A/N: Hope you readers had good Thanksgivings. Food is good, I'll say that much. Too bad the break is going by too quickly for me. Oh well. Here is another chapter. It's not terribly exciting. I'm trying to rush it along so I can get to my finale chapter. But it was fun. My summary of my next Danny Phantom fic will be at the ending author's note. Enjoy and review!

Disclaimer: The plot, yes. Theo, yes. Rhodes, yes. Danny Phantom, no.

Chapter 23 Shocking Relief

An hour left.

Sighing, that was the thing occupying most of Theo's thoughts at three in the morning. He would have been fine with guard duty that night if it wasn't for him and Danny's hectic lifestyle for the past two weeks. Most of those nights required some lookout up at the dead of night. And if there was none needed, Theo was up worrying about the future and making plans. Either way, the sandman was trying to catch up with the half sphinx, threatening to pull those heavy eyelids shut.

A flash of lightning made the teen gasp out of his half sleep. Rubbing his face with a hand to wake himself up, Theo stared out at the driving rain.

It had been poring like this for his whole night shift. The usual forest sounds of night were gone, blocked by the fat, cold rain drops being forced out of the black sky. Everything was wet and cold. Even under the tarp the group was under, Theo shivered once in a while as a strong gust of air blasted through.

Sitting there, bored and extremely tired, Theo's mind began to wander. He rarely gave himself time for these kinds of things, his life busy with map making and hidden bitterness. But now, since Danny came, he was open to thinking back to his childhood in Egypt. Actually, it was nice to go back to those happy and innocent times.

Since his thoughts were so focused on staying awake, Theo was glad to think of something like the old days. In Egypt, he would sleep most of the day, like any cat would. When he was a kid, though, he spent most his time finding new ways to get out of chores and school to sleep in someplace hidden. Many times he was successful, to the frustration of his teachers. But at times he was caught and punished.

Ra always had the worst punishments for him. One time it was a whole day without food or water. Jeez, the boy hated the god for that. Their dislike for each other officially started that day, Theo remembered.

It was funny how his life was so different now. The feline boy actually let out a small smile at the memories. Instead of dodging the teachers for some extra Z's and to just tick the grownups up, he was now striving to keep a god and mortal war from happening with a ghost kid and his friends from the future. Crazy, but he liked his life better now than ever.

Resting his forehead on his bent knees, Theo was starting to nod off. He told himself to keep awake, but the sound of heavy rain hitting the tarp and leaves was like a rhythmic hum that was a lullaby to his dreams. Eyes closing, Theo was out. For a second he was asleep.

There was another blast of white light as lightning cut through the air. Theo was blissfully unaware of the person standing outside the tarp. The onlooker was lit up for a brief moment of flashing light, but no one was there to see the ominous figure.

A second later, the loud boom of thunder sounded throughout the wet and drenched forest. It wrestled Theo out of his sleep.

Terribly groggy, the boy lifted his heavy head with a displeased frown. The expression was frozen for a moment as Theo peered through the darkness at the figure standing there as if it was a statue.

Then it dawned on him.

A short, wild yelp came from the teen as his senses flew fully awake. Shaking off the tendrils of sleep, the teen scrambled to his feet as another flash of light blasted across the foreboding sky. The black silhouette of the figure momentarily showed itself to the alarmed teen. But that one glimpse burned itself into Theo's memory, making him stop the shout rising in his throat.

The air between them seemed to buzz as if lightning was about to strike either one. Theo felt the power in the atmosphere but was fearful to breathe for it could disrupt the stillness between him and stranger outside. The rain kept coming down, uncaring and undisturbed by these forces staring each other down.

Gulping down a lump in his throat, Theo summed up his forgotten courage and ventured out a hand to the stranger. "Rhodes?" he said, his voice resounding with the hope he didn't want to show so much of.

Another flash from the sky and then the stranger was gone, vanished into the deep foliage of the forest.

