Chapter 10: Battle Royale
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or its characters. Original stuff belongs to me.
Slipping and stumbling as the building danced around them, the humans lunged for weapons. Strike brought the scythe out of her staff.
"I'm going ghost!" Danny shouted. Standing straight, he made the switch to Danny Phantom. Twin rings of light shot out of his middle, transitioning his t-shirt and jeans to black and white jumpsuit. He felt the familiar bizarre prickling in his eyeballs and tingle in his scalp that meant his irises were turning green and his black hair white. No matter how many times he made the transition, the sensations were still decidedly odd. Danny wondered irrelevantly whether his evil opposite missed the exhilarating feeling of being able to change. Then all such thoughts had to be pushed aside.
He and Strike went intangible and shot through the ceiling. The wailing went on and on, forcing both to cover their ears once they came out above the roof and got the full force of the noise. The whole world seemed to be coming apart at the seams.
And then it stopped. Danny and Strike looked around cautiously. The generator for the Ghost Shield gave one last mechanical wheeze and died, a few components shooting out to rattle over the top of FentonWorks. The Shield retracted in seconds, leaving the two of them within feet of Danny's evil counterpart.
The bigger ghost grinned at them both, baring his glittering fangs. "And here you both are. You were stupid enough to all gather in one place rather than letting me have the fun of picking you off one by one. I admit, I'm disappointed. I expected you at least would have split by now, Clockstrike."
Danny heard Strike growl. He frowned a little. This wasn't the first jibe his alternate self had taken at Strike that seemed to hint at some sort of history between the two. Danny hadn't really paid a lot of attention to this, but he made a mental note look out for other such exchanges in the future.
To distract Strike and remind her to stick to the plan, he quipped, "Spilt? I think that's my cue." Concentrating hard, he doubled himself. Both copies charged ecto-blasts. Strike took the hint. Like her father, when she split into copies each appeared to be from a different era of history. In her case, she became four separate figures: a Spartan warrior woman (Danny was proud of himself for recognizing this using his knowledge, courtesy of Sam, that the ancient city-state had trained its women for battle) clad in purple Greek armor, a female ninja in a purple robe, a modern policewoman in purple riot gear, and her usual purple jumpsuit-and-cape ensemble.
"Awww, how cute," sneered their opponent. "I'm really afraid now."
"You're outnumbered, old man," both the Danny Phantoms pointed out. "We won't let you hurt anyone!"
His nemesis snorted. "You actually think you stand a chance? Let's put it to the test." He effortlessly split himself into four. All the copies now sneered identically. "Ready to dance?"
Danny's two copies fired their ecto-blasts. He missed; all his opponent's copies dodged easily. Then the other Danny was on top of him, and things seemed to go insane after that.
Later, Danny remembered only too clearly the punishment he had taken in that desperate fight. At the time, it was all a blur of ducking, dodging, attacking and blocking. His two copies were evenly matched against one of his opponents' four, leaving the other three for Strike and his newly-arrived parents, sister and friends. They seemed to be faring no better than he was; from the brief glimpses he caught they could only hold the flame-haired ghosts at bay, and deal little damage themselves. Danny had been hoping that by encouraging the other ghost to split the copies would be weaker than the whole, as happened when he split himself. Already he'd underestimated Phantom's power badly; each copy of the evil ghost was just as strong as the single. Danny didn't like to think that already Plan A was falling to bits.
One of his copies took a vicious kick to the gut, knocking him into…himself. In surprise the two merged into one Danny Phantom again, and there was no time to split apart. A punch was coming right at his head. Cursing himself for getting so close that the copy he was fighting could use physical blows, Danny did the only thing he could think of: he caught the punch with both hands.
Everything seemed to freeze. Danny's muscles groaned, but he had grabbed the oncoming fist squarely and halted it bare inches from his face. The copy whose hand he'd just stopped stared at him with wide red eyes and gaping mouth, plainly astonished by this display of sheer physical strength. Danny was vaguely aware that all the other surrounding fights had stopped as well to gape at them. Sweat popped out on his forehead as he struggled to contain the force behind the blow.
