The Others
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Annab3ll3 L33
---
Pride of the Pack-Part 2
"Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them — this is of the essence of leadership."-Theodore H. White
"Will you listen to reason? It all fits together!"
"Danny, this is nuts. I told you--"
"Listen to me!"
"Sam, let him have his say."
"Thank you! Masters and my parents were friends in college, right?"
"Yeah, but--"
"--and even then, they were obsessed with ghosts, right?"
"Dude, I can't imagine your parents ever not being obsessed with ghosts."
"Yeah, true. So, they try to build a ghost portal. Something goes wrong, Masters gets fried and hospitalized."
"Danny--"
"Sam, let him talk! He's starting to make sense."
"Masters becomes half ghost, and--"
"DANNY!"
"Just listen, dammit! He wants revenge because he thinks my dad killed him! He sends those ghosts after him to try to kill him, and the reunion is a backup plan!"
Daniel looks back and forth at his two friends. Tucker looks considering, Samantha just looks annoyed. She starts to speak. "Danny, you sound like your father. Paranoid about ghosts?"
With an annoyed huff, Daniel's forehead almost meets the table with enough force to knock him out. Thankfully, his head becomes intangible just before it makes contact, sending him sprawling onto the ground.
"Smooth," Tucker says, before hesitantly stating his mind. "Well, that does make sense, but it just seems too unlikely for there to be more than one ghost-human hybrid...it's as unlikely as black being Sam's natural--OW!"
"Her parents dye theirs, Tuck. I've seen the boxes in their bathroom."
"And...why were you in my parent's bathroom?" Samantha asks suspiciously, removing her foot from on top of Tucker's.
Tucker smirks. "He was watching your mom strip." He then withers under the fluorescent green stare of his buddy.
"For your information," Daniel states in a creepily even tone, "Skulker threw me into the house while we were fighting."
A glint of green remains in his eyes as he returns to his nasty burger. "So then, to get away from Tucker's perverted mind, it's very likely that Masters is a ghost-human thing."
Samantha sighs and picks at her salad. "Well, you can think that Danny. It just seems too unlikely to me."
"Hey Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"I can move things with my mind."
"Really?"
"See? That's not how you responded to my idea that Masters is a ghost. You blatantly refused the idea. And no, I can't really. But it would be pretty cool."
Tucker hides a laugh by stuffing his face with his Mighty Meaty Meal. He then spits it out and starts hacking.
"Tucker, knock it off," Daniel says moodily.
He continues to cough. Finally Daniel stands up, and pounds Tucker on the back. A big glob of what might have once been beef splatters onto his wrapper. Daniel makes a disgusted face before picking up Tucker's tray and walking over to the trash bin and dumping it in, holding the tray at arm's length. He slides the now empty tray onto the shelf above the bin and walks back over to his friends, who were now arguing about vegetarianism.
"See? You can't choke on vegetables."
"Really?"
Tucker fills his mouth with Samantha's salad, trying to swallow without chewing. Immediately, he begins to hack again. Daniel and Samantha stare at him, attempting to comprehend how uncharacteristically stupid that action was. After a long minute, Daniel once again pounds him on the back, this time sending what can still be identified as a salad onto the table.
"Dude?" Daniel asks as Tucker wipes his mouth.
"Yeah?"
"That was freaking retarded!" both Daniel and Samantha shout, startling several people and causing them to look in the direction of the trio.
"And I'm not picking that up," Daniel adds, nodding at the regurgitated salad.
"Well, at least you can tell it was a salad," Samantha points out, "Unlike your mini Lunch-Lady."
"But I proved you can choke on a salad!"
"What you did was one of the most imbecilic, idiotic, and overall stupid things you've ever done! Not counting that time you told me Ricky Marsh threw up in my lunchbox and I kicked him off the monkeybars."
Tucker glares at her and then looks at Daniel. "Couldn't you have used a different group expirience? Um, dude?"
Daniel is apparently looking at something that Samantha and Tucker can not see. "Danny?" Tucker asks again, looking wary. Samantha begins to poke him. "Oy! Danny!" Tucker calls.
"Huh-wha?" Daniel says, coming out of his trance.
"Never mind," Tucker says. He moves his hand like he is about to grab a burger, and then looks down sadly. Samantha gives him a pitying smile before turning to Daniel.
