Chapter 5: Let's Do the Time Warp-Again
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or its characters. Strike, however, belongs to me.
Strike was already in the air. She held her staff in front of her in a fighting stance. As Danny flew away from the fleeing RV to join her, she deflected a blast of green ecto-energy by spinning the staff in a whirling circle. However, she was knocked backwards several feet in the air by the power of the blast.
"Ugh," she grunted as Danny drew level. "Tell your other self to back off."
"Tell him yourself," Danny growled back. "I have no connection with him. He's just another ghost to fight." He took a look at his opponent, and gulped. "One who happens to look like me. A lot like me."
When they had first met, the resemblance between fourteen-year-old Danny and his twenty-four-year-old alternate self had been no more than passing. A similar face shape, and some shared expressions. Three years later, with a growth spurt and some muscle mass added on his side, Danny could definitely see something of an eerie mirror image in this other, darker version. The flaming hair, blue skin and cape notwithstanding. Danny put that down to Plasmius' more dramatic influence. He preferred his simple jumpsuit, personally.
His alternate self was studying him just as intently, having broken off the attack for the moment. "So, it's you, is it?" he purred. He crossed his arms. "You're taller than I expected. I was sure you'd stay a runt."
"And you're the same as ever," Danny retorted, crossing his own arms. "Still an annoying jerk who shows up just when he's not wanted."
The other Danny bristled, ever so slightly. He turned to Strike, "And you, Clockstrike. You and Clockwork will both learn you've taken your meddling too far this time."
"What you call 'meddling' is my job, Phantom," growled Strike. "If it means keeping you in lockup to prevent atrocities like your time stream, then, well, that's what happens. It's no skin off my nose."
The ghost chuckled. "Well phrased. Couldn't have done better myself."
Strike's expression darkened. Her knuckles tightened on her staff, and she bared her teeth.
"You call him 'Phantom'?" Danny whispered to her. He vaguely remembered Valerie doing the same, on his brief visit to the future. The question also seemed to forestall Strike charging their opponent head-on.
"No offense meant, ghost-kid. What else would you call him?" she demanded.
"Point. I guess."
"If I address you, I'll call you Danny. That OK by you?"
"Sure. As long as we stay alive to call each other anything."
They both turned back to their foe. "What are you going to do now, Phantom?" Strike demanded.
"What, so you can catch me monologing and put me back in one of those ridiculous Thermoses again? Forget it. That's a Technus trick. I've waited three years for this, and I'm not wasting any more time." He began charging a Ghost Ray in one palm.
"Well, it was worth a shot," Strike muttered under her breath, tensing for battle again.
"Look out!" Danny cried. The blast shot forward, and he hurriedly threw up a shield to cover himself and Strike. The shield absorbed the impact, and to Danny it felt like a hammer blow to the skull. He'd forgotten just how powerful his futuristic evil self was. He managed to stay in place in the air—barely.
His opponent raised an eyebrow. The bigger ghost looked mildly impressed in spite of himself. "I see the Cheesehead wasn't kidding when he said you'd gotten stronger. Let's put it to the test, shall we?" He charged another blast.
This time Danny and Strike dodged in opposite directions. Danny charged a blast of his own, while Strike brought out the blade on her staff.
"Oooh, I'm scared now," Danny's evil half sneered.
"It's two against one," Danny reminded him. "You should be."
"Ha! Against the two of you? Please. Come back with an army. Then I might shudder. Just a little. Before I destroy you all." He shot more green Ghost Rays at them.
Strike twisted in the air to dodge the rays. Danny fired his own to deflect the first, which was headed straight for his head, then wove in a tight circle to avoid the rest. He charged and fired another shot, which his other self dodged.
Back and forth they traded energy blows, Danny trying to keep attention on himself so that Strike could get closer with her blade. He knew better than to get within reach of his evil half himself—the bigger ghost could do just as much damage with a fist or a foot as with a Ghost Ray. Danny well remembered what being beaten to within an inch of his life by his alternate self felt like. He had no desire to repeat the experience.
Something was wrong about this. With most of his other usual opponents, if Danny didn't go into a fight with them already knowing what they were up to, then they usually gave some sort of hint during battle. His other self was just attacking him and Strike in an almost casual fashion. Sure, he had dodged the question about his purpose in attacking, but he still had to have one, right?
