Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or anything in the Marvel universe.
One thing Danny realized when Fury walked out of the interrogation room leaving him all alone was that he could hear everything outside perfectly; so when news of Phantom terrorizing SHIELD came, Danny's mouth fell to the floor. How can there be another Phantom? Something like this has never happened before. I was framed for attacking the mayor once, but that was actually me attacking him, not some fake. Unless...
Images of Danny being chased across Amity Park by his parents came to his mind. Normally he could easily evade them and turn into Fenton whenever he wanted, this time was different though. He didn't have his powers with him just a time. He was just a human with a ghostly appearance then. It all happened after he caught Amorpho impersonating him. Amorpho! He, or at least someone like him, can look exactly like me. Maybe it's him!
The clock on the wall ticked by with Danny still being left all alone.
So that answered the how, but not the why. Why would Anorpho knowingly become Phantom, someone who would be endlessly chased by SHIELD? Actually, why would he knowingly attack SHIELD as Phantom? Wouldn't it be easier to impersonate one of their agents and then destroy it from the inside? That way he wouldn't have to deal with much opposition.
Danny's eyes grew wide and he immediately jumped out of his seat. Of course! He's trying to paint me as a bad guy!
That answer only created more questions though, like why would Amorpho do that when Danny was already in custody and out of the ghosts' hair. Now that question didn't seem to have a good answer. The only thing he could come up with was that maybe the ghosts didn't know that he was arrested as Fenton so they wanted SHIELD to turn on Phantom, something they basically already did.
A SHIELD agent opened the door to the interrogation room right when Danny was about to go crazy from all the questions flowing through his mind. "The director has ordered me to take you back to Amity Park to be reunited with your friends since you are no longer our primary suspect. Please, come with me."
Danny looked at the soldier and, seeing no other options, shrugged his shoulders and followed him.
While walking up a set of steps, a group of soldiers came running down with the man in front, probably their leader, shouting orders. This must've been the third group doing so and Danny was starting to get annoyed. annoyed. He decided to start up a conversation with his supposed guard to get as much information as possible. "So, why is everyone on edge?"
The soldier didn't say anything for a couple of seconds. "Phantom was spotted once again. We tried to apprehend him but he got away. Now everyone is preparing for a possible attack against the helicarrier since the ghost already destroyed a base."
"Are you sure it was the real Phantom though?" Danny asked earning an inquisitive stare from the soldier. "I-I mean, he has many enemies, right? Maybe one of them is trying to frame him.
Another group of soldiers came running down the staircase. One of these men shoved Danny out of the way causing him to stagger back and regain his footing.
Danny's guard watched this all happen with slight amusement on his face. "Watch yourself. These men don't really care who you are as long as your in their way."
"But I wasn't even in his way!" Danny said while flailing his uninjured arm. "He just pushed me so he could push me!"
Danny's protest fell on deaf ears as the man just looked away and continued his climb up the steps. "Anyway, from these recent attacks and the fact that he repeatedly ran away from SHIELD, it is believed that he is allied with the ghosts and an enemy of SHIELD."
"But you guys never even game him a chance! He has protected Amity Park for half a year now. You can't just label him an enemy like that!"
The soldier turned around and glared at Danny with fists clenched. The halfa could already tell that their argument was grow sour fast. "We asked him to turn himself in. Director Fury even tried to reach out to Phantom and ask nicely for his cooperation. The ghost just turned him down and even attacked my comrades. He is evil to his core. Like some demon from hell."
"What a load!" Danny shouted while sticking out his arm.. "Phantom never attacked any SHIELD soldiers and all SHIELD did was point guns at him!"
Danny really shouldn't have been arguing with an armed soldier; especially when he was revealing information he really shouldn't have known. He didn't care though, because he needed to defend his actions. Even if they were of him as Phantom.
The soldier didn't seem to pay attention though as he once again turned around and began climbing the steps. "You're just a kid. You have no idea what you're talking about."
Danny only looked at the man with disgust. How can someone be that misguided and still think he's right? Were all SHIELD soldiers like this? There had to be someone somewhere who knew the truth. How ironic, one if the most secretive organizations ever doesn't actually know the truth.
Both men eventually made it to the top of the deck and saw their waiting transport. The guard grabbed Danny's arm and marched over to the aircraft.
It appeared to be some sort of helicopter with long propeller blades and a big cargo area enough to fit tons of supplies.
"Get on board kid!" he shouted over the woosh of the propeller blades.
