Rewritten October 2007.

Powerless
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Chapter One: The High Priestess

I love movie nights.

I relaxed in to the humongous arm chair, my eyes almost closing as I fought back what was probably the fifth yawn of the night. Listening to the poorly animated movie monsters snarling and growling in the background, I let a small smile cross my face. The chairs were soft, the popcorn was fresh and buttery, and my friends were with me. There was no where in the world I'd rather be.

Oh yeah. I love movie nights.

"Danny!" my best friend hissed. My eyes popped open in time to watch her reach over a punch my arm, her eyes flashing dangerously in the darkened room.

"What?" I complained, rubbing my arm. It hadn't really hurt – she can hit a lot harder than that – but I needed to act hurt on principle. She'd hit harder next time if I didn't.

"You are not allowed to fall asleep during my movie!"

"I wasn't sleeping," I mumbled, grinning as her eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath. She was cute when she was gearing up to rant… but I'd never tell her that. My life and her friendship were worth too much.

"I don't even know why I try with you two," she huffed, crossing her arms sourly and glaring at the screen. "When you pick the movie, I'm forced to watch whatever mindless drivel you drag up. When I pick the movie, one of you falls asleep and the other can't put down that stupid PDA for two seconds. It never fails!"

"I wasn't sleeping," I reiterated. "I'm just really tired. The Box Ghost tried to hold up a Kwick delivery truck last night and it turned into an all-night, semi-high-speed chase."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered darkly, but her glare relented a little bit and she sent me a smile. "But that doesn't excuse PDA-boy over there."

"I can hear you, you know," Tucker said softly. "I'm actually updating our Ghost Files with some of those new ghosts we've met recently: the plant one that tried to eat us last week, that half-jaguar half-frog… thing, and that glob that tried to eat Mrs. Perkensin's gardenias." He looked up at us, blinking the PDA screen-shaped stars out of his eyes. "I'll be done in a few. But how you can possibly call that a movie is beyond me."

Sam let out a slow breath and relaxed back into her chair. "I happen to enjoy B-rated flicks."

"Sam," I grinned, "this isn't good enough to be a B-rated movie. This is at least an E. It's not in color and the plot isn't anywhere near believable."

"Like our life is believable," she laughed. "We almost got eaten by a possessed rose bush last weekend, Danny. Our life has no plot; it's just a bunch of bizarre and unconnected episodes. Now shut up. This is a good part in the movie."

Listening to the horrible screaming in the background, I shook my head and stood up. "I'm going to get a soda, anyone else want one?" Neither of them spoke, and I didn't bother to turn around to see if they were nodding. We'd been friends since forever… I knew they were both nodding. One would be mouthing 'Mr. Pepper' and they other had 'no ice please' forming on her lips. If they wanted something different than they usual, they would have said something.

Reaching for a couple of the cups, I shivered, freezing in place. I knew it wasn't a ghost since my ghost sense was always accompanied by a dead feeling curling around my heart, but I still glanced around in surprise. These cold shivers had been happening all week and I hadn't been able to figure them out.

With an almost soundless pop and fizzle, the soda machine I was standing next to stopped working. I stared at it for a long moment and waited for the quiet hum of the motor to come back. My breath fogged in the air and my nose started to tingle because of the chill in the air. Licking my lips, I took a step away from the soda machine and slowly brought my hands back to my sides.

And just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Warmth rushed against my skin. I twisted my head around to glance over at my friends; neither one of them appeared to have noticed that anything had happened. "Freaky," I breathed. Was this a new power or just some odd thing that happened to ghost hybrids?

Either way, I didn't feel like mentioning it to Sam and Tucker yet. I wanted to wait until after the movie night – nothing needed to spoil this.

I carefully walked back up the soda machine and thumped it with my finger. The motor was still out. "Sam, I think your soda machine is broken."

She twisted around in her chair and blinked into the darkness. "It's probably just the refrigerator part of it. The soda machine will still work; the soda will just be a little warm."