He's certifiably insane, and he likes destroying stuff, Danny reminded himself as he went intangible to dodge another blow. Who knows why he's doing this?
"Revenge, probably," Danny muttered to himself.
"What?" asked Strike as she zoomed by.
"I was just wondering—" Danny paused to fire another Ghost Ray, "—why he's attacking me. Even if he exists outside the time stream, killing me could still make him go 'poof.'"
"If you're right, it explains why he sent Plasmius to visit the dinosaurs rather than destroy him," answered Strike, sounding a little breathless. She spun her scythe to block another Ghost Ray.
"Then why's he here?"
"Revenge. Like you said."
"Revenge on you. He can't take revenge on me without somehow—"
"Returning to the time stream!" they exclaimed together. They looked at each other.
"That was weird," Danny commented. "Usually only Sam and I can do that."
"Look out!" Strike cried. Danny flung up a shield just in time. He angled it this time to bounce his evil self's attack back rather than absorb the blow.
"Take a taste of your own medicine!" he shouted as his opponent had to contort his ghostly body to get out of the way.
"But if he wants to return to the time stream…" Strike mused as she took a second's breather. Suddenly she swore.
"I've had enough of this. Time out!" She punched the button on her staff.
Nothing happened.
"Um, wasn't time supposed to stop for him or something?" asked Danny. "'Cause it looks like it hasn't."
Strike pushed the button again to no effect, her face twisting into an angry scowl. The fire-haired ghost began to laugh uproariously.
"Finally decided to test that stupid, useless stick, have you?"
From beneath his jumpsuit, where it had been hanging right beneath the white 'DP' logo, he pulled a gear-shaped medallion.
"A Time Medallion!" Danny exclaimed, recognizing it at once. "Gosh, he's had it ever since he came back to my time to make sure he came into existence. Which means…"
"What it means in practical terms is that I can't freeze him," interrupted Strike. "And he has a serious advantage."
"What I was going to say was, that's probably what protected him from being erased when I chose to do the right thing on the C.A.T. test and changed history."
"Ugh." Strike groaned. "Those things make the wearer immune to anything Clockwork or I do to alter time. Of course he has one. Why would anything about this be easy?"
She sounded so annoyed Danny refrained from asking her why she had expected dealing with his evil alternate self to be simple in any way, shape, or form. He was also surprised. During their brief acquaintance, Strike had given him the impression she was pretty pragmatic.
SAT word, he thought triumphantly. See, Jazz? I did stud…Jazz! Suddenly the pieces fell together.
"Oh no! No, no, no, no…how could I be so stupid?"
Hastily, Danny split himself into two. Leaving the copy behind—his copies tended to not be as powerful as the original—he went streaking off in the direction of the RV carrying Sam, Tucker, and Jazz.
Splitting was always a weird experience, though these days he could keep himself split in two for as long as he wanted, and could do up to four if pressed. He was aware of what all copies were doing at the same time. So, as his main part flew over the flat Wisconsin landscape as fast as he could, his copy turned to a still-surprised Strike.
"What is going on?" she demanded.
"This is a diversion!" the Danny-copy snapped.
"What?"
"Didn't we say he wants to return to the time stream so he can have his revenge on me? If he returns to the time stream, then he can destroy me and Plasmius and be the only version of us both. To get back in the time stream, he has to put things the way they were in his reality. You said yourself Mom, Dad, Jazz, Sam, Tucker and Lancer were in danger. That," he pointed at their adversary, "is a copy. He must have split himself and sent an invisible version off after the RV while we were distracted here. We're not the real targets—not yet."
He was lucky it was Strike he was talking to and not his usual companions. Strike clearly understood immediately what he was getting at—presumably she'd had plenty of experience with alternate universe paradoxes. If he had been talking to Sam and Tucker he'd have wasted precious time explaining his conclusions, and how he was all of a sudden so certain he was right. Somehow he just knew—call it some remaining connection to the way his alternate self would think—that this was the other Danny's plan.
Their adversary chuckled, a terrible, smug sound, swirled his cloak around himself, vampire-like—and vanished.
Strike snorted. "Ever the dramatic villain." She turned to the Danny-copy. "Go on. I'll catch up with you. You'll need your full power to protect your friends and family—don't waste it on the split."
