Chapter Three:
The Day That Never Comes, Part 3 Horses of War
Galloping through the clouds, he came into the city like a huge black shooting star with a purple stele of fire on his back, riding on a horned bat winged horse as black as night itself, with eyes as red as blood glowing by its thirst of it, and the most intense of all fires for mane and tail, exhaling a breathe just as hot, capable of melting the coldest of all hearts, scorching the sky on its wake with the pounding of its burning hoofs. What he came in was a horse as accursed as death. He came in the night, he came in Nightmare, the horror made flesh, but what followed him was much worst, as behind him there was the worst of all storms, one full of horrors, monsters and nightmares beyond the imagination of any human being. A storm made with his own power, a storm of fear.
Flying relentless, he used it to turn the city asunder and burn those who felled within the sight of the dark rider.
The Guys in White, the good but not great white hope of Amity Park, protectors of the city, used all their force to fight him and the storm back. They sent their best men to fight with the utmost of their might, making use of their advanced ghost-hunting technology. They took the streets with their tanks, making the ground tremble as they marched. They took the sky in their fastest jets, flying bikes, helicopters and invisibility suits, armors that made them equal to their enemies. They fell from the sky and struck like lighting, but they were bound to know soon that they were no equals, that there was no match for this power.
With actual lightning striking every skyscraper turning them into monsters, they found themselves fighting the very own city they were ordered to protect.
The entire city was now a sort of anachronic and apocalyptic nightmare with dragons and monsters with two or three mouths and heads fighting men flying in the air dressed like robots, today's white knights in shining armors -and such a shameful display of weakness- thought the Fright Knight to himself seeing how they uselessly struggled with this creatures.
Wielding and swinging his smoldering blade above his head, he flied into the battlefield to show them what it meant to be a real knight, a true warrior, and the most important, to teach them fear.
Throwing fiery rings of energy from his sword, to left and right but mostly left, he exploded and sliced their tanks in half. He jumped off his horse and with his strength that seemed godlike to mortal eyes, he smashed and destroyed every one of them, tossing them like if they were nothing, tearing them apart bare handed.
Claiming the sky as his own, he flied with his cape wide open, looking as a giant purple flaming bat, and took down everything he saw in the air with his eyes and his sword in the middle of a purple flaming meteor shower.
In just minutes the Fright Knight and the storm made chaos reign supreme on the city. But whereas he was an agent of chaos, the embodiment of fear and a warrior that lived for destruction, a warrior fighting an imaginary war to carry on the secret agenda of a mad man whose plans are yet unbeknownst to him, the G.I.W. agents were agents of order, and they were no quitters and were more than ready to fight on the streets, to fight with their own hands if needed, to take back the city.
Some of the boldest -and some could say the dumbest- agents jumped in battle without giving it a second thought.
- Fire at will! - Yelled their captain.
The agents blasted him with all they had, shooting him from all directions. Some from the air, flying with their invisibility suits, and others from the ground, but his shield absorbed the ecto-energy of their attacks and made him even stronger.
- Pound at will! - Shouted out, changing the strategy.
Using anti-ghost night staffs, battle knives and even light swords, they strike as hard they could, and for a really brief moment he felt like he was finally fighting real warriors willing to fight with their own hands and strength and not with the power they get from their mobile metallic strongholds instead, and die with warm blood on their hands; but with all the energy he absorbed he was more than capable of handling them using nothing but his own hands.
Holding nothing back, he strikes with no hesitation on his actions and no restrain on his strength, punching through their bodies, cutting them in half, breaking their jaws and even blowing and smashing their heads against the floor, and in little time countless of bodies of the Guys in White's agents were lying dead on his feet, while he stood victorious covered on their blood as this one ran still on the streets. For him, the merciless and ruthless warrior, embodiment of fear, spirit of Halloween, they opposed no real challenge and he quickly saw how wrong he was to think for a second otherwise, to think that they could ever be true warriors and offer a real fight or resistance even for their own city.