Danny complied and went up the ramp to sit down in one of the middle seats with the guard across from him. The ramp began to rise and fold until it created the helicopter's back wall. The helicopter soon ascended into the air and began it's trip back to Amity Park.
Along the way, Danny's wounded arm began to itch. He tried to ignore it the best he could, but couldn't stop squirming around do to the itch. "Sir?" he asked.
The guard got out of his half asleep daze to look at the boy.
"When is my shoulder supposed to be properly treated?"
The guard looked at the whit gauze covering the kid's shoulder and noticed the dried up blood on it. He didn't seem to care though as he once again closed his eyes. "Most likely never. Fury doesn't care about you anymore so the doctor assigned to help you has been reassigned to treat the wounded soldiers. He said something about their injuries being more serious and he wanted the soldiers back on the battlefield as soon as possible. I don't know. It's the circle of life or something."
Suddenly the radio above Danny's head came alive. "This is the pilot speaking. We have reports of small skirmishes breaking out around the landing zone so we are going to be redirecting our flight to a safer base in downtown Amity Park."
"Figures." the guard muttered. "I'll never understand why we came all this way just to protect a few ungrateful civilians in some American city. That's not even our job."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about. SHIELD is supposed to protect people. That's why they were created, and why they defended New York against the alien invasion."
The guard let out a small, forced laugh before turning his gaze to the roof.
You really believe that, kid? After everything we've done, you still believe we are only here out of the kindness of our hearts?" the man let out another forced chuckle. The was starting to creep Danny out as he averted his eyes from the guard.
Eventually the man continued his speech. "No, SHIELD was created to prevent any secrets they don't want getting out from doing just that. They don't care about the people as long as they get there way. They only went to New York to retrieve a classified object that I bet you they are experimenting with right now to make more powerful weaponry. It's like the Manhattan Project all over again."
Danny tried to come up with an argument, anything that could prove the agent wrong. Sadly, nothing came to mind. Everyone knew about what happened in New York, but no one knew about the events about to or even after it. In fact, almost no one knew about SHIELD before the incident. So didn't that mean that the agent was right in saying SHIELD never had any truly good intentions? No, he accept that as an answer because he couldn't believe the world was that bad of a place. There had to be some redeeming quality, anything, that proved SHIELD was in the right. For if there was nothing, didn't that mean that what he was fighting for was wrong?
No, it didn't. If this man was to be believed, SHIELD was fighting for the government of the world; for secrecy. Danny on the other hand, was fighting for the people. The government is not the people. Sometimes their goals may crossed, but for the most part they were separate entities. At times, maybe even enemies.
The guard could tell that Danny was a little confused. Everyone had the internal battle eventually; that didn't mean the guard couldn't be a little concerned. After all, if something happened to the kid it was on him.
"Hey kid, you okay?" the guard asked putting his hand on Danny's unhurt shoulder.
"Y-Yea-"
Boom!
A sudden explosion erupted from outside the helicopter. With a hard jerk to the left to evade any more blasts, the radio came alive. "We have been hit by an unknown enemy! Our rear propellers are out and we can't stay in the air for much longer! I am calling for immediate assistance! Can anyone here me?!
There was silence for fifteen second before, Boom!
Another explosion rocked the craft. This time it brought some light smoke into the cargo area.
"Mayday, mayday! Going down. We can no longer maintain a safe trajectory!" the pilot shouted through the radio.
Danny looked out his small window and could only see dense, black smoke from one of the blasts. His guard was trying to find someway into the cockpit with no luck. The agent was ignoring Danny though, giving him an easy opportunity to go ghost.
The halfa did his best to crouch down in his seat as a huge ring formed around his waist. The ring separated in two having one go up his body while the other went down, changing whatever it touched into his ghostly form. When complete, Danny glanced over at the guard and was glad to find that the man still hadn't turn around.
Boom! A third explosion hit the back of the aircraft.
Okay Fenton, get your head together. Danny though while going intangible and jumping through the roof of the helicopter to meet smokey yet empty air. You done this hundreds of times. Just protect the helicopter and catch the ghost...without a thermos.
Danny was already beginning to dread this fight, and the fact that he couldn't even find the enemy made it all the worse.
Unseen by the halfa, Skulker stood on top of the roof of the highest building in downtown Amity Park overlooking what happened. Seeing enough, he picked up a small phone on his belt and brought it up to his ear. "Sir, the mission is going exactly as planned. The whelp has left the aircraft."
There was static on the other end for a couple of seconds before an answer came. "Good, you can now set your cannon to full power to finish the transport off. Oh, and make sure Phantom chases you."