"But you…you're weak…" the copy attempting to punch him gasped.
"Not…as weak as you thought," Danny grinned a little despite his strain. Summoning up his ice powers, he drove them through his hand and over his opponent, covering the other in a prison of ice.
"No!" A chorus of shouts seemed to come from all directions as the ice-prison started to fall out of the air. The other three copies left their own fights and came streaming in. All three turned intangible and merged with their trapped counterpart to form one entity again. Red light flashed out from the frozen form, catching in the ice crystals and making the whole thing glitter like some sort of giant oblong disco ball from hell. At least, that was Danny's thought while watching it. Then he and everyone else on the roof were forced to cover their eyes as the ice exploded off his evil counterpart in a blaze. Shards flew in all directions. Danny and Strike, down to just herself and her ninja copy, went intangible to avoid the brunt of all the shards.
The fire-haired ghost laughed at them all. "Nice try," he chuckled. "But that little trick—interesting as it is—won't work so easily this time."
"Jealous?" Danny taunted. He made a perfect miniature ice figurine of the fire-headed ghost, then let it fall and shatter on the roof. "Oops."
"Danny!" hissed Sam. "Making him angry seems like a bad idea."
"Yeah, annoy him too much and he annihilates the whole block," Tucker added.
Danny ignored them both. "We're not helpless kids anymore," he said to his opposite self. "Do you really think you can kill us all?"
"Please." The other rolled his eyes, but Danny was sure he detected a hint of worry there. "I can get rid of all of you with one hand tied behind my back. Both hands, in fact."
Danny sensed what he was going to do and threw up the fastest, most powerful shield he could manage. He had no idea if one of his shields could withstand the force of a Ghostly Wail, or what containing that much raw power might do to him.
He knew he had to try or risk losing everything.
That made him angry. His other self had done nothing but try to take away the people most important to him. He was not going to win, no matter what.
The Wail hit his shield like a hammer blow. Danny held it as long as he could, but finally felt himself fall helplessly out of the air as all of his power went into containing the blast. Distantly he felt himself change from Danny Phantom into Danny Fenton.
"Danny!" several voices yelled at once. They sounded far away. Danny hit something soft. Arms went around him.
Dad caught me, he thought, an instant before Jack's voice demanded, "Are you all right, son?"
Danny could only groan in response. He felt his father gently lay him down, and a hand grab his. Sam, he was sure.
"Danny, you saved us," her voice said, proving his guess correct.
"Wha…" he managed.
"You held his Ghostly Wail and kept it from destroying the house right out from under us. Actually," now he could hear the smirk in her voice, "the only damage he did was to himself. His Wail bounced back and hit him. Looks like he's out cold."
This Danny had to see. He struggled to sit up against a body gone weak and floppy. Sam put a hand under his shoulder and heaved.
"Thanks," he managed, his brain still scattered. He blurted the next thing that came into his mind, which was: "You really have been working out."
Sam smirked. "I have to do something while you have your man-time with Dash."
"Hey—"
"Oh, relax, Danny. Geez, it's still too easy." Sam rolled her eyes.
Danny glared at her but let the issue drop. Seeing his rival unconscious for the first time was too interesting. The other ghost lay sprawled on the roof, muscled arms and legs akimbo. His head of flames was down from its usual bright white burn to a light flicker.
Nobody seemed to want to go near him, not even Strike. They just stared.
"What now?" Tucker finally ventured.
"We get that medallion off of him," Strike declared.
"Forgive me if I want him tied up, or something, first before we start searching him," said Sam.
"I'll get some rope from the Op Center." Jazz sprinted across the roof.
Still none of the people left on the roof wanted to go near Danny's counterpart. Not even Sam or Jack, two of the most fearless people Danny knew. Or maybe they were just preoccupied with supporting Danny. Not that Danny could blame anyone. He certainly wasn't rushing over there to get a closer look at his evil half.
