Oh dear, I think everyone's going a little OOC now. I'm so Psychonaut obsessed again that I'm getting side-tracked. I wish I could watch Danny Phantom whenever I want to…! (goes and cries in a dark corner because she's Phantom deprived)
Danny: I don't know her.
And I am so very, very, very sorry for the extremely late update! I've been side-tracked and busy all over the place! I'm so sorry! And I'm also sorry for my crappy battle scene writing.
Eleven: Insert Lame Title Here
Tucker had been right, the storm clouds hit the next day, drowning Amity Park in a downpour. Amethyst was glaring out the windows all day, barely paying any attention to what was going on around her, more intent upon what was possibly coming with the storm. Trice. She was silent all day, starring off into the distance, and when the gang gathered together at Danny's house that evening, she still hadn't said anything.
"Maybe we were being a little over dramatic." Sam muttered and then looked around as the door opened and then quietly shut again, "Hey Jazz, what's up?"
"It's so tense in here, you'd need a butcher knife to cut through it!" The older girl muttered, looking from one face to another, "What's going on?"
"Nothing." Tucker muttered distractedly, fiddling with his PDA, "Hanging out."
"You, Tucker Foley, are a terrible liar." Jazz muttered, putting her hands on her hips, and she turned her attention to her little brother, "Danny, what's going on?"
"We're waiting for Trice, the over-grown cat…!" The halfa muttered through his fingers, his face in his hands, "And it's killing me…!"
The rain pounded against the window. Amethyst suddenly stiffened, her eyes widening.
"He's coming." She looked at Danny and her sneered, getting to his feet and flashing into ghost mode. Amethyst stood as well, turning slightly translucent, and smiled darkly.
"Let's go."
----
Sam and Tucker stood on the street below, ignoring the rain as they looked up at the three ghosts hovering high in the air above them. Lightning flashed briefly across the sky. Trice was no longer in his human guise but in his true, Yokai Tabby form. No armor.
"Yokai Fox…!" Trice hissed, ears back, "It's nice to see you're not running anymore! And you, halfa, thanks for joining the feast! As the main course!"
"Your puns are terrible!" Danny shouted, charging some palm blasts, "Eat ectoplasm!"
And it began. To the two human kids on the sidewalk, it was mere flashes of green and red light from Danny, Amethyst, and Trice, sometimes the scene was momentarily lit by a streak of lightning but for Sam and Tucker it was hard to tell who was winning. Suddenly, one of the flying forms dropped from the sky and landed in the street with a wet, sickening thud and a scream of agony.
"Amethyst!" Tucker ran to the fox girl's side, "Oh crap…! Oh crap, no…!" The Yokai Fox was in her fox form but one of her legs was bent the wrong way and there was terrible looking gash across the top of her head, matting her red fur, "Sam, get over here and help me!" He and the Goth girl dragged Amethyst into the shelter of an alley and started mopping up the wound on their friend's head. Danny suddenly phased through the wall, looking absolutely exhausted.
"It's hopeless…!" He gasped, sagging against a wall with his eyes closed, letting the rain splash onto his face, "He's too strong, even for me…!" He opened one eye and looked at his friends, panting, "I turned invisible and hid from him but it's only a matter of time before he finds me…there has to be something, anything, I can do…!"
"There's one thing…" Amethyst's voice was heavy but her violet eyes glittered through the rain, locking with Danny's glowing green ones, "But…it is dangerous…"
"What?" Danny crawled on his hands and knees towards the fox, "I'll do anything, Amethyst, I don't care how dangerous it is! I'll doanything to protect this place and my friends and my family! Anything, you hear me, anything!"
Amethyst studied his distraught features for a while as Sam and Tucker shared a worried glance.
"Alright Danny, come closer…" The Fenton boy knelt down so that his eyes were level with hers, "This will hurt terribly but you said you will do anything…I'll have to bite you…and draw out your Yokai Ghost. It is the only way."
Danny starred at her, blinked rain water from his eyes, and nodded. Sam touched his shoulder and he turned to look at her.
"Come back, okay," She murmured, "Come back to me, to us, as Danny Fenton."
"Right." Danny nodded once and held his arm close to Amethyst's jaws. She slowly, agonizingly, opened her mouth and clamped it down on the boy's arm, let it draw blood for a moment, and then released him. Danny starred at the life liquid welling up from the tears in his uniform, changing the white part a deep crimson.
"Hey, I thought you said this would-AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGG!" Danny's scream was covered by an explosion of thunder that left their ears ringing. He collapsed onto the ground, curled into a little ball of agony, screaming, twitching, crying.
"Found you!" Trice's cat nose shoved its way into the alley the gang was crouched in, "And now you die!"