"Not again," Theo whispered to himself between clenched teeth, "I'm not letting you leave again."

Leaving the others to their blissful sleep, Theo bounded out from under the tarp and plunged fearlessly into the wet darkness of the wood. The ice freezing rain pelted him relentlessly, blinding him from his first step. Grimacing from the cold, Theo pushed his way through shrubs and low hanging branches. He had to leave all his tracking to his nose, which didn't help much because the smells were diluted from all the water.

But all these discomforts were nothing compared to the helplessness he had felt the day before when she left them. Something, he didn't know what, was practically pushing him along the dense pathway. He wanted to know what this feeling was. He wanted to know why he had never experienced it before or why he could not express it the way he wanted to.

Confused but determined, the teen ran along like a mad man after this lost girl. It didn't take long for him to catch up. One moment he was running, the next, he slammed right into her. They gave cries of pain that could barely be heard in the unremitting down pore from the unforgiving skies.

"Rhodes, don't go!" Theo, the first to recover from the collide, yelled to her above the rain. Not wanting her to run away, he grabbed her wrist to keep her near him. "Please, just hear me out!"

"No!" Rhodes cried back. To get away, the fox spirit let out a small jolt of her ability. Unfortunately, she hadn't taken into consideration the rain. Before she could stop it, she had sent a volt of electricity right at Theo's soaked body.

Zap!

A flash of pain erupted throughout Theo's body. Letting out a cry, the teen was thrown backwards and away from Rhodes as the air around them exploded. Theo hit a tree with a wince and was out before his head hit the soggy ground beneath him.

Waking up, Theo felt like all his muscles had been fried. He hissed in pain as he struggled to his hands and knees. His whole body felt weak, like all the energy had been zapped out of him. Coughing on some smoke, the boy realized he had just been electrocuted…and survived with barely a scratch!

"Thank the gods, Theo!" Rhodes was yelling at him. "You're alive!"

Theo looked up into the violet eyes of the young vixen. Apparently he hadn't been out for more than a few minutes. It was still deathly dark, and the rain was coming down in torrents. Even with the weather at its worst, Theo still felt relieved and happy. She had stayed with him. She really did like him and the others.

"Hades didn't want me," Theo muttered, his throat sore from the smoke. He gave her a surprising smile when adding, "Next time you want to kill me, make sure you finish the job."

Smack!

"Don't scare me like that again!" Rhodes screamed into the slapped boy's face, furious with the half sphinx. "I seriously thought I had killed you!"

Theo shook his head to get over the shock of the blow. Frowning, he looked back at Rhodes kneeling in front of him and barked back, "Well, you weren't the one getting fried like bacon! You deserved the scare!"

Rhodes raised a hand for another slap. Theo flinched. Eyes softening, the Kitsune slowly dropped her hand when seeing his reaction. Through the down pore, the pair watched each other in silence for a while. They looked like drowned rats, soaking wet, mud splattered over their faces and clothes, droopy ears, and hair in their faces.

Theo painfully sat up on his knees so he was at Rhodes's eye level. He took her small, slender hands in his and told her quietly, "I…I don't want you to go again." He paused, searching for words out of the awkward stream of them in his mind. "Please, come back to the group and help us," he finally said. "I…we miss you. I won't take no for an answer. You're gonna have to zap me till I'm dead."

Their eyes met again, and they smiled shyly. Waiting for her response, Theo tried to read the girl's expression, but he couldn't detect anything in either her eyes or face. She was a mystery to him, a mystery he didn't mind taking some time to one day figure out.

Suddenly the girl wrapped her arms around his chest in a tight hug. Stunned because he was caught off guard, Theo didn't react at first to this strange gesture of trust. It wasn't till he heard her cry into his chest that he put his own arms around the little form holding onto him.