Jazz returned with the rope. It was she who finally knelt down beside the other Danny, turned him over, and bound his wrists. "Now what?"
Strike came gliding over to join her. She bent and began feeling around the unconscious form's neckline. She cursed under her breath. "He's got the damn thing intangible. We're going to have to find some other way to get it off."
"Technus?" suggested Tucker. "I can get the laptop."
"No," Maddie protested. "There's too much close-range wireless stuff in the Op Center. I don't want him downloading anything…funny."
"Or stealing my ham and fudge," Jack put in.
"Then we have to get him…downstairs." Sam voice the distaste they were all feeling. "Gross."
"We have to touch him?" Tucker practically wailed. "Isn't there some ghostly power where you can levitate him instead? Like the Lunch Lady does with food?"
"I can't do that," Danny protested.
"Neither can I," Strike added. "I'm not a poltergeist."
"Ugh," Sam groaned. "Well, let's get a move on." She untwined herself from Danny, went and draped one of the unconscious ghost's arms around her neck. She grimaced as if touching something slimy. "Well, help me!" she demanded of the others when she saw them continuing to stare at her.
That brought the small group out of its stupor. Everyone but Jack and Strike pitched in to haul the other Danny down to the basement. Strike generously carried as much of their ghostfighting equipment as she could manage in addition to her staff. Jack, the tallest of the group, supported Danny—he was the only one who could comfortably do it. By the time they were on the ground floor Danny was already feeling much better. As he got older and more experienced he had found that he could bounce back more quickly after a full drain of his powers. Upon reaching the basement itself he stepped away from his father and stood alone. He caught Sam eyeing him nervously but to his relief she did not say anything. Sam tended to hover a little too much for his taste if she thought he had pushed too hard.
Danny's evil counterpart was dumped in an unceremonious fashion to the lab floor. While Tucker went to get the laptop containing Technus Danny noted with interest that Strike conscientiously sorted everyone's weapons and began the process of placing them within reach of their owners.
"Got it," Tucker said from the far side of the lab. He held the laptop carefully, as if touching it made his skin creep. "Now what—"
Two things happened simultaneously. The laptop's lid flipped open of its own accord, revealing Technus' leering face. "I, Technus, Master of All…"
No one was really listening to the beginnings of Tenchnus' familiar opening speech because of the other thing that occurred. The flickering fire of their prisoner's hair suddenly went from dull coals to burning white-hot. The blaze made everyone cover their eyes for an instant. When they looked back, the other Danny was hovering in the air, unbound, laughing wildly. Apparently it took him even less time than Danny to return to full strength after a drain. A lot less time.
The other Danny saw Technus' face. The Master of Technology was, for once, speechless. "You!" Danny's evil self snapped. He whipped around to sneer at Danny, somehow managing to include the nearby Strike in his disdain. "This was your big plan? Get the pathetic pile of outdated software to zap me?"
"Hey, I'm the most up-to-date—" Technus began.
"Shut up." The other Danny hurled a palmful of green fire at the laptop, which disintegrated into a pile of circuitry and ectoplasmic ooze.
"Yuck!" Tucker yelled, shaking his hands to rid them of the green slime.
Technus appeared, apparently freed when his hiding place fell apart. "I, Technus, shall—" He stopped abruptly.
Evil Danny had another ectoplasmic shot charged in one hand and aimed at the other ghost. His pale blue face was expressionless. "I am so not in the mood for your idiotic monologues," he purred. "But if you really want to finish that thought, be my guest."
Technus took less than a second to make his decision. He dove for the Fenton Portal and vanished.
"Hey, come back here!" Sam called. "We need—"
"Nothing," their foe finished her sentence. "What you need is to die. Like you should have three years ago."
"Sam!" Danny lunged forward as his counterpart charged a shot. Though still dangerously low on power, the seventeen-year-old half-ghost had enough to change into Danny Phantom and whisk his girlfriend out of harm's way.
"That's it," Danny told her as he set her down several feet away from her original position, at which there was a smoking crater. "We're out of options. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It's time for Plan B."