A blaze of red light, a yowl of pain, a threatening and terrifying hiss of rage, and Trice had pulled back, blood sprouting from a nasty looking gash on his nose. And in the mouth of the alley was Danny. Yokai Ghost Snake Danny. The ends of his white were tainted a light green but not like his ghostly powers, more like a sickly green of death, his glowing green eyes were pupil less and filled with hate, a long white braid twisted from the back of his head and floated in the air of its own accord, a the silver arrow at the end dripping rain water and blood. The sleeves of Danny's black and white uniform had been ripped off and evil looking spines tipped in a poison ness looking green sprouted down his arms and tore through the back of his outfit, his fingernails were claws, pitch black and tipped in green, and his legs were replaced by the curving, scaly body of a sleek black snake with a white underbelly.
"Yokai!" Trice snarled, hackles raising despite the rain, "How dare you, of all the scum of the earth, obtain Yokai Ghost powers! You do not deserve them!"
Yokai Danny smirked and bared long fangs in a show of defiance, tail lashing as he crouched low, poised to strike. Trice leapt at him but Danny was faster, swirling around and slicing back with his arm, drawing the dangerous spines through the air, leaving deep rivets across the side of Trice's face.
"Those are poisoned, you know…" Sam felt a chill run up her spine; Danny's voice was harsh, dark, twisted, evil, "Anymore cuts like that and you'll go down in no time."
"Shut up, halfa!" Trice howled, pawing at his bleeding muzzle, "You're nothing. Without your friends, you are nothing, without your family, you are nothing, without your powers, you are nothing. You are a speck in the universe! Nothing!"
"I don't care…" Danny now seemed immune to Trice's 'pushing-buttons-technique', he slithered over the street, a haunting, evil smile never leaving his face, "I just want to rip you into little pieces…"
Trice was backing away. Yokai Ghost Danny was dangerous. More dangerous than anything the Yokai Tabby had come across in his entire life. And he was scary. Terrifyingly so.
"Stay away!" The Yokai Tabby leader commanded, "Get back! Stay away from me!"
"Coward." Danny hissed, a forked tongue flicking at the air, "Dirty, rotten, coward." A flash of lightning and he vanished though his voice seemed to be echoing from everywhere, "Why a pathetic creature like you even exists…I don't know."
"Where is he!?" Tucker was looking all over the place, horror evident in his eyes.
"There!" Sam pointed at Trice and Tucker saw the glint of the silver arrow at the end of a long white braid beneath Trice.
"Just die." Danny spat and, quicker than any of them could blink, he sliced open Trice's stomach and let all of his guts come spilling out. It was raining blood. Trice screamed and toppled over, disintegrating, blood still pooled on the streets. Yokai Ghost Danny was curled in the middle of it, drenched in water and blood, laughing.
"Danny!" Sam cried, leaping up and racing across the street, "Danny!" She paused a few feet from him and shuddered as those cold, empty green eyes found her lilac ones, "Danny…?" She screwed up her courage, "Danny Fenton! Come on, change back!"
"Change back?" The forked tongue flicker in and out again, "Why would I do that?" Fangs glittered as he smiled, "I'm so powerful…! This power…it's addicting…I don't want to give it up…!"
"Danny, let it go!" Amethyst, back in her human form, was limping over to them through the pounding rain, supported by Tucker who looked absolutely terrified at getting close to what Danny had become, "The Yokai Ghost power isn't for you! Let it go! Change back! What about your family!? What about your friends!?"
Danny simply laughed.
"No…" Tucker moaned, "No, no, no…"
CRACK! Yokai Ghost Snake Danny stopped laughing, his eyes wide, head to the side, a red mark growing on his pale cheek. Then he turned slowly, looking at the one who'd hit him. Sam Manson was breathing heavily, tears in her eyes, her face a mask of anger.
"Stupid!" She shouted and another crack of thunder followed as though emphasizing her words, "Idiot! And so many other things I'd love to call you but I can't!" Her fingers were curled into tight fists, "You said you'd come back as Danny Fenton! Liar!"
"Sam…" The spines shrank back into the flesh, his eyes filled with sorrow as pupils faded in, "Sam I…" The tail split in half and formed into two legs upon which Danny stood rather shakily, "Sam I just…" The braid and the silver arrow disintegrated in a mist of red, the rain left lines in the blood splattered across him, "Sam, I'm sorry."
"Dumb boy." The Goth girl muttered, "Now let's get home before someone sees us and the ghost boy standing on the street in a pool of blood."
Danny chuckled weakly, leaning against Sam, and they all made their way down the street, through the rain, Amethyst moaning in Tucker's ear the whole time.
Next Time on 'Melody in Red'
EmptyHeart: We're about finished here, folks, the end is nigh! (dramatic finger pointing ensues) The end, the end, the horrible, horrible end!
Danny: Drama queen.
Sam: Not any more than you, Danny, not any more than you.
Tucker: You're right, EmptyHeart, the first one is lame.
Amethyst: (ignoring them all, pressing random buttons on Danny's cell phone)
EmptyHeart: Mm-hm, but the second one and the third one are cool.
Sam: I can't wait.