Danny Phantom Unlimited Chapter Four
Chapter Four:
The Day That Never Comes, Part 4 Breaking the habit
"I open my eyes in total darkness. My whole self surrounded by water. I'm going with a sinking feeling. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, I was being drawn.
"I project light from my hands and got myself scared shitless when I saw Aragon's new dragon face so close, holding me down the water. His new dragon face was definitely most terrifying and malevolent, and that scare was the shake up I needed to finally wake up my brain…"
Floating down, Danny calls for all his strength to push himself back up, taking Aragon with him, blasting his eyes in the process.
He emerges from the water, holding Aragon by his tail, forcing his body to swing his oh-so-heavy body around and toss him to the ground.
His hands oozing ectoplasm by touching Aragon's hard-as-steel and sharp scales and his chest wounded by his claws. He quickly began to heal, but not as fast as they used to.
His muscles in pain, pushed over the limit, running out of energy… "If only I could rest" he thought, something he never did; his body was tired, barely capable of maintaining his ghost form. But when did he cross that line? Was it when he got out of the water using the energy he got left or was it earlier fighting this new lethal couple? Was it for all the energy Skulker stole from him or for all the energy he used against them? He didn't know, and at this point he couldn't care any less since it wouldn't make any difference. All he knew is that he had to keep fighting, he had to fight till bitter end, even if the odds were against him, especially when the odds are against him. He knew he had to keep fighting, to keep throwing punches even if he was pushed against the ropes, he knew that's what he had to do.
But how could he fight enemies that seemed completely new to him? Enemies literally rebuilt from scratch, with a power like they have never had without his most powerful weapon?
- "If only I had my ghostly wail, I'd be done by now" - he thought breathing heavily. But he didn't have it with him anymore, all he had left was his broken fists and a sheer concentrated power of will, and at the end of the day that was all he ever needed to defeat his enemies, and luckily he still had juice enough to push it just a little bit longer, just not enough to defeat them. For that he needed more fuel, more power and he knew exactly how to get it.
- You just don't know when to give up, do you? That's how I like it that's why I've been hunting you for years. That's where you and I are the same - Skulker said with a smile on his face, pulling out all of his sixteen claws.
- No, you're wrong. That's where we're different. You don't know when to give up, I don't know how.
Danny flied as fast as he could and spun around him on the overheated floor. A few days ago, a ghost ray to his head this close, would end the fight, but now that would only make him stronger, and fighting hand-to-hand wasn't an option since he knew all his movements. The solution was to use different movements, but what movements? He was never trained in combat. Is there where he remembers his fighting lessons with his mother, short after she knew his secret identity. Most specifically, the one lesson they had where she twisted his arm and submit him to the ground. Only that lesson they had and no more since he never thought he would need fighting lessons after two years of hunting ghosts on his own and was glad that his mother wasn't there to see how wrong he was now.
Using the same techniques he takes him down twisting his arm, and stepping on his head freezing his feet. The unknown and unexpected movement takes Skulker and his prediction program by surprise.
- Ha! I bet that you didn't see that end result - asked twisting his arm and stomping his head.
- No, I didn't - said surprised and angry. - Just like you didn't see this - claimed twisting his tail around his neck and beating him on the ground.
"I felt the unmistakable crunch of nose cartilage and the brain stinging tingling of it regenerating as soon as it breaks, my skull pounding the floor, my eyes almost popping out. I felt my teeth breaking and getting loose, my shoulders getting out of place, and the wind getting out of my chest… I felt myself being lift and the air in my face, then everything goes black and green… hot black and burning green.
"Everything was going according to my plan and as I expected, none of them would expect my actions to be that I would let them hurt me on purpose. Now if everything goes right, I'll get the fuel I need to burn more energy and make it out of here alive…
- You gave a fine battle, my boy - Spectra said holding me with her corrosive hands. Her hot breathe on my face. My nostril burning, burning a lot, making angry.
"It took me a while to figure out how her power works, or at least to have an idea and if my theory is right, the closer we're are the worst she'll make feel.
- Now die knowing that you couldn't live out to people's expectations.