"Danny, just go with it. If He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is a ghost, then bring back some sort of proof, and we'll believe you."
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Daniel asks, amused. Samantha rolls her eyes.
"So I like Harry Potter."
"And you call me a geek," Tucker mutters.
---
"I spy something--"
"The sky."
"Danny, how'd you know?"
"You've already said sand. Twice, actually."
Maddie glances back at her annoyed son, who is staring out the window with an expression that could either be boredom, or exhaustion. Or both. "Fine then, smarty. What do you spy?"
Daniel rolls his eyes and tries to find something than the stretch of desert that his family is currently driving through. "I spy..." Something catches his eye. "Is that a sniper?"
Jasmine looks up from "Psychology for the High School Student" and stares out the window.
"Danny, that's insane. There aren't any gunman out here; it's the middle of nowh-"
Crack.
The Ghost Assault Vehicle suddenly veers off course, and Daniel sees the ripped off treads fly behind them. Everything begins to bump upside down, and Daniel's teeth knock into each other as he holds on for dear life. Jack tries to keep the vehicle steady, without much success. They hit a boulder, sending the GAV tumbling over onto its side.
Daniel's hand brushes a button, and yet another noise joins the already chaotic ensemble. Alarms blare, and a computerized voice announces that there is a ghost in the vehicle. Nobody pays attention to that, as the engine has locked, and the brake is not working. The GAV is driving in circles on it's side, slowly making progress towards a practical wall that marked where the state had enough money to begin marking that the highway was in the city boundaries.
Even if the vehicle wasn't on it's side, the family probably would be doomed, anyways. The loud sirens have finally registered in the minds of the family. All four occupants had their hands clamped over their ears, and Jasmine is screaming "Make it stop, make it stop!"
Crash.
The front of the GAV makes direct contact with the wall. Jack, who isn't wearing his seatbelt, is thrust forward at the exact same time the airbag inflates.
There's a lesson for you: Always wear your seatbelt.
Anyway, Jack's head meets the airbag in an at best traumatizing, but most likely fatal, way. For a man in his forties, it is fatal.
The bag doesn't only snap back Jack's neck, it snaps his neck. His head goes flying off, and lands in the lap of his son.
Daniel has managed to keep relatively calm. Relatively. He has kept silent, and is braced for the crash. But he is not braced for this.
At the feeling of something hard hitting his stomach and bouncing into his lap, after the huge tremor that meant the crash, he opens his eyes. Something fuzzy is sitting in his lap. He picks it up and turns it around.
And screams.
Jasmine looks over at her brother.
And screams.
Maddie blinks and twists around in her chair. She sees her daughter screaming, and looks where she is looking.
And screams.
Daniel screams the longest, never dropping his father's head. Blood pours into his lap, and dead blue eyes watch him unseeingly.
The most terrifying thing is the sheer solidity of his father's head. It seems to mock Daniel, screaming "Hey, look! I'm real!".
After a minute that lasts several eternities, Daniel drops the head and pulls his legs up to his chin. The GAV is still on it's side, so when he drops the head, it starts to roll to Jasmine. She screeches and unbuckles her seatbelt, scrambling for her mother.
"God, oh god, oh god," Daniel whispers. He rocks back and forth. "This can't be happening, it's not real, it's not real."
Sirens can be heard in the distance. Daniel notices them first, and looks up. He smells something. "Smoke," he whispers. With shaking hands, he unbuckles his seat belt and walks to the windshield, doing his best to ignore his dad's body. A small flicker of light. Fire.
"We need to get out of here," he says quietly. His mother and sister don't seem to hear him. "Mom, we need to get out of here. There's fire. If it hits the fuel tank...we all go," he finishes sadly.
She looks up, tears streaming down her cheeks. "No...Jack's gone. There's nothing left for me in this world..."
"MOM!" Daniel yells. She jumps, startlesd at her son's sudden anger. "You still have your kids. And we need you to be strong, too. If our own mother can't help us, then who can?"
She shakes her head. Jasmine looks at her, and then pulls away. She stumbles over to Daniel. "Mom, Danny's right. We need you. You're...you're not thinking straight. Let's get out of this deathtrap."