They didn't need to say anything. Theo could literally feel the relief wash off Rhodes as she sobbed into him. He knew and had felt her emotions when he had last confronted Ra and survived the encounter. It was like all that built up tension and bitterness of a past life was lifted away and a new, clean life was presented to you. That feeling of liberation was so great; it could never be explained with words. For Rhodes, it was the flow of tears that showed it all. Theo understood and let her weep; he let her cry till the tears could fall no more.

-The Next Day-

"I feel stupid," Sam complained from where she was hidden behind some thick bushes.

"Sam, you have to wear it," Danny said flatly. "I'm sure it looks fine on you."

"I like mine," Tucker said, stepping out of his own protection of bushes with his toga on. He put his hands on his hips and stood up straight as if posing for the spectators staring at him. Rhodes hid a giggle behind a hand. Theo and Danny caught her, though, and couldn't help smiling at each other. It was nice to have Rhodes back in the group…the real Rhodes. Even though she had been gone for around a day, they had missed her quiet company.

"How do I look? Did I pin it up right? Please tell me if I look like an idiot," Sam said in a rush as she slowly walked out of her makeshift dressing room.

Instead of her traditional dark, modern clothing to portray her Goth side, the girl had wrapped a sheet of light purple cloth around her to blend in with the locals of the time period. She brushed off make-believe dust from her new outfit out of nervousness. She hated to be under the eyes of so many people…one of the reasons she was Goth.

"You look…great!" Danny said, not realizing that he was staring.

Placing a hand on Danny's shoulder, Theo pushed the ghost boy out of the way to shake him out of whatever day dream he was having. "You look fine," Theo told her, shooting Danny a knowing grin. "Why would you care anyways?"

"There's a difference between looking like a total idiot and looking different," Sam huffed, explaining her strange behavior to the others. She then turned to Rhodes and asked, "I don't trust boys telling me their opinions. Thank god we have another girl in this group now. How do I look?"

Rhodes grinned at Sam's strong words. In this time period, she had never heard a girl so bold. It was nice to be around someone so comfortable with their role as a female. Sam's confidence and independence was a good model for Rhodes to look for in herself. She wanted to be like that. She wanted to be able to stand in a crowd and be satisfied…even happy with the way she was.

"You look fine, Sam," Rhodes told her. She tapped her chin with a forefinger before adding, "But you might want to have it a bit tighter in the mid section. You look Egyptian, so you need the bottom half long but with a bigger slit down the side. Egyptian women can be more revealing than the Greek."

"Oh, then can you help me with the pins? I'm a bit clueless," Sam said, leading Rhodes back to behind the bush.

"How girls find the time to know these things confuses me," Theo muttered, annoyed with the ladies taking too much time on the simple task of dressing themselves.

"Dude, they are like that no matter what time period you're in," Tucker said with a grin. He shrugged before adding, "But I don't know what Sam is complaining about. I think this toga is nice a breezy." He smiled, waiting for responses that were sure to come.

"Oh gosh!" Danny said, smacking his forehead in embarrassment. Theo and Rhodes just stared at him with wide eyes.

-A Few Hours Later-

"This place is amazing!" Sam marveled at the sight of the city. Her eyes were alive with delight as she took in the sights of old, marble and mud brick buildings. Statues delicately carved by hand standing proud and tall. Even just the people walking around with different dress and apparel made her wonder.

"You should have seen Athens," Danny told her, grinning. "Theo and I were at the Acropolis and saw the whole thing."

"Lucky!" she told him, giving him a grin of her own.

Theo butted in with, "Not when you have an evil god putting a spell on Danny, almost killing him, chasing us up the mountain, and having to rely on a goddess to bail you out of the mess."

"Can you say kill joy?" Tucker asked.

Theo shot him a quick glare. "I'm just stating the truth," he defended himself, his narrowed eyes softening and a smile coming to his lips. "Maybe I speak too much of it," he thought out loud.

"You think?" Danny said teasingly.