"Extra ice for me then," Tucker said over some more screams.

I rolled my eyes and pushed a cup against the spout, watching the soda spill into the three cups. One Mr. Pepper with extra ice, one Sparkle with no ice, and one fizzy lemonade for me.

"Excellent," Tucker praised when I handed him his cup, more ice than soda. He turned off his PDA and dropped it onto the armrest, cradling the soda in his hand and snatching a straw from me.

Sam smiled, "Thanks," when she got hers, amethyst eyes sparkling into my own for just a few breathless seconds. Then she turned back to her movie, and that was that. I blinked at her before my mind kicked back into gear and I settled back down into my chair.

Quietly using my straw to stir my ice cubes, I really tried to watch the movie Sam had picked out, but my own thoughts kept interrupting me. Normal teenage problems swirled around in my head faster than the ice in my soda: Dash's latest threat about Monday morning, that big test in math class I hadn't studied for, even the look my mom was going to give me when she found out that I hadn't cleaned my room yet. Those I could handle and were easily shoved out of my mind. It was these other problems that had been plaguing me.

Could I really have some new power showing up? There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what triggered it, and I felt no different when it was going on – other than the fact that I was freezing cold. All my other powers were usually conscious decisions on my part. This was something… else. For some reason, it felt like it was beyond me, bigger than me. It was like staring up at the stars and feeling how absolutely small and insignificant you really are.

Not to mention the weird things the Box Ghost had been muttering last night. Ancients and cards, powers and destruction, the return of the end, something about Vlad getting into something he should be… I didn't even want to know what that ghost was talking about.

And then that other problem. I pressed my back firmly into the chair and stared down into the lazily circling ice cubes, trying my best not to glance up at the girl who had been haunting my dreams lately. Not in a million years was I going to tell her why I was so adamant about Tucker coming along every time we went someplace. I did not want to be alone with her.

I was not going to ruin one of the only true friendships I had left. This was just some silly crush that I was going to get over. Someday.

My eyes flickered over to her silhouette. She was leaning forwards in her chair, laughing at something that had happened in the movie. A glance at the screen showed me a scene of someone dying a horrific (and horribly over-acted) death, covered in volumes of gelatin-like blood. Not something a normal girl would be laughing at.

I knew I was smiling as I sat there, not watching the movie, my head spinning with problems no sixteen-year-old should have to face. Despite everything that was going to come crashing down around my ears, I was happy.

I love movie nights.

"Are you quite through, Mr. Fenton?"

I jerked my head up from my doodlings to glance into the rather annoyed eyes of my sometimes vice-principal and sometimes English teacher. "Um… what?" I asked.

"You have been humming incessantly for the past few minutes. I was wondering if you were finished so our class could continue."

I blinked, startled. "I've been humming?"

"Yes, Mr. Fenton."

"Sorry." I fell silent and watched the overweight teacher walk back up the front of the class to continue his lecture. He managed to hold my attention for a few minutes as he droned on about medieval poetry, but my eyes dropped back to my notebook. The entire page was covered in useless doodles. I hadn't even attempted to take notes.

There were a few sketches of ghosts here and there and a picture of Sam lounging in her chair on movie night, but the biggest drawing was one that was half finished. My fingers itched for me to move my pencil over to it and continue the picture. It was of a strange young girl with ragged hair and a huge jacket. She was holding a deck of cards in one hand and holding a card out towards him with the other.

I had no idea why I was drawing it or where she had come from.

The weirdest part is that I'm not an artist – there are kindergarteners that can draw better than I can. But this drawing… this was impossibly good. This was freaky talk-to-friends-and-Jazz-after-school weird.

The thought came completely unbidden, yet fully formed in my head. Could this have something to do with those cold episodes that had been plaguing me?