"Is not the words she says, but how she says them. Her breathe is what makes me feel this way, like there is no tomorrow, no hope, like I don't know what I'm doing, just a kid in a costume playing superhero; but most important what makes me feel angry, what makes me feel hate and that's just what I need right know, I need hate, I need not to know what I'm doing, because if I fight having no idea of I'm doing, they can't know how to fight me. I'll be unpredictable."
Spectra rises her hand to stab Danny's hearth and the most unpredictable thing happens. Grabbing her head, he kisses Spectra in the mouth. He kisses her like he has never kissed anyone before, not even Sam, getting his tongue inside her mouth, as deep as he can, squirreling it with hers, and sucking all the air out of her mouth, breathing all the pheromones she uses to manipulate and increase Danny's negative feelings.
The scene nonplussed everyone, the people who was hidden in the city watching the fight, the Guys in With, Tucker, Jazz the people at the mall, as well as Spectra, and Ember who stopped playing her guitar, Aragon, the Fright Knight, Skulker and even Technus.
After a while she pushes him back and wipes a little stream of reddish saliva from her lips with her fingers now in normal form, surprised and unexpectedly pleased with the kiss.
- Ok not even I saw that coming - Technus said trying not to laugh on his ass.
- Well that was… rather nicer than I thought - admitted Spectra with her eyes shining, trying to hide a smile behind her hand.
But when taking a look at Danny's face, she see he is not happy, not even close. His face expressed nothing but pure rage and hate and for a second, it seemed to her that his sullen eyes gleamed red.
Whacking her chest, he fires a devastating streaming ghost ray and buries deep in the ground.
- All right, who's next?! - shouted full of rage.
"In my fighting I learned a few things about my ghost powers, and one of them is that they are very linked to my emotions. And the strongest link of all is rage and hate.
"And when I started to run out of energy I knew that if I wanted to keep fighting I needed to feel that again. To feel that white hot rage straight from inside, coming from my stomach and burning through my bones. I needed to feel hate.
"That's why I thank you Spectra, for being here for me when I needed you the most. For giving me the hate I needed to fight back. But hate and rage burn fast, so I have to act quickly if I wanna get this done."
Harshly wounded and scorched, she tries to get up, but Danny bustles and slams her head against the pavement.
Using his cold energy, he grabs her hair and takes a look at her face and sees the damage he caused her: broken lips, a black eye and her new perfect nose broken.
- Look at that face. Looks like you need another nose job.
Danny creates a ball of burning ectoplasm and burns her face with it, marking his palm deep in her skin. Her screaming is choked by his hand.
He began to assault her again, beating her head against the floor, over and over until he focused on Skulker who was hurling at him transformed into a huge flaming robot lion prepared to whack him with his claws, like the wild animal he resembled, but then again, Danny wasn't fighting over a rational plan he could see, he was fighting on something much more savage than him, something unpredictable. He was fighting guided on his instinct, an instinct wilder than Skulker, blinded by rage, completely unpredictable, and so he uses Spectra as a "human" shield.
Skulker stabs his new lover in the back. Her flaming hair goes off leaving her usual hair.
- So you are acting like an animal, ah? You want to be savage? Is that so? Then I'll show you what it is like to be savage! - he yelled dropping her body aside, and shooting a barrage of ice spike on Skulker's chest, piercing his armor. In a quick movement he strikes the spikes and thrust them forward into his armor, tearing it apart bare handed, leaving the robotic body torn almost in half.
- All right little prince, time to meet the age of extinction! - yelled glowering Aragon.
Aragon ran at full speed on all four, spitting purple and red fire. Danny flied and phased into the fire, freezing it from the inside.
Gathering all his cold energy in his fists, he delivers a devastating freezing strike to his jaw, leaving half his face frozen and broken.
Aragon shrieks in pain by Danny's cold and stinging punches.
He roars loudly, breaking the ice in his mouth and unleashing his dragon fire one more time, but Danny extinguished his fire realizing a powerful snowstorm from his hands.