Only those in their high tech armors could survive the deadly blow of his bloody fists to see him claim the victory.
- Fools! Isn't in this entire peasants town a single being who can stand against me in battle and offer me a challenge?! Isn't there anyone here worthy of my…?!
- A single being? - asked Agent K interrupting him, falling from the sky, wearing the newest invisibility suit model, a white sturdy armor with black glowing lines along the arms, legs and chest with three circular blue power sources forming a triangle on the chest, that flies using boosters located on the back, feet and hands, known as the Falling Edge -something he still hasn't mastered yet, as evidenced by his clumsy landing, even though he was using all boosters for more stability-.
The suit, created using nano technology was the most advanced state of the art ghost-hunting armor ever created by the government designed to enhance the capabilities of the user to superhuman levels and grant them ghost powers as well. The armor was still a work in progress, a prototype that was yet to be fully tested, and for him there was no better way to prove it that in a real battle scenario.
- Why would you settle with one when you can have two of us? - asked Agent J landing next to him wearing the same white armor as his partner, only but using an skate looking glider to fly instead of the suit's boosters, landing gracefully unlike his clumsy partner. - Had a rough landing, ah?
- You shut your mouth.
- You look like one of those Tron characters - laughed J.
- You're wearing the same suit.
-…You shut your mouth.
- You?! You don't stand a chance! - Replied pointing at them, making a denial gesture with his right hand, with some derision on his voice, almost laughing at them.
J and K blasted him both in the face with the G.I.W.'s distinctive blue ecto-energy blast using their armor's right gauntlet.
The Fright Knight quickly arose in a rage onslaughting them with a fiery energy wave from his sword that poured abroad like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it, dancing and making the ground tremble as it leaves a melted path on its wake.
Thanks to their suit enhanced reflexes, the two agents were capable of avoiding his attack.
Flying in circle over his head like a pair of white vultures looking for a corpse to pray on, they fired again their blue plasma rays using both hands, making use of all their new fire power. This power could easily destroy the molecular bonds that bind the very ectoplasmic matter of a ghost together, reduce the resulting particulate chaos to tears and send them into oblivion, but this was no mere ghost. This was the spirit of Halloween, the Fright Knight himself, herald to the king of all ghosts. One of the most evil and powerful ghost ever known and like the Guys in White, he was also geared up with the most sophisticated technology of all, disguised in the humble, though elaborated form of a sword and shield. Feeling nothing but a hot nuisance he knocked them with his ghost ray vision.
Summoning a blue ecto-energy sword from the top of his right hand, K attacks him trying to cut his head but the Fright Knight was far more dextrous with the sword and easily twists his arm crossing the energy sword and his Soul Shredder like scissor on his neck.
- This is not quite the result you expected, is it fool?
- Actually it is.
Using the central power source of the armor as a plasma cannon and the blaster of his left hand he shot him at blank-range point.
- You used the Uni-Ray? That was a risky movement. That takes more than 50% of your energy and it still has plenty of bugs.
- You can bug me all you want when we're done here.
- Mayhap I judge ye wrong. Mayhap thy blacksmith gave thee a more powerful armor than the one thy mates had - said while getting up pointing at his war casualties. - But judging by thy mate's voice not so much. Tell me, how long until it falls apart in the middle of the battle for the excise use of your "plasma rays"? How long until the power runs out and it leaves you vulnerable and helpless like the humans ye art, before that which you fear and can't understand?
- See, I told you he speaks with thee and that stuff. Pay me.
- Shut up! - yelled to his partner - How do you know about that flaw? That information is utmost confidential.
- Isn't obvious? I am the ghost of fear and right now that is what scares thee the most. That your armor fails thee the middle of a battle.
- Maybe, but we don't fear this will fail us.
From their shoulders came out small missile launchers firing a dozen of missiles each one, capable of causing great damage to a tank.
- Let's see how well can he take that.
