Chapter 12: Phantom Gathering
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or its characters.
There was silence in the room after this pronouncement. Everyone stared at the two figures on the floor.
"Ummm…" Sam finally ventured. "How do we tell if they were split between good and evil? Or if the Ghost Catcher did something else?" From her tone, it sounded very much as if she was hoping Jazz was wrong.
"We have to wait for them to wake up," Maddie said. "Given how strong that monster was, I doubt it will take too long even if his ghostly powers are split between the two."
As if to prove her words, the copy that looked like Danny stirred a little, while the Vlad-copy groaned.
"Owww…" moaned the ponytailed Danny.
"Uh-oh," said Sam.
Everyone watched tensely as both copies sat up simultaneously. They looked down at their gloved hands.
"What the…" murmured the Vlad-copy. His hands went to his face. His counterpart's hands went to his ponytailed hair.
Then they looked at each other.
"Ahhhh!" they both screamed, scrabbling away to opposite walls.
"What have you done, you damned fools?" demanded the Vlad-copy.
"Swearing. That one's definitely the evil one," commented Sam to no one. Danny shot her a look.
"Split you," he answered the copy's question. "You're a lot less of a headache this way."
"Split us?" the Vlad-with-burning-hair snarled. His black hair burned more intensely with every word. "Well, un-split us! Put us back!"
"No can do," said Danny, with a small amount of relish in his voice. "The Ghost Catcher's destroyed. You're stuck like this."
"Stuck?" both copies repeated, in an eerie echo of one another—their voices were slightly different, enough to distinguish between them, but not by much. The Vlad-copy looked infuriated. The Danny-copy just looked stunned.
"No." The Vlad-copy, predictably, recovered first. "I do not accept this. I can't stay like this. I'm…weaker. I can feel it. Some of my power is in him."
"Seriously," Danny said. He waved at the Ghost Catcher, which still had the occasional stray spark dancing around it. Several of the strands that made it look like a Native American dream catcher had snapped, and parts of it were blackened. "Get used to the less-powerful thing."
"You're bluffing," the Vlad-copy insisted. He lunged to his feet and leapt at Danny in a very fast move that took everyone in the room by surprise and left them too stunned to help.
Except for one person. The copy of Danny had anticipated this move and also lunged forward. He tackled his other half just a foot or so from the real Danny and sent them both crashing into the wall.
"Leave him alone," Danny's copy snarled in a voice filled with such venom Danny couldn't help but wonder whether they were all wrong in their assumption that the one that looked like Vlad had to be the evil one.
"Let me go, you idiot!" the Vlad-copy insisted, still pinned against the wall. "Don't you want to go back to being the most powerful being on the planet?"
"No," the other returned flatly.
"What?" It was more than just the Vlad-copy that exclaimed at this pronouncement. There was a dead silence for a second or two.
Unfortunately, it also meant the copy of Danny loosened his grip on his counterpart. The Vlad-copy broke free and charged, not at Danny this time, but at Strike. This development was so shocking even Strike wasn't ready for it. She was out cold before any of them knew what had happened. Her staff clattered to the floor.
Out came the weapons of all the humans in the room. Danny, weak as he was, charged a small ectoplasmic shot in one palm.
"Don't move!" Jack commanded. Danny sighed, hiding a rueful smile. Trust Dad to take charge even in a situation he didn't fully understand.
"Well, I've heard that before," snickered the Vlad-copy, sounding exactly like the fused version. He bared a fang. "Too many times to count. Usually right before I end them."
He took a deep breath. Danny realized what was about to happen, and knew he was too exhausted to conjure a shield of any shape or form.
Nothing happened. The Vlad-copy's mouth was open, but nothing was coming out. He tried again, and again nothing happened.
"Wow, looks like you're nothing but hot air," Danny quipped. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his older copy slap his forehead in a bizarrely familiar gesture.
"And it looks like I was right," Jazz said smugly. "The split means they each got some abilities but not others."
"No!" screamed the Vlad-copy. Now he looked truly deranged. "You can't leave me like this!" He began charging shots and randomly firing them around the room. Everyone flung themselves to the floor to get out of the way. Weirdly enough, Danny noted that his own copy was military-crawling across the floor towards Strike. He had no idea what the other planned to do with her—though he was fairly sure by now the copy currently blasting his room to bits was the evil half.
"Danny!" hissed Sam in his ear, jolting him. "We've got to do something before he tears this whole place apart!"
Danny nodded. "On the count of three, start shooting at him. We've got to see if we can bring him down. You've got a Thermos, right?"
"When do I not?"
"Oh, right. You sleep with one these days."
"Like you don't?"
"No, I sleep next to one." Danny grinned at his girlfriend.
"Hilarious." Sam poked him. "Ready?"
"I am now. On three. One…two…three!"
He and Sam began pelting the Vlad-copy, Danny from his hands and Sam from her favorite wrist-gun. Jazz, still in the Fenton Peeler, saw what they were doing and joined them from her own corner of the room, and Jack and Maddie from theirs. Tucker was huddled under Danny's desk, doing something frantic with his PDA Danny hoped was going to be helpful. Danny's copy, on the other hand, was…shielding Strike's unconscious form. Danny blinked in astonishment and then had to dodge an ecto-blast he'd missed in his moment of distraction.
Unfortunately, despite their opponent's obvious blind rage, he was still capable of fending off four Fentons, Sam and Tucker combined. None of their attacks were having any effect.
"Any suggestions?" Danny asked Sam.
"No idea, other than trying to wear him down. It is six-on-one," Sam pointed out.
"Good point."
Suddenly, the window shattered inward. Through it streaked yet another black-and-white figure.