"Watch it, ghost boy," Theo shot back. He couldn't keep the smile off his face, though. He remembered something suddenly and leaned down to Rhodes and whispered, "Keep ghost boy's friends busy while I talk to him, okay? It should just be a second."

Rhodes nodded before forcing a large smile on her face. She lightly guided Sam and Tucker away from Danny and Theo while saying loudly, "Look at that incredible statue! Let's take a close look at it!"

"But there's hundreds of different statues in this city," Tucker said, oblivious to what she was trying to do.

"But I like this one the best! Apollo is so dreamy!" Rhodes lied, practically pushing the two toward the carved naked god of Apollo. Why people liked carving that god out the most, baffled the Kitsune, but the block of stone was the best distraction she could think of at the moment.

Theo smirked at the fox spirit as she led the others off to give him and Danny some time to talk. Turning toward Danny, the half sphinx guided his friend the opposite way so that Sam and Tucker would be out of ear-shot. The conversation would be about them.

"I've been thinking," Theo started.

"Yeah, you do that a lot," Danny said, expecting to hear some grand scheme for their adventure to come.

"About your friends," Theo said, "And their safety."

Danny's smile faded. "What are you implying, Theo?" Danny asked, "That they don't come with us?"

"Danny, their mortals," Theo tried to explain. "They don't have powers. They aren't like you and me or Rhodes. We get hit by a god or goddess, we can live to tell the tale. But Sam and Tucker can't. They get hit, they die."

"Yeah, I know that," Danny retorted. "I'm not stupid."

Theo winced. "You know I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I'm just concerned. It was fine with them in the Underworld because I knew Hades wasn't a fighter. I knew he wouldn't confront us with full on combat where they could get hurt. Cerberus I forgot, and they almost got killed for that. If it hadn't been for Rhodes, we could have all died, you know that."

"Since when did you care about Sam and Tuck?" Danny asked, putting his hands on his hips and staring the demigod down with a glare.

Theo rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Since when did I care about anyone other than myself?" he asked. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Look, Danny, I know that you want them to be with us when we fight Zeus," he said quietly. "And I do not doubt that they could do some good. But you got to be reasonable."

Danny looked over to his friends with a frown. He couldn't hear them, but he saw Tucker saying something to Rhodes and the fox spirit nodding politely. Sam looked somewhat bored. She looked around for him and Theo and made eye contact with the ghost boy. Smiling slightly, she waved at him. He waved back, thinking of pain he would feel if she and Tucker died. He'd never forgive himself.

"You win," he told Theo.

"It wasn't a contest," Theo said, folding his arms in front of him. "Now the problem is coming up with something to distract the two. I hate to say it, but Rhodes needs to be with us so she can't bail us out with this. Though, I'm pretty sure we will have no problem with distracting Tucker." He smiled at the last part.

Looking over to Danny, he saw a sly grin on his friend's face. "What are you thinking?" he asked skeptically.

"I have a better idea," he told Theo.

A/N: My finale chapter might be sectioned off into two chapters…I'm not sure. But I'm saying only three more chapters are left for this fic. Man, I'm gonna miss writing this one! It has been a blast! But at least I have a new Danny Phantom fic all ready to go. The first chapter is done and the second is almost complete, but I don't want to post it till I'm done with this one.

Okay, so my next fic is called Soul Searching and will be rated T. It won't be like this fic. It has a darker mood to it and has swearing, which I didn't put in this fic. It is first person, as in told from Danny's point of view, which is coming out better than I expected. Here is the full summary. Tell me what you think.

Summary: Being forced to be a camp counselor was the last thing Danny wanted that summer. To make it worse, Vlad is the owner. But, interestingly enough, the man is desperate to hide something from the ghost boy. Something dangerous haunts the camp grounds. Not even Danny is sure what it is or how to keep himself and others from falling prey to it. But to figure out Vlad's deep secret and how to stop this thing, Danny is going to have to throw his vacation plans out the window and confront a horror ten times more disturbing than any ghost he's ever encountered.