The smoke quickly dissipates by strong wind of the storm revealing the Fright Knight behind a purple ghost shield standing unharmed and unscratched, and even though he didn't have a mouth, they could tell he was smiling and laughing in the inside.
- Is that all you got? - asked stepping out of his ghost shield.
- No. We also have this - they said pulling out machine guns from their forearms and shoulders with long ammunitions belts to each one, retractable battle blades in their left forearms and a small elongating ecto-chainsaw in the other.
- Well this is going to be gas. Or at least for the minutes it will last.
- Think again. We're two and we're armed with six anti-ghost machine guns each one of us with as much bullets as hair we had in high school.
- You had to tell him that?
- What? We did have a lot of hair back in school. Now I know you probably are familiar with the concept of firearms so I'm gonna put it to you simple, what you did to our partners we're gonna do it to you a thousand folds.
- I believe there is a misunderstanding. Thou think I am alone. But there is nothing farther from the truth than, since as thou might remember I never walked alone in the city - said with open arms showing his legion of monsters, made out of almost any object and person in the city and his ecto-storm behind him.
- I think that this requires the White Board protocol, don't you you think K? - asked J.
- I just got word from the H.Q. We can proceed… with extreme prejudice.
- I believe that people now says, bring it on! - he yelled, letting his creatures break loose upon his challengers.
They glared at each other with determination and nodded at the same time pulling out two retractable plates behind their helmets face-visor, forming a face mask and lowering a black battle mask with black visors outlined white, from the top of their heads and started shooting everything they saw, everything that flied, everything that wasn't human.
They filled with anti-ghost lead every monster that came at them. They sawed them in half and tear them apart with their insane new firepower shooting and killing them with no remorse, and made the blood of the monsters rain as they brought the pain, and in minutes what was briefly a proud and dreadful legion of thousands of monsters dwindled and became hundred and then just a few dozen of them.
With they shoulders missile launchers they blew those monsters away from their machine guns shooting range, those that were two big for their bullets to kill or even maim, with their saws they sawed the heads of those that ran or crawled at them and ripped them off.
Impressed was the Fright Knight to see the darkest and wildest side of those bright and insanely organized white knights and the mayhem they were capable of when push just a little too far over the edge, to see their bright white armor stained with the multicolored blood of his legion.
The Guys in White finally seemed to be a real challenge worthy of his power, but they had yet one more challenge to beat to fight him.
- Impressive. Thou art most impressive indeed. I heard thou art the most pathetic warriors this world hath to offer, and when facing thy mates I was sure of that - said pointing at his casualties -, but then thou showed up and quickly changed my mind. Methinks… I will finally use my new sword as 'twas intended to be.
Moving his sword, he summoned a lighting from his storm but they threw their cubic ghost shield generators just in time.
The Fright Knight kept moving and shaking his Soul Shredder in the air, as a baton creating a sinister symphony of lightnings and thunders, beating the ghost shield until it finally yielded.
As soon as the shield was broken, they fled abreast as flies from a table, but the Fright Knight kept waving his sword and shield, playing his frightful melody, chasing them no matter where they go and creating more monsters with every lighting that didn't hit them.
They tried to escape from them but the swarm of monsters was relentless in their pursuit.
Harpies made out of the carcasses of their fallen mates jumped on J breaking his glider. Using his chainsaw, he sawed them in half while he tried to take fly with the suit boosters, whilst, K fired every missile in his armor -arms, shoulders, wrist, legs and knees- and destroyed the rest that followed him and his mate with his machine guns.
Looking for an end to the monsters rain, they blasted the hand of the Fright Knight so he would lose his sword.
Without his sword he couldn't make monsters anymore but the ecto-storm remained.
They cornered him, J pointing to his head from behind and K pointing to his face.
- I believe this is the part where I should give up, isn't that what ye hope? - He asked with his hands in the air.
- No, this is the part when we kill you - replied K.