I glanced back up at Lancer, who was deep into his lecture again, before returning my gaze to the strange picture. It was true that doodling had become sort of an obsession lately, but for some reason it felt like this was more than just a great way to look like you were paying attention when you really weren't. It felt like I was supposed to be doodling, like there was a reason, or…

I shook my head. Trying to figure this out would be rather pointless in the end. I'd never get the right answer before whatever destiny had cooked up slapped me in the face. It was better, for me, to just know it was coming and learn to roll with the punches.

My pencil scraped against the paper, my head bent down to watch the smooth flow of lines across the white expanse, and all thoughts about strange powers and drawings stopped plaguing me as I lost myself in the drawing.

When the bell rang, startling me out of my blank doodling state, the sketch of the strange girl was done. For some reason it felt like it was totally complete, even though the girl vanished from the knees down. It was an odd picture, almost photo-like with all the details I'd managed to put into it over the course of just the one class. She had dark, almost soulless eyes, a gray jacket that was covered in pockets, and her dirty hair fell in dreadlocks down past her shoulders.

The playing card that she was holding was small, but clear. It wasn't a card like any I'd ever seen before – it wasn't a two of clubs or a queen of hearts or something. On it, a man was struggling to carry and armload of sticks. I shivered and quietly shut the notebook before anyone else could see.

If I couldn't explain the drawing to myself, there was no way I would be able to explain it to someone else. Those were questions better left avoided.

"Mr. Fenton, may I speak with you a moment before you go."

I sighed, cursing inside my head. Lancer always seemed to know when I wasn't paying attention in class… but he called me on it during class. I was going to have a ton of homework tonight as a punishment. Darn it.

Sam touched my shoulder and I glanced at her. A question was glittering in her eyes and I smiled. "I'll meet you outside in a few minutes, okay?" She nodded and grabbed my stuff, towing Tucker out the door behind her.

"Is everything okay at home?" Lancer asked when the door snickered shut behind them.

"What?" I set down my backpack and stared at him in surprise. Here I was, all ready to apologize for doodling through class instead of paying attention, and he asks… what?

"You've been more out of it than usual, Danny. I know you don't get enough sleep at home – but lately you aren't just falling asleep in my class. You're off in your own world."

I glanced down at my notebook, raising an eyebrow. There was some truth in that statement… I really had no idea what they had covered in class today. Come to think of it, most of the school day was a blank.

"And today. You wouldn't stop humming."

"I wasn't humming," I protested, ripping my eyes away from the notebook and looking him in the eyes.

"Yes. You were. From what I could see and hear you were humming softly to yourself, and drawing almost feverishly. You were kind of rocking back and forth by the end of the class."

I blinked, startled. I didn't remember that. All I was doing was drawing, right? But Lancer wouldn't lie to me… he wouldn't make that up… Confusion was making my neck tense up and I reached up to rub the back of my neck. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I did, Danny." He sighed and leaned against a desk, studying me. "So did Ms. Manson and Mr. Foley. Sam must have poked you with her pencil a dozen times to get you to be quiet."

My mouth must have dropped open, judging from the look on Lancer's face. How could all of this have happened without me knowing?

"I'm worried about you, Danny," he continued. "I want to talk to you and try to figure out what's wrong." He let out a breath and rubbed his hand through his balding hair. "Or, if you want, I can set up an appointment with a counselor."

"Um…" I had no idea what to say. I was doing things without knowing about it, drawing things I didn't understand and with a skill I didn't possess, and feeling so cold… My stomach dropped. Was this some kind of new power or some kind of new ghost possessing me? One that wouldn't set off my ghost sense like the others did?

Lancer was still waiting for my answer. I scrambled for something to say. Sitting down and talking to Lancer right now wasn't something I wanted to do. I needed to get out and clear my head. I needed to fly…

"Give me until tomorrow to think about it?" I winced. That was a horrible excuse, but Lancer seemed to buy it.

"Alright. But tell me your decision by the end of school."