She only moans.
Daniel's fists clench and his eyes turn a startling, ghostly, green. He grabs his mother by her forearm and turns her intangible, yanking her out of her seatbelt. Or at any rate, he tries to. The moment he turns his arm intangible, the sirens start blaring again.
Ghost detected. Beginning elimination process.
An ecto-gun dislodges itself from the wall, shooting Daniel. "Fuck!" he screams, stumbling into something big and orange. He turns around, and then looks away. His dad's body.
He then grabs Jasmine's arm and pulls her to the trunk. "You try and get this open," he says. "I need to get Mom..."
But Maddie is already up. She is hugging the husk of her husband, still sobbing. Daniel quickly makes his way over to her.
"Mom..." he puts his hand on her shoulder. "Mom, come on. We need to get out."
"You can go..." she whispers insanely. "I want to be with him. Please."
Daniel backs away. He is angry. She is going to kill herself! "Fine," he growls. "Be an ass. Leave your children. Goodbye." He turns on his heel and storms away. Then he stops, looks behind him at his mother, and whispers one last thing. "Bye."
There is a loud, creaking noise from the front of the vehicle, and he breaks into a run. He grabs Jasmine and punches the back window, shattering it. They then tumble out, into the smoky air..
Jasmine falls to the ground outside. "Mom," she whispers. "Oh my god, Mom..."
"Get up," Daniel says angrily. "I can try to get her, but she won't probably won't let me. But I'll try, anyway..."
He turns into his ghostly form and darts in.
"That made no sense," Jasmine whispers, before running a good thirty yards away from the GAV.
Daniel yanks his mother by her arm, but she swats him away. "Mom!" Daniel shouts. She doesn't even turn around as she strikes him hard across his face. "Mom?" he asks, holding his now bleeding nose.
"Leave me!" she bellows. "I want to be with him, I want him..."
"Mom, come on!"
"Go away, you motherfuckin' bastard!"
"You are my mother!"
"GO AWAY!"
Daniel floats backward, terrified. He turns back into Daniel Fenton, hoping that it will get his mother's attention. She glances at him, the turns back to her husband. Fresh tears run down Daniel's cheeks, and he stares at her for a long time. "Fine. Goodbye."
Suddenly a red glow comes from the windshield, and Daniel runs back to the trunk. He grabs his father's head along the way. It is impulsive, he does it without thinking.
As Daniel reaches his sister, the GAV explodes, sending twisted pieces of scrap metal flying everywhere. A large part of the vehicle that holds the wheels lands a few feet away from the two children.
"Mom," Jasmine whispers, falling to her knees. "Mom..."
Daniel just stares at the destruction with his jaw set. He holds up Jack's head, looking into his eyes. "Well, she's with you now," he says quietly. "Good for you."
He then throws the head on the ground, and, in a fit of rage, blasts it. He is furious. Both of his parents, dead. Gone. Kaput. Now where will he go? What about Jasmine?
The ectoblast turns a shade of red a bit darker than the color of blood. This has a different effect on the head. It begins to melt, the features blurring together and becoming unrecognizable. The hair singes, and eventually all that is left is a small pile of ashes, which are quickly blown away by the wind.
Jasmine whimpers from the ground next to him.
He ignores it, stalking over to the hunk of vehicle. With a blank look, he kneels down to examine the wheels. All of them are still moving slightly, except two of them. He leans closer. Something is keeping them from moving. A bullet. There is a small bullet lodged directly between the two wheels, making it so that the steering would go out of control.
"Jazz..." he moans. Jasmine looks up. Her makeup is blurred, making her look like a zombie. "Someone meant for this to happen..."
"What?" Jasmine asks shakily, pulling herself up and walking over.
"A bullet. That sniper you said wasn't there...he did this. Masters..."
The sirens are getting louder. Daniel yanks the bullet out of its spot and puts it in his pocket.
"Danny...Mom and Dad...they're dead.They're dead."
Daniel knows this. He knows it, and he accepts it. But he won't accept that the man who did this is still out there. Daniels fist closes around the bullet in his pocket.
He will find Masters.
He will find Masters, and make him pay.
---
"I must say, I am so sorry about your parents," the silver haired man said.