The blizzard freezes his already cold blood and slows his movements, frosting his skin. The sharp ice spikes pierce him causing him great pain and Danny hits him one more time concentrating his ghost energy in his right fist, knocking him out, and leaving his jaw broken and hanging.
With his eyes and fists smoldering, he seeks for Ember, who rapidly fires a red ghost ray. He hollows his body to avoid the attack and pounces her, kicking her guitar, and rapidly taking her by the leg and falls at full speed, slamming her against the floor several times till leave her almost unconscious and moaning in pain.
In a purple bat shaped blaze, the Fright Knight appears and gazed amazed to how Danny wounded his partners.
- Looks like somebody is stronger than you expected.
-You think? I may have underestimated the power of his rage and its limitations. Just go there and finish him.
- My pleasure.
The Fright Knight appears behind Danny trying to slay his head but his ghost sense warns him about him and creates a force field.
In a sudden movement he sweeps the floor with his right leg, taking the Fright Knight down and began to hit him with all his strength over and over, burying him into the ground and even making the earth tremble with his blows.
With his optic ghost ray, he blasts Danny sky high, so he could get on his feet.
Flying back, channeling all of his ghost energy through his fist he strikes him in the chest with an overwhelming power. The Fright Knight crosses his arms to defend himself, but his rage is just bombast. The bright green explosion could be seen from miles away in the city.
Danny falls on his knees, changing back and forward whilst the Fright Knight slowly rolled over in pain trying to stand up again.
- Good job, ghost boy. And here I thought that your emotions were a weakness to you. A liability. That you would fight them, but instead you used that rage and frustration she made you feel to fight us back - says Technus walking towards him. - And putting yourself in danger as part of your plan to get that kiss? I would never think of you capable of something like that. I must say that was… unpredictable. And a nice a touch if I must say. Kissing Skulker's new girlfriend… must have got him mad as hell.
- Yeah, that's what I was aiming for. I guess you don't know me as much as you think… Trust me, not the first time I do something stupid that could kill me - he mumbled while trying to get on his feet with a heavy breathing. - Wait a minute a minute, did you just say Skulker is dating Spectra?!
- I am not surprised to see them fail after that. As much damage as they caused, this bodies and weapons they are using, they're not the perfect killing machines I envisioned. They're still prototypes. Models with a really short-live battery, which forced me to look for an alternative powersource.
- Wait, so that's why sent the Fright Knight to fight the Guys in White? So he could steal all their energy and rise up a ghost shield that could be used as a powering auxiliary for your toys when they start running low?
- No, but damn it kid, you really should give classes on how to be evil. I have a sense that you really would excel on that. Hope you don't mind me taking that idea.
- Oh shit.
- No, my solution was to use Ember's empowering music as powersource, and while you were too busy fighting the rest of my team, she played that new guitar I made for her (which is much cooler that the old one) and keep them fully charged. Also stealing your ghost energy to fuel the Skulker 2.0 armor came in pretty handy.
- And just to be clear, this is the part where you start yelling your plan?
- Yelling? I don't know if you haven't noticed it yet, but I Technus, don't yell anymore. And as for my plan, it hasn't changed since we meet. I plan on take over the world. I'm just playing different angles and doing it one step at the time. Now Ember, be a dear and start playing again.
Slowly, Ember got on her feet and started playing her guitar once again, using her improved empowering ability to strengthen her fallen partners. Her energizing music rebuilt and healed their bodies and/or armors and help them walk again. Skulker's new cyber armor healed without a scratch, just like brand new. Spectra's hair began to ablaze as she got up completely healed and unscratched. The Fright Knight arose bright and shining, and Aragon heated up melting the ice that covered him and breaking free, roaring and breathing a large red flare while his jaws healed as well.
- Oh, shit… You sure we can't solve this with a drink? I got very good at making cocktails, but don't tell my mother. She makes me drink non-alcoholic beers. She thinks I'm too young for real alcohol and that I can't handle it - Danny giggles -, she is wrong and so wrong. Turns out it burns as soon as it gets through my body…
The Fright Knight attacks him with his sword, Danny moves with a lot of strain, barely dodging the flaming sting of his new Soul Shredder, but Skulker hits his flesh with his three energy claws and makes him hit the ground. He falls on his knees, with three broken ribs, a pierced bleeding lounge, an open wound and his mouth full of his own ectoplasm.