"Thanks," said copy-Danny. Like his evil counterpart, he ended the copy effect and vanished, his consciousness returning to the original streaking to catch up with the Fenton RV.
Terror prickled at the edge of all of his senses. He hadn't felt this afraid since the leadup to the Disasteroid, when he'd known the fate of the entire world rested on him. In a way, it did again. Losing everyone he cared about would literally end his world. This was a solid fact—losing them in the first place, in that horrifying alternate timeline, was what had transformed him into the monstrosity he was now racing to face. While he knew he wouldn't turn evil because he'd sworn to his family never to do so, even in the event of their deaths, the thought of them actually dead was too awful to contemplate.
"Another SAT word," he muttered to himself. "Please be OK, Jazz. Sam. Tucker."
He almost missed the RV below him—it was facing the wrong direction. The only thing that cued him in was the brilliant green blasts being traded back and forth.
"What the…" Danny muttered as he flew down to join the fray.
His evil half was indeed there. Seeing Danny, he fired off one more blast at the RV, then shot up to head off his opponent out of range of the Assault Vehicle's guns.
"Took you long…" he started to say.
Not for nothing, however, had Danny survived the past three years since their last meeting, and kept his human friends alive as well. He steamed right on past the other ghost to plant himself firmly between the enemy and them. He was also well within weapons range; in order to engage him, the other ghost would have to come in range as well.
For a moment, even his evil self could only gape at this move. Then his expression settled down into disdain. "You rely on them to protect you?" he snorted. "You're weaker than I thought."
Danny was ready for this sort of scorn. "Of course I rely on them," he replied, matching the disdain tone for tone. "They're my team. My family. And they rely on me, too. That's how it works. I keep them safe, and they watch my butt in return."
"Go Danny!" he heard Sam cheer from below.
"I know what your plan is…Phantom," Danny managed to spit out, though using his own name for someone this evil tasted like acid. "And I won't let you have them. You aren't getting back into the time stream this way. Or any way."
"You can't stop me," the bigger ghost insisted. He made to rocket past Danny.
Danny had anticipated this, however. And on his flight over he had had some time to think about what he could possibly do to keep this monster away from Jazz, Tucker and Sam. As his fire-haired nemesis went by, Danny reached out and grabbed.
He got an ankle. Closer to missing than he wanted, but no point in being picky. The other's momentum carried him down so that the two were screaming towards the RV at impressive speed.
"I think…it's time for you to…chill out," Danny snarled. He called upon the coldest ice he could possibly produce, putting as much power as he dared into it.
"Wha…" his evil self had time to gasp before being encased in a solid sheet of ice. The ice dropped towards the RV like a stone. Much as Danny would have liked his opponent to shatter on impact, letting the ice prison fall on the others was not an option. Placing a green Ghost Shield neatly underneath his creation, he flew it to the side of the road and dumped it there.
"Didn't know about that power, did you?" he grinned, dusting off his hands. "I got it after we met. Seems you bonding with Plasmius wasn't such a great thing after all, was it? You never got this one."
"Great job, Danny!" Sam crowed, leaping from the RV to pounce on him.
"Nice going, little brother," added Jazz. She glared at the ghost encased in the ice, hands on hips. He glared right back, red eyes flashing. It was clear that there was little else he could do, however.
"Nice work," added another voice. Strike had finally caught up with them. She floated down to land on top of the RV. "But that won't hold him for long. We have to go!"
"Go where?" Tucker demanded from the RV. "According to my PDA calculator, odds are he'll catch us in ten minutes at best."
"On the road," Strike corrected. "But this way buys us more time." She held out a hand. "Time out!" A giant clock hand appeared in the air. It started to spin, until it was a whirl of green.
"A Portal!" exclaimed Danny.
"Get in!" snapped Strike.
"The RV…our parents will…" Jazz started.
"Here!" Danny grabbed Sam and Jazz. Turning intangible, he flew into the RV, tossed them into their seats, and started it up. The moment it roared to life, he stepped hard on the gas pedal, driving it straight into the green.
They entered the familiar greenish darkness of the Ghost Zone. There was a pause, and then the RV seemed to realize there was no road beneath it. After a sickening pause, it dropped like a stone.