Jasmine nods weakly, but Daniel gives him a glare that would make a rottweiler back down. He swallows a breath that he could tell carried his ghost sense. Oh how he wants to kill the smug man in front of him...but he can't. Not with Jasmine watching. She is already traumatized enough.
Not only that. He wants to make the man suffer. Suffer, and then die.
"I'll show you to your rooms. You'll be staying here until the papers are sorted out. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Jack has left you two to me, we were such good friends..."
A quiet snarl escapes Daniel's mouth, as well as a bit of icy fog; Masters doesn't seem to notice.
He leads them through the many halls with the green and gold décor.
"I have, of course, called off the reunion. The death of Maddie is too tragic. And Jack's too. I suppose that's only fair..."
Jasmine nods again, it is obvious she is not really listening. But Daniel is listening with rapt attention. Anything that could be used against him was helpful. Even as Masters rambles off into an oblivion ending with something about the Packers, Daniel is listening.
It is obvious to him that Masters is behind his parents' deaths. But it is also obvious that he only meant for Jack to die.
"This is your room, my dear," Masters says, pushing open the door to reveal a large room that reeked of cash.
"Mmkay," Jasmine says, slowly walking into the room. She lays down on the bed, and stares at the ceiling.
Masters continues to walk, and Daniel walks behind him.
"Really, Daniel. I am sorry about your parents. It must be horrible for you..."
"Shut up, bastard," Daniel mutters to himself. Masters ignores him.
"Maddie, especially. I never expected her to die so soon."
"Shut up!" Daniel shouts. But it does not sound like his voice...it sounds like a chorus of voices. Masters hears him this time, and becomes silent. He doesn't say anything about the odd sound Daniel had made.
Masters opens another door, and doesn't say anything. Daniel raises an eyebrow and walks in.
The room is almost exactly the same as the others, except this one has a skylight. The sun is going down, and stars are beginning to show their faces. Daniel is taken aback by the beauty of the clear Wisconsin sky for a brief moment before he turns around. Masters is gone.
With a sigh, Daniel pulls out his cell phone and dials Samantha's number.
She picks up on the fourth ring. "Hey Danny! How's Wisconsin?"
He glares at a patch of ceiling. "Horrid," he spits.
"Huh?"
"He killed my parents! They're dead!"
"Wait, what?"
"Masters! He killed them! He killed them both..."
"Your parents? They're--"
"Yes, Sam! They're dead! Both of them. Dad got decapitated by the air bag, and Mom punched me in the face before letting herself die..."
"Danny, are you okay?"
"What do you think?" he says irritably, eyeing a fly that is buzzing around his head.
"I think you've either gone off the deep end, or you're telling the truth. Which one is it?"
"It's the truth! I held his fucking head, Sam. I have a bruised nose where she struck me..."
"Oh..." she is silent for a long period of time before she speaks again. "Where are you staying?"
"With the asshole that killed them."
"How do you--"
"Don't start that again, Sam. My ghost sense goes off around him. The way he talks about it...I'm surprised the cops didn't arrest him when they brought us here."
"Danny...I'm so sorry."
"Sam, please don't hate me for this, but..." he sighs. He needs to know what Samantha thinks. He is so confused. Killing is wrong, but he wants to kill Masters. He wants to see the life leave his eyes. If he kills that horrid man, than can he still be considered a good person?
"Is killing wrong?"
Silence. "Danny, why are you asking me this?"
He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, I put that wrong. Is...is killing someone who killed both your parents and drove your sister insane okay?"
"..."
"Sam?"
"...Jazz is insane?"
Daniel frowns. "She's not acting right. She just stares at things that I apparently can't see. It's scary. And she barely talks."
"She's hurt, Danny. Her...her parents just died."
"I don't think that's it..."
"What is it then?"
Daniel watches the fly as it lands on the windowsill. He feels guilty. "I could have saved my mom. But she wouldn't let me. I was so mad...I left her to die. I could have saved her. I think Jazz knows this, and is angry at me..."
"Danny..." he hears a sigh. "Don't ask me about these things. You'd have to ask Jazz. Maybe Tucker, but he's not exactly the one to ask about moral values. Or maybe your mo...never mind."
The fly takes off again, this time clinking against the skylight.
"I want to kill him."