After a long guitar solo, his beaten enemies were again stronger and more powerful than him.
- Prepare to met thy fears for once and for all. - Said the Fright Knight rising his blazing sword to decapitate Danny. - Any last words?
- You know… is really hard… to take you serious… with that voice you have in here… - states Danny with difficulty to breathe and great pain in his chest.
- I'll teach you to kiss another man's girlfriend - Skulker growled pulling out a green ghost-machine gun from his left arm.
- You too? Looks like those things are today's fashion. Maybe I should get a pair too - said the Fright Knight looking at Skulker's weapon.
- Dude, as your friend I tell you, never say that again.
- What thing?
- "I should get a pair too." That's not gonna take you anywhere good.
"I can't believe it. This is un-fucking-believable. I'm sitting right here in front of them, bleeding, wounded. Being more of an easy kill than I've ever been and they are talking like if I ain't going anywhere? Maybe instead of giving them more fire power, he should have gave them more brain power. I forget how stupid and talkative Skulker can be.
"But then again, the Fright Knight was stupid enough to say he should get a pair too. I would laugh on my ass if I could.
"I'm glad my enemies are that stupid. It gives me time to think a way to run away from them."
Knowing he couldn't fight anymore, Danny decides is time for a tactical withdrawal using a trick he almost forgot he had.
- Hey assholes - says as loud as he can with his half-healed lounge, focusing part of his little energy in his hands, releasing an intense white light in their eyes, to dazzle and blind everyone around him.
Skulker and the Fright Knight are the most affected, but the late one's eyes take the worst part, while Skulker cybernetic eyes take little time to adjust being able to see sooner than his partners only to realize Danny was gone gone.
- See, this why you don't talk when you are about to kill somebody - fumed Spectra.
- There, there my child. He is locked, wounded and bleeding so he is not going anywhere - says Technus incredibly calmed-, and as you can see, he left a trail we can follow - explained pointing at Danny's trail of ectoplasm. - But this time when you got him corned with a gun at his face, squeeze it! - he shouted at Skulker squeezing his neck, and using his ghost stinger with enough power to bring him down.
- Now catch his scent and found him - ordered him, letting his neck go so he would trace Danny's scent.
Quickly, Skulker's new predatory sense os smell allows him to trace him like a wounded animal.
- I always said he was an animal, but this ridiculous - argued Ember.
- I must say, you've been incredibly calm and passive during this brawl - points out Spectra. - How comes you haven't done anything to help us?
- I gave you power beyond your limited imagination. I gave you bodies stronger than you could ever be!
- As long as I play - retorted Ember.
- I've done everything I had to do for you.
- Well in case you haven't notice, this power isn't enough - growled Aragon.
- The problem is not the power, the problem is you don't know how to use it. You dawdle around with it like children.
Skulker follows the trace of ectoplasm and blood left by Danny into a racked warehouse where the blood trace goes death, and starts following his scent.
The smell of his blood blends with the smell of rat urine and waste, and the salty water that leaked the place, but not enough to lose trace of it. He keeps sniffing until he gets into the basement with his partners hovering behind him. The place was dark and no one could see anything beyond the poor illumination of the Fright Knight's cape, and Skulker and Ember's hair. The steam of the pipes messed with the nose of Skulker's armor making its sense of smell useless, a flaw by design that was not notice until now, that forced him to change into night vision to look for his pray.