Skulker watched as Phantom flew below the helicopter and pushed the aircraft up with his strength.. "Yes, sir William."
Danny fought against gravity as he went under the helicopter and began pushing on it. It was a lot heavier than he thought it would be, but his ghostly strength still proved to be superior as he, with the helicopter, slowly made his descent towards the ground. He would've made the entire thing intangible so it would go faster, but then the pilot and soldier on board would be alerted and that wouldn't be good. He was just about to land in a clearing of grass in between two buildings when a green ray shot past Danny. On instinct, he immediately took his hand off the craft and went intangible just in time to watch the ray cut the helicopter clean in half and explode.
"What?!" Danny shouted, not fully comprehending what happened. Flaming shards began to rain down everywhere, some even through Danny's still intangible body.
Sirens blared in the distance, no doubt to find out what happened. This would give him limited time to escape before he was found. He didn't consider this though, and just stared dumbfounded at the wreckage. "What just happened?!" Danny shouted into the empty air around him. Whoever did this show yourself now!"
Evil laughter came from behind Danny and he whipped around to see his assailant with glowing dark green eyes. "Skulker, why did you do this?! They were innocent people on board!"
Skulker's laughter got even louder with Danny's proclamation. This only caused Danny's face to turn a shade red and his eyes even darker as he prepared to attack. Skulker, not realizing this, decided to interject. "Innocent? Whelp, they're the enemy to both you and me." a nasty sneer formed on his face. "Besides, I haven't made good on my promise to mount your pelt on my wall and you know how I feel about honor."
Danny looked down towards the leftover remains of the helicopter. "Skulker." he whispered, barely audible to the ghostly hunter.
"What was that?"
Danny lifted his head and Skulker could only see rage. Pure rage that had the power to destroy anything. This also made it uncontrollable though, and that's just what he was hoping for.
"Skulker!" Danny shouted as he charged towards the hunter. Sadly, Skulker saw this coming and just kicked him away and watched him fall to the ground.
"Lesson one in hunting. Always know your prey. Every move he may or may not make in a battle.
Skulker knew his little speech was falling on deaf ears, but he couldn't help mocking his prey. Danny got back up and charged at Skulker once again.
The hunter didn't even move though. He just watched the halfa with a smile as he took a moment to appreciate his handiwork. Yes, fall right into my trap, foolish whelp.
Ms. Hill might've been a little bit annoyed. She had been coordinating the search effort for Phantom for three hours now and was getting nothing. Normally, this wouldn't upset her though. She was used to spending days and even weeks on end gathering all the information she could on a target for Director Fury, heck it was one of the reasons she was made lieutenant, but she hated watching as Fury locked himself in his office preventing any contact from the outside world. He was the director of SHIELD, it was his job to direct everyone; instead Ms. Hill had to do that in his absence. Jeez. He is obsessing over Phantom almost as much as he used to obsess over Hydra. At least with Hydra he acted on his obsession though. This he doesn't even do anything.
Suddenly alarms began blaring on her computer screen as a message appeared. "Oh my!" she exclaimed staring at the screen in disbelief. "Large amounts of ectoenergy is being expelled in downtown Amity Park. I thought all the ghosts were eliminated there."
Fury appeared from his office door behind Maria's office carrying a gigantic rifle. "Must be Phantom. Alert all units and bring me everyone you can. This time he isn't getting away alive."
So things happened in this chapter. Important things; so you better have paid attention! By my calculations (which usually proved false), we have three possible four chapters left. I would go into that, but spoilers. In other words, take that however you want. If you have anything to say then please leave a review! Oh one last thing, what do you guys think of Marvel's Agents of Shield (the show)?
Reviews:
Inviso-Al: Is it a cliffhanger? I mean it's not an immediate plot concern and wouldn't be addressed in this chapter. That must be one longer hanger then.
Midnight Bloom: Hmph, that's a toughie. I'd say that since the ecto rays can't pass through shields then that means the bullets shouldn't either. They are both made out of the same material (ectoplasm) after all. I always forget about his ice powers during battle scenes but I'll try to remember for next chapter (hoperfully not a spoiler since he is chasing Skulker).
Guest: Another interesting question. No, probably not from me. I may do an Agents of Shield crossover later when the show and characters are more developed, but even that's rare.
SnowMiko: Wow, I completely forgot about what my idea was. It would've been a purely DP story though with nothing to do with the Avengers. Wait….it might be coming back to me. If I remember correctly, it would be a short parody. Maybe I should do it just for a little break…hmmm.