- Then hit me thy best shot.
They squeezed their fists to shoot him the head, ignoring that in their running and killing of his monsters, they used all of their ecto-bullets, running out ammunition, and instead of listening to the bang-bang of their machine guns, they heard the metallic click of an empty gun.
- Alas! Ye told me that ye shall dost to me the same thing I didst to thy mates only but a thousand times, but ye used all thy bullets in a thousand monsters, meaning ye have no left for me.
- What?
- Don't you got it? I fooled you! Ye think just because I come from a distant past I am a stranger to your weapons? I know that this machine guns have only a limited number of bullets. I have spent the last years learning everything on this weapons of yours with Skulker and Technus, and I learned quite some stuff.
In a very fast movement, he bent lifting K's arm, moving his head away from J's hands, kicked him in the chest and threw him at his partner, grabbing his neck with his leg.
A computer voice and a heads-up display appears in J's visor warning him about the serious damage to the core of his armor.
- Except for that. That I learned a long time ago, along with some other stuff, like how to catch someone's bluff.
He jumped sky high in a purple flame, channeling his ghost energy through his fist to deliver a deadly blow, but creates a huge crater on the floor instead, as his opponents phase through it.
- I bet you didn't know we can do that, did you? - asked K showing up from behind.
- I have had enough of wagers today - answered while using his ghost ray vision, but hitting a reflecting blue ghost shield.
- You known, just because we don't have any bullets, doesn't mean we are helpless.
Using their hands, they fired a powerful beam of ecto-energy he deflects with his shield.
In that moment, he disappeared just a second before they fired again.
Rapidly, they turned on their infrared vision to look for the Fright Knight and a big red and white fist appears before them punching them into the storm.
- That should do it. - Said the Fright Knight to himself calling for his sword.
Using a communication device integrated into his new helmet, he contacts Technus to report his status.
- Master, is time for stage two of the plan to be set in motion.
- You sure about that?
- More than sure. - Stated looking at the reinforcements sent to fight him. Namely, all the agents that took care of putting the inhabitants of Amity Park in the underground refuges and those who waited in the headquarters as a reservoir.
- Congratulations J. You got us inside a tornado again.
- Me? How is that my fault?
- Don't try to convince me otherwise. Any idea how to get out of here? I'm only 40% here and my Ecto-Reactor is damaged. I can't fly out of here.
- It wouldn't work either. The storm is too strong and the suit's jets are not that good. We have to blow it. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
- White Whale?
- White Whale.
Their idea was too dangerous and they could hardly survive even if their armor was perfect, but still it was the best plan they had and there was no time for another plan, so they released their second most powerful explosive, created only for open sea, from their thighs compartment.
- J, if we don't make it, I want you to know…
- Yes?
- That I slept with your sister in our night prom.
- You did what?! - Yelled as hard as he could out of rage, surprise and indignation, but his yelling was lost in a blue bright explosion that destroyed the storm.
- It is time - he said, gazing at the destruction of is storm.
- Then you know what to do.
The ghost hunting army attacked with all its power and made rain plasma rays upon the him.
He stood fearless of what was coming at him rising his shield to absorb all the energy they fired at him, and attacking them back with an overwhelming energy wave from his sword that instantly knocked them out and damaged their vehicles. The power he had absorbed was to much even for him to handle at this point, and could feel his body on fire, but keeping it for himself was not on Technus' plan.
Stucking the shield on the ground he traps the city under a giant blue ghost dome created with all the energy he absorbed.
Everything was going according to Technus' plan, which raised up the question in his mind, what was his plan? What was the purpose of this skirmish? And most important, if their goal was to destroy Danny Phantom, why the erection of this dome?
He knew the plan had two ways, but with his mission was done, the next movement was for him and the rest of his team a secret since for the first time, Technus didn't yell his plan. Was there something he wanted inside the city, or was it something he wanted out?
These questions and more wandered in his head, but he had no time to find an answer of his own since his two opponents returned for a second round.