Danny listens every step getting closer by the heels of Ember and Spectra and the metallic click made by the armors when they walked whilst hidden between the boxes, watching them get closer to him, holding his breathe so they couldn't notice him and trying to control his accelerated hearth beat, hoping they would leave soon. He moves carefully and hides between a box and a wall, where Skulker sticks his head out in the middle of the boxes, getting very next to him, making his hearth beat faster and faster. Danny could feel the heat of his fire going from his feet through his body and started sweating. Skulker hears his drop falling onto the ground and looks at the leaking pipes thinking it was the source of the sound, overlooking Danny, hidden in the shadows by his dark clothes, who in his head, pried for him to go away, until a group a of rats got his attention. He watches them march in straight line very close to wall, walking into the boxes where Danny was hiding and takes off thinking it was them whose hearth beat he heard. Danny was squatting on haunches position on the top of the box, holding his wound with his right hand, thinking: "I bet Tucker won't let this go. On the other hand, if I had trained, they would know my new movements too… Yeah, I'll go with that."
Luckily for him, the cut was made with laser which cauterized part of it, so his bleeding wasn't so bad, but it was still a deep cut. His lounge was already healed, but he was breathing with difficulty, he was exhausted and at the same time surprised to see how far he got even when Skulker stole half his energy during the fight, energy he would use against him if they quarreled again. But there was no point for him to keep fighting. He was weak and vulnerable by the first time in his life ever since he got his ghost powers, and even if he could fight, they'd know how to fight him back. Is in that moment when he realizes he had the answer to his problem all along.
They know how to fight Danny Phantom but they had never fought Danny Fenton, and it was time for him to start acting like him. To stop fighting like a ghost-hunter and fight like the teenager he is and start running away from his bullies, and for that he needed a diversion.
With his wound reduced to only a stinging mark on his ribs, slowly he crawls over the box to float onto the ceiling where he slowly started climbing down to get to the wall and take the fire extinguisher and fire axe. He knows he can't run forever and that they were spread looking for him and he needed them at the same point, so he wouldn't cross with another one later, his years of running from bullies thought him that. Pounding the pipes with the axe, he calls their attention. They hurl at him very swiftly just as he wants them to do. Closing his eyes, he realizes a powerful blinding light once again, but this time Skulker takes the worst part due to his night vision. Confused, he starts waving his bladed arms around, becoming more of a threat for his friends than for Danny himself. He changes to infrared and sees his head standing right before him and tries to decapitate him with his arm-pendulum blades, but he dodges the blow and hits the pipe behind him instead and releases a large amount of steam getting blinded again by its heat.
Danny covers all of them with foam, turning off their ghostly fires, and slams Skulker's head with the empty extinguisher, kicking Ember in the stomach and hiring Aragon in the face with the axe. In the confusion they start fighting themselves while Danny runs out of the basement and goes human as soon as he is upstairs. His human body tumbles down by the fatigue
There was no sign of Technus anywhere. "He must be with the others", thinks Danny. Skulker blows the basement to break the fight and floats upstairs with his team. Danny swiftly leans over the remaining wall with his hearth pounding out of his chest and whacks his neck with the axe as soon as he shows up his flaming head.
Falling on his knees, Skulker rips the so-deeply-buried axe out of his neck and tosses it around.
Regenerating his armor's neck, he gets up and points at Danny with his wrist machine gun, ready to kill him and this time he wasn't going to dawdle again.
Danny was frighten, staring at the bottom of a cannon, pointing right at his face, incapable of moving his oh-so-havey body, regretting the decisions that lead him to this point.
- "If only I wasn't so damn good at kicking their asses, I would have made the right call a long time ago." he thought, waiting for his last choice to be the right one. And in that second that seemed like hours to him, his patience is rewarded.
Tucker emerges from nowhere in the Fenton RV using all of its weapons, shooting Aragon and the Fright Knight in the back and bonding Spectra and Ember with ectoplasmic goo, with Cujo coming out of it, chewing Skulker's arm off and throwing him away to start licking his master's face.
- Cujo, you just got right in time - says with an ache in his chest while he tries to get up. - Took you so long? - he asks to Tuck almost sarcastically and happy to see him like he has never been in the past.
- I stopped for gas. And is really hard to get Cujo inside the truck.
- I was starting to think you never got my message - says getting inside the R.V. - And Jazz thought that texting during a fight was stupid - claims with a wide smile and remembers how he convinced his enemies he was life-tweeting when he was in actuality making an escape plan with Jazz and Tuck instead.
Flashback.