"Okay." I turned around to leave, my mind a mess. "Is there anything else?"

"No, Mr. Fenton. Thank you."

Outside the door deep in the far reaches of the ghost zone, a vampire-like ghost with glowing red eyes waited. A nasty grin was plastered on his face. It had taken him quite a while to convince Skulker and, oddly, the Box Ghost, into giving him the exact location of this door. He knew what was behind this door.

Plasmius double-checked the small device he had brought with him. It was called the Plasmius Bender and it was his latest invention. It was also his greatest invention, the plans and the pieces stolen from Technus and improved upon. It had been designed, in fact, just for the ghost hiding behind this door.

He grabbed the door knob and pushed the door open, entering a lair unlike any he had every seen before. Long sheets of brightly colored fabric were draped from the ceiling. Chains of beads and small crystals dangled everywhere. Huge, multi-colored pillows were cast about on the soft floor and small candles dotted the edges of the room, casting flickering lights into the gloomy shadows. A huge bookcase with uncountable books sat against one wall and, in the very center of the menagerie of colors, fabrics, and pillows, sat a pure black round table… its top no higher than a hand-span off the ground.

Sitting perched on the top of table, was the object of his desire. One very young-looking ghost; drab and gray in the colorful mess of a lair. She was gazing at him, her soulless gray eyes trained on his glowing red ones. A ghostly breeze blew through the room, causing a few of her dirty dreadlocks to shift in front of her face. Plasmius blinked a few times, startled by the aura of power around her.

"Five of Swords," she whispered, her face blank and expressionless.

Plasmius raised his invention, pointed it at the gray ghost, and pulled the trigger. A beam of red light shot towards the gray ghost, catching her between the eyes. "You are mine, ghost," Plasmius hissed.

"As you say, master," the gray ghost murmured, her soulless eyes unfocused as the Bender wove through her mind and broke whatever will she had left.

"You will come with me."

"Yes, master," the gray ghost whispered. She stood up and drifted forwards, her legs vanishing up to her knees. She drifted to his side, and then stood, waiting for instructions.

"Come." Plasmius strode back through the gray door, his newest servant two steps behind.

The gray ghost turned her head slightly before she left, flickering all of the ghost candles out of existence. It would not do to have her lair burn while she was out. Quietly shutting the door, she drew a card out of her pocket and glanced at it. A happy family, standing under a rainbow of glowing cups. "The Ten of Cups." The gray ghost smiled to herself as her eyes flickered back to gray for a moment, tucking the card away and following her new master to his domain. Things are as they should be.

Walking out of class, I shot a glance down the hallway. Sam and Tucker were gone, presumably waiting outside under the tree like they always were. I hesitated, stuffing the notebook into my backpack and trying to decide if now would be a great time to talk to them. I should… I promised I'd meet them outside and there'd be hell to pay if I ditched them, especially after what seemed to have happened in class today.

But I really needed to clear my head, and the best way to do that was to fly. Going out and telling them I was going to fly home would lead to a bombardment of questions that wouldn't let up. I sighed, resolving myself to more apologies when I had the chance, and headed towards the boy's bathroom.

They'd probably forgive me. They usually did.

Grabbing a stall, I relaxed against the door, holding it shut until I was gone. I searched through my jumbled thoughts for the cool, weightless feeling in my mind that was Phantom. In the span of a thought, my body tingled and the feel of gravity vanished.

I vanished through the ceiling of Casper High and into the afternoon sky. Sam and Tucker were lounging in the shade of the tree outside the doors, just like I'd figured. Sam glanced up and spotted me, her hand coming up in a wave, but I turned around and flew in the other direction. Sorry, Sam, but I really, really needed to think…

Part of the territory of being half-ghost was the ability to pick up on the randomly paranormal. After more than a year of reacting to anything even vaguely supernatural, I've learned to look for things that normal people usually didn't stop to notice. There were things that had happened in that class beyond what Lancer had told me.

