he had for the others? Actually, why would Plasmius need Danny to be left alone? Why had he worked so hard on doing so?
And the last of the questions: What were the famous blueprints for?
¨ARGHHHH this is getting more and more confusing! Whenever I get an answer at the same time I get two new questions! This is really frustrating¨
Vlad was standing at the top of the tallest building of Amity Park in human form, accompanied by his employee Billtrand. The halfa was expecting the call of his other employee, Skulker, who was stealthily hiding in Axion Labs, waiting for the right time to do as he was told.
Tic. Tock. Tic. Tock. It was 7:59AM.
Tic. Tock. Tic. Tock. Tic. Tock.
BANG! BANG! The city's clock announced the progression to the next hour.
Ring! RING! Vlad heard his phone sounding simultaneously with the Clock Tower, noting that it was Skulker:
"Sir the message has been delivered. I'm here where you asked at the time you told me, and the last part of your request has been released," said the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter.
"Good work, Skulker," replied Vlad, smiling maliciously, then hanging up. He added to himself with a smirk, "Let the fun begin."
Now both the halfa and the purple blob could see the result of his long week of planning and working in a huge mass of green that was forming far, far away.
Damon Gray was in the Security System Operational Center of Axion Labs. The whole place was full of security alarms, buttons, and mini TV's that showed him what the security cameras were recording in almost every place in the lab. Everything was fine; the day had started really well compared to usual. Mr. Gray was comfortable eating a sandwich and drinking some good Colombian coffee.
Yes, everything is always fine until something goes wrong.
The alarm on the Lab for Special Secret Projects went off, beeping like crazy. Damon had to spit some of the coffee and stand up to look at the problem, but there was no one to be seen. Worried, he tried to call for the guardian of that section but the guard there never answered the phone.
It was then when he realized, through the security camera, that the officer was asleep. And it was not only him, but also almost everyone near that certain facility of Axion Labs. He wondered what could have caused it.
The operation system answered his question with a sign in red letters that appeared in the Main Security Computer Screen:
GHOST ALERT
Damon's face went pale, and the only thing he could say was "I'm so screwed up this time."
Danny wasn't doing any better on his thinking, and the boy felt that something wrong was going to happen soon. There were so many things that didn't make sense, and at the same time he felt that time was running out. He would have liked to be with the complete Team Phantom at that moment, and yet he knew that to unite them at the moment was impossible.
It was then that the young halfa saw it.
There was a huge green cloud that was spreading in the air, something he had never seen before. Danny had no idea what the heck the thing was, but then again, who could know…except for maybe a certain nemesis… The problem was that he didn't even know where Vlad was right now. So the only thing that he could think at the moment was to go ghost and inspect whatever that thing was.
"Wait, if that's what Vlad was planning all this time, then: 1. I have officially run out of time, and 2. My parents know! I saw Jazz talking to them!" Danny thought furiously.
He hid behind the bushes in the desolate part of the park, quickly becoming Phantom. He made himself invisible, flew all the way to the alley near his house, changed back to his human self, and went straight into the house to look for his mom.
Jazz was really happy on her trip, looking at all the advances in science that the lab had developed. Everything was fine until one of the alarms went off, obviously followed by some screams of terror.
The sight of something green moving in the distance shocked them all.
Valerie was looking at some TV while eating her favorite cereal on this quiet Saturday morning. She was really eager with her new suit, which she had mostly managed to figure out the previous day. She couldn't wait to encounter her worst enemy in order to kick his butt and make the day perfect.
Her excitement grew when she heard the beeping noise of her ecto-radar going off like crazy in her bedroom. She, by then really curious, tried to look for the ghost by looking out through the window. Only what she found was something really strange. There was a big green smoke-like thing growing in the distance, and she had no idea what it was.
Her only reaction was a loud gasp.
Danny was in his house ready to look for his mom. He had no idea what to tell her or what to explain to her as to how he knew that the thing out there was whatever Vlad was working on—if it really was.
It was then when he realized that Jazz was in Axion Lab alone, Sam was trapped in her house and couldn't escape, Tucker was at a Techno Convention with Jack and nothing could drive them away from there, and Valerie hated his ghostly self at the same time having a new weapon courtesy of Vlad. Danny had been part of his perfect chess game, and he hadn't figured it out until now when he was all alone. Poor, clueless, innocent Danny.
People drink Colombian coffee, it's the best XD LOL I love my country :P so I couldn't resist to write that alusion XD
Sorry for taking so long!! I wrote this a long time ago but my internet died last Thursday and between then and today my awsome Beta Reader Sophie send me the corrected chp...so yeah Murphy's Law was being evil on me XD Sophie thanks a lot! :D
Thanks so much for reading!!
-Bluename
Posted: May 21 , 2008