Danny texts Valerie, Tucker and Jazz to make a plan to escape from his enemies while dodging Ember's savage assaults.
- Guys listen up. I'm getting beat up here.
- Yeah. We can see that. What did I tell you? - replies Tuck.
- Shut up and listen. I need you two to get me out of here. Bring the Fenton R.V. and Cujo. Val, I need you to bring the E-E Disruption Bomb my parents've been work on at Axion Labs.
Now.
- It was stupid! - Jazz shouts from the passenger seat. - Almost as stupid as coming here with no backups or a plan and falling in such an obvious trap! You are lucky that two wrongs make a right and that I'm glad you're still alive, otherwise I'd be shouting you louder! - she scolded him, shooting at Spectra in the face who was floating at them with her red steaming claws.
- In other news, how was your date? - asks looking to change the subject with no success.
- Just get in.
- Fine. Where is Val?
- She is en route.
- Correction. Amity Park's best ghost hunter is here - claims flying at full speed over their heads, landing on the R.V. with her board hovering around firing lasers at the Ghastly Six - Ready to get your ass out of here?
- Yes. But we can't leave now. That unilateral ghost shield won't let me go. We have to-
- Leave? But where are you going to go? - With no warning, Technus strikes him in the back with a blue plasma ray, throwing him to floor. - Looks like I'll have to take care of you by myself after all.
- You still here? - he mumbles in pain.
Technus shapes his right hand into a sort of canister with his fingers protruding as long robotic claws, that quickly began to smolder blue and phases it in Danny's chest.
- What-? What the hell are you doing to me?! - Danny yells in shock and pain.
- Don't worry, child. This won't hurt one little bit - states reaching inside him.
Jazz and Valerie attack him at the same time, but he deflects the ghost rays with his left hand and pushes the Fenton R.V. away with no strain.
Danny could feel his fingers reaching inside his body. It was a painful and familiar feeling, the same feeling he had when Plasmius used his Ghost Gauntlets on him, reaching and touching what would be otherwise unreachable and untouchable even for him, reaching into his ghost core, the source of his ghost energy and his ghost powers.
A cold shiver goes through all his body getting colder and colder, and then his body start burning hot as hell at the next second.
Tucker and Jazz got out of the upside down vehicle to stare at him not knowing what was going on or what to do to stop it.
His body started to morph against his will, going ghost and then human unable to control it. As Thecnus got closer to his core, this one began to release large amounts of ghost energy through Danny's body. Immediately, the fatigue disappeared, and all his wounds started glowing and healing, but he was still paralyzed by Technus, who managed to reach his core.
- You know, I always wondered what made you so special above others. How could you get to be what you are in the first place. How comes that an adolescent half-ghost can beat every ghost in the ghost zone, including the ghost king himself. But now all your secrets shall be mine! - yelled full of joyce ripping out his ghost core.
- "What's he doing? What secret could he get from me?" - Thinks Danny in all this chaos.
Ripping a ghost core was something that has never been done before, but Thecnus didn't care about that. And whereas he thought that it would be a simple and painful procedure, it turned out to be more complicated than he foresaw, with hundreds of complications that could happen, but the one complication that happened was the worst of all, Danny's ghost core started breaking.
He quickly pulled out his hand, steaming and burned, while Danny roars in a pain like he has never felt before. Cujo bites Technus and shakes him like a toy, throwing him to warehouse behind them now that he had his guard down and his hand was out of Danny.
- Danny, what's going on?! - asks Jazz frightened, watching her little brother releasing massive waves of ghost energy from his body, with no control whatsoever.
- Back off! - he yells with his eyes completely green and blazing. Soon his hair began to ablaze, becoming a snow with fire, and his skin turned as dark as the night with green gleaming cracks.
- Yes! Look at all that power. Boundless, unrestrained, unlimited. - claimed Technus - How can you even survive that? What are you?
- What am I? I'm unleashed?! - raged Danny, looking at him with fury in his eyes and streams of ghost and cold energy spiraling around him, streaming out of his body, and showing his fanged teeth.
Not knowing what he was doing, Technus had awoken a beast that not even Danny control.