"Dani!" Danny exclaimed. His female clone had grown a lot since he had last seen her. Not only was she much taller, but she had curves. Obvious ones, made all the more noticeable by her tight-fitting, stylish jumpsuit. But there was no mistaking who had come to their rescue.
"As usual, you need me to save your butt," the white-haired young teenager said as she surveyed the scene, arms crossed. "It's a wonder you can handle yourself when I'm not around." Her eyes fell on the Vlad-copy. "You!" she growled.
"Not exactly, but for all intents and purposes, go at it as if he were," said Danny, waving one arm in the general direction of the copy.
"No problem. You can explain the costume change and the burning hair later," Dani Phantom said. She charged an ecto-blast and sent it soaring towards their foe.
He caught sight of her and started. "Another half-ghost? And a girl? What's the meaning of this?"
"Don't you remember me, Dad?" Dani snarled.
"Dad?" Both the Vlad- and Danny-copies exclaimed.
"Huh boy," said Danny, facepalming. "I forgot—Vlad hadn't cloned her yet in that timeline before we fused. What a messed-up little family reunion this is turning out to be. Too many Danny Phantoms in one place."
"No kidding," Sam agreed.
Dani Phantom lost no time in joining battle against their common enemy. For his part, the Vlad-copy seemed uninhibited in fighting a girl despite his opening remarks. Dani had been practicing, Danny had to admit. She was very, very good. Well, she'd always been a little ball of raw talent. She'd been a match for him since the beginning. While she was definitely outclassed by their foe, she was fresher than any of them and therefore stood a pretty good chance. And all they really needed, as Danny whispered to Sam, was a clear shot with the Fenton Thermos.
Thus Sam was ready when Dani finally scored a hit. The Vlad-copy staggered backwards as one of Dani's blasts took him in the shoulder. That was all Sam needed. She fired the Fenton Thermos.
"Nooooo! Not there! Not again!" screamed the Vlad-copy as the Thermos' energy blast overwhelmed him. "I'll get out, and I'll get my powers back! This isn't…" his voice faded, and there was silence.
Everyone stared at the Fenton Thermos. Then Danny looked around the remains of his bedroom. It was mostly a smoking, black mess punctuated with glowing green ectoplasm here and there, although most of his smaller things like his laptop and clothes were still intact. It was the furniture and the walls that had taken the brunt of everything.
"Wow, good thing I'm moving out soon," he remarked. "Didn't think that would be an upside of going to college."
"Sorry, Danny," Danielle apologized. She landed beside him.
"Don't apologize, Cuz," Danny said, giving Sam a quick victory kiss out of pure happiness that they appear to have won yet again. "You came at just the right time. How did you know?"
"I got your invite. Duh." Dani pulled something white from a pocket and waved it at him. "I know I'm a little late for the ceremony, but I wanted to put in an appearance…"
"Actually, you're right on time. The ceremony had to be rescheduled due to imminent ghost attack by the actual Vlad Plasmius. Who is currently out of commission and in another timeline."
"Wait, so that's not—" Dani raised an eyebrow at the Fenton Thermos in Sam's hands. Then her eyes went to Strike, and then the thirty-year-old Danny-copy. "Whoa. OK, I want my explanation. Now."
Danny smiled. He had almost missed Dani's high-handed bossiness. "It's a long story."
"One that involves time travel, alternate universes, and more," Tucker said, crawling out from under the remains of Danny's desk.
"Sounds like a Star Trek episode," Dani remarked, hands on hips.
"But not really as fun, considering how many times we've almost died in the past few days alone," Tucker sighed.
"To start out with, who are they?" Dani demanded, pointing at Strike and the Danny-copy. "And why does he look like an old version of you with Vlad's hair?"
"She's Clockstrike. She's like a time cop. She's been helping protect us from an evil version of me from another timeline bent on killing us all. We split him in half using the Fenton Ghost Catcher, and now one half is in here," Danny shook the Fenton Thermos. "And he's the other half." He nodded at his doppelganger.
"Way to roll our last two days into five sentences, dude," Tucker said, sounding impressed.
"Oh." Danielle digested this. "Why did the guy we just put in the Thermos look like Vlad, then?"
"I fused with Vlad in another timeline and created the most evil, powerful ghost ever."
"Wow. Gross." Dani wrinkled her nose.
"Exactly," agreed Danny. "The Ghost Catcher was supposed to separate them again. Instead it looks like it created a good and an evil half."
"That's not so bad. The evil guy wasn't too tough," Dani said, pounding one fist into the other palm.
"Except he was nowhere near at full strength," Sam pointed out. "He was still weak from fighting all of us and then being split. I'd hate to be around him at his most powerful."
"Hmmm." Dani's eyebrows both went up. "I guess I see your point. Well, you're welcome. I texted Tucker when I got to Amity Park to see where would be a good place to meet. He mentioned you might need some backup."
"Mentioned?" Tucker repeated. "As I recall, the message was—" He consulted his PDA, "Need help ASAP. Danny's room. Helphelphelphelp!"
"Well, this is no time to stand here bickering," Maddie said. "Hello, Danielle. My, you've become a young lady since the last time we saw you. Welcome back." She had finally met Danielle the last time the young ghost had visited and the two had hit it off. Maddie and Jack had completely bought the "long-lost cousin" story. Maddie of course didn't know all of Jack's side of the family, and Jack couldn't remember if he'd ever had a cousin with a kid. Danny and the others never planned to tell them Danielle's real origins.
"Thanks, Aunt Maddie," Dani beamed.
"You must be hungry after that long trip. If there's anything left of the kitchen, does anyone want lunch?"
"Me! Me!" Jack hopped up and down, clicking his heels.
"I'm a little hungry," Dani admitted.
Maddie led the way out the door. "I'll leave the rest of you kids to start cleaning up in here. Come down for lunch when you're ready." She led Dani and Jack out of Danny's blackened room.