The humming and the sketching and the zoning, that was freaky… but there had to have been more to it than that. The temperature of the classroom had been frigid, much too cold to be a malfunctioning air conditioner. And then there were the lights. Three of the large, overhead lights closest to me were burnt out.

Normally, I wouldn't think anything of it. Our school had burnt out lights all the time, but I was sure that all the lights had been working at the beginning of class. They were all right over my head too.

Add the lights to the cold, and sprinkle in memories from the past week of blowing out dozens of light bulbs, frying computers (and one soda machine), and shivering in the cold… it wasn't a huge mental leap. Whatever this new power or ghost possession or whatever was – it was most likely involved. I was down to the question of what it was.

"I wonder how much Sam and Tucker noticed." I did a few easy flips in the air, letting myself enjoy the feel of the wind blowing in my hair.

I finally dropped through the roof of FentonWorks and let myself change back into my human form. Dropping quietly onto my bed, I closed my eyes. There was no doubt this whole thing was centered around me. If only I could figure out how.

"Danny?" A knock on my door accompanied my sister's voice. How she always knows when I get home is a mystery I will never figure out.

"What?"

She pushed open the door and poked her head into my room. Shivering, she leaned against the door frame and watched the scowl form on my face. My room, this past week, has been about ten degrees colder than the rest of the house even when I'm not doing anything ghost related. It's annoying, not to mention dangerous. I didn't want my parents getting more clues as to my spectral identity than absolutely necessary. "Sam just called. She's said there's something you need to talk about." Jazz raised an eyebrow, calmly letting the 'Sam's pissed at you' statement hang in the air.

"I don't want to talk about it right now." I closed my eyes and let my head drop back onto my bed.

I listened as my sister flicked the light switch a few times and made a confused sound when nothing happened. I'd fizzled every single light bulb in my room more than once over the past week and I was sick of replacing them, so they were just staying broken. "Danny," she said as her weight dropped onto my bed, "I'm here for you if you want to talk."

"I don't want to."

"It's usually better to have things out in the open. Maybe I can help."

A sigh slid out of me and my eyes opened to gaze at her. Light bulbs, notebooks, temperatures, computers, ghosts, Vlad, Sam… it all swirled through my mind. I had no idea how I was ever going to be able to put it into words. "I just want to think for awhile. I'll talk to you later."

"Alright Danny," she said quietly, "I'll be in my room if you want me."

The door clicked softly behind her and I groaned. "Excellent," I breathed, my voice dripping with sarcasm. The flying thing hadn't really helped, and the sitting and brooding was definitely not helping. I needed another plan.

Digging around under my bed, I grabbed a Fenton Thermos and changed back into ghost mode. A few hours of patrol, beating some of the lesser ghosts senseless might help. It wouldn't help my situation any, but it might help my pounding head. "Hello, misplaced aggression."

Deep in the darkness of Plasmius' lair, Vlad Masters picked up the equipment he had been forced to drag around. He brushed past the gray girl, who seemed content to float wherever she was the most in the way and could, apparently, do nothing else to help him. Begging, cajoling, and even direct orders were ignored or given excuses for. It was getting increasingly hard to imagine this ghost being the most powerful being in the Ghost Zone.

"Would you float somewhere else?" he finally snapped.

"Yes, master," she whispered, drifting over to a different section of the lab. She just continued to watch him with her red, soulless eyes.

It was over an hour before he spoke again. "Here," he grumbled. In his hand was a small vial of glowing liquid that he'd finished making. "Make sure this gets dumped on young Daniel when he is in his ghost form. It's crucial to phase two of the plan. You can do that much, right?"

"Yes, master." The gray ghost picked up the vial. In her hand, it twisted its shape, turning from a glass vial into a card. She gazed at the beautiful picture. A man trying unsuccessfully to carry a load of ten large sticks up a hill. "The Ten of Wands," she whispered. "How appropriate."

To be continued…