With their armors severely damaged by the explosion and their energy levels almost dead, they could easily die in battle, but they were willing to fight no matter what, not for an archaic noble sense of duty or love for the city, not even because it was the right thing to do, no. The reason why they were so bent on fight him to death was merely out of hate for ghosts.
The Fright Knight was shocked, impressed and another word that means surprised, to see them still standing.
- I knew it was a good idea to save this suits for a rainy day. - Said J.
- Agree. And know that your storm is gone, there are no more monsters maker lightnings.
- I see… You think that just because my ecto-storm is gone, I can no longer… bring the thunder?! - he asked, moving so fast that they could only see him when he was right before them, swinging his sword, creating and striking them with a powerful lightning.
The strike of his sword dents the armor, and in blow of good luck, the ghost lightning from his sword recharged their suit power source back to optimal levels, and even more; they had more energy than they could use, and they would need it.
- Battery at 400% - said a computer voice in their armors.
- …How 'bout that? - exclaimed K.
With this new boost, they blasted him with everything they had. They used their gauntlets blasters, their wrist cannons, and the most powerful weapon in their suit, the Tri-Plasma Ray, a beam of energy made with their three powersouces, forming a triangle shaped blast.
This combined and empowered attack brought the proud and strong knight to his knees.
Incapable of moving, he passes into the ground and releases a swarm of purple fire bats from behind that exploded at touch.
In the middle of that chaos, J shares his thoughts with his partner.
- This whole operation doesn't make sense.
- What do you mean.
- If they want to destroy Danny Phantom, then why is he here? Why did he bring his storm to the city instead of using it against him? This power alone is almost a match for him.
- And based on what we saw a while ago, they're all a match for him now. Together they could kill him - said blasting the bats around him.
- Maybe they can't, not just yet.
- Then why are they here?
- I don't know. To maim him, to maim the city, or maybe to buy time.
- Time for what?
- That, we will find out right now.
Blasting the ground at the same time, they generate a repulsion field eliminating the bats and began to assail him with their ghost gloves.
The superior strength of their armor should have given them the upper hand in melee combat with a pressing strength of 95 tons, slightly over the Fright Knight by just a few tons, but the sturdy design of the armor made it heavy, slow and hard to move with, special in close combat. He quickly realized that, and uses his superior speed and agility to his advantage, dodging some of their blows with ease, using techniques from the old days to grasp K's neck. This nearness was exactly what he was looking for.
Grasping the chest plating armor of the Fright Knight he fires a powerful plasma ray at the same time his partner does from behind.
Their tactic worked, and left the Fright Knight defeated.
- If we had done this since the beginning we, we would have save a lot of bullets.
- Looks like you failed, now start talking. What are you doing here? What are you expecting to get from this?
- I seek nothing but the destruction of that who dishonored me.
- Then why are you here destroying the city? Why aren't you using your power to fight him?
- I asked the same thing to myself and after some thinking, I realized that the worst disgrace for a hero who gives his life protect his town is to live to watch that same place burn, incapable of stop it. And in that I succeed.
The two agents take a look at the city, and just like he said it was burning. Amity Park had lived its darkest hour and Danny Phantom couldn't help it, but how could he? He couldn't even help himself, he grew grew comfortable in the laps of luxury, he became arrogant, proud and cocky. With every successful battle he had, he blinded himself with the notion that he was already at his peak, that he was invincible, not knowing that he was building his own defeat and now he will pay for his arrogance.
- That's it, I'm gonna kill him - said K.
- How could you? I was already gone… a long time ago - said the Fright Knight banishing in the air.
- He is a duplicate! - yelled J.
Since the moment he raised his dome, he left to fight Danny with his teammates, leaving a duplicate behind.
- Noooo! They're gonna take this out of our checks - cried K.
- So, I guess he made the fight a rain check. Got it? Rain check. Cause it was raining and…
- Shut up.