(Waves excitedly) I FOUND MY JUMP DRIVE! (hint: the story was ON my jump drive, which has been lost for over a week and has caused me no end of headaches looking for it.)

Powerless
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Chapter 5: The Star

I'm not entirely sure how I made it to the park. But there I was, sitting morosely under a tree, my mind refusing to do anything that would be remotely helpful.

My parents knew I was a ghost.

My friends and my sister had been kidnapped by Skulker.

An impossibly powerful ghost that I couldn't beat was being forced to fight with me.

My powers were going haywire, and this new power was cropping up.

For some reason, I was slowly turning into a ghost and I couldn't control it.

Oh, and I have an appointment tomorrow with a counselor because I'm stressed for some reason.

All of those things pointed to dear old Uncle Vlad. Every single thing that had happened to me over the past three days was tinged with the feel of that obsessed fruit-loop. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to fix all of this!

I could go save my friends, but that would leave Amity Park and my family open for attack from Vlad and the tarot ghost. My friends being captured was obviously a trap or a lure to get me out of Amity Park… I couldn't just leave. But I couldn't just not rescue them.

What was I going to do? "I'm sixteen," I whispered into the air, "I shouldn't have to do this and try to figure this out on my own."

I could always go to my parents and see if they'd put off the endless questions for a few hours… No, they'd just get themselves tangled up in this and there was they wouldn't stand a chance against the gray ghost. My parents would die to protect me and it wouldn't do any good. I couldn't let that happen.

I buried my face in my hands. "It's, like, ten o'clock in the morning," I muttered darkly, "and already the day has been going on for too long."

"Could be worse," a voice said.

I looked up into the tree, blinking at two glowing, green eyes that were gazing down at me. I was so wrapped up in myself and my problems that I hadn't even noticed that I was sitting right underneath the ghost from Hell. "Morning, Ember. And thank you for making my day worse."

"How am I making your day worse?" she asked, strumming lightly on her guitar. "I just got here and I'm not doing anything. Yet. Besides, maybe I'm here to help."

I snorted in disbelief, letting my eyes close as I leaned back against the tree. I didn't trust Ember farther than I could throw her, but my head hurt and, really, if she decided to knock me unconscious for awhile it might not be an entirely horrible thing.

She continued her light strumming, humming softly. "You know about Tarot, right?"

"The card game?"

"No, the ghost. That gray girl that's been hanging around."

I opened one eye and glanced up at her. Ember hadn't moved from her perch. "That's her name?"

Ember nodded. "She's one of the Ancients, a type of ghost that is incredibly old and powerful. There're just a handful of them. She's one, Clockwork's one…"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Pariah Dark is one," she continued softly, "Damocles was one, Ramerarai was one…" She trailed off. "Do you know what they all have in common?"

I shook my head. I didn't care and really didn't want a run down of the history of the Ghost Zone.

"Three of them have destroyed the Ghost Zone at some point."

"What?" I looked up at her, actually interested in what she was saying for the first time.

She strummed for a few minutes, her soft music flooding through the air. "Ancients are incredibly powerful. They can do more damage than you can possibly imagine."

"So?"

"So… we don't want another one loose on the Ghost Zone, that's what we want." Her guitar vanished and she dropped out of the tree to look at me.

I slipped to my feet, ready to fight if Ember decided to suddenly attack. "We?"

A very predatory smile slid onto her face. "My friends and I. You've beaten an Ancient before."

"What?" I was tired of asking one-word questions, but I was too confused to do anything more. What was Ember suggesting?

She rolled her eyes. "Listen, dip-stick. We're offering you a one time alliance, right? You deal with Tarot and we'll get your friends back."

"Why should I trust you?" I glared at her, my eyes glowing. "Every time I see you, you're trying to steal my friends or my family." Besides, she was probably working for Vlad. This twist sounded like something he'd do just to make my brain explode. The smart thing to do would be to suck her into a thermos and bury it until this whole thing was over with. But for some reason, I waited for her answer.

Ember shrugged and pushed a lock of green hair out of her eyes. "It's a one time thing; don't make a big deal out of. You scratch my back I scratch yours."

I sighed, dropping back down to the ground. This was another wrinkle that I didn't want to even have to think about. True, she was offering to rescue my friends and help me out, but the fact was is that I didn't trust her. She had never done anything in the past to give me any reason to trust her. And she had too many links to Skulker and to Vlad.

In the end, her showing up and offering a really good solution was just too much of a coincidence for my tired brain to accept.

"Ember…" I looked up at her, my eyes widening as a gray fog swirled into existence in the air behind her. "Ember, move!" I acted almost instinctively, pushing her out of the way before I had fully thought through my actions.

The gray ghost – Tarot – appeared in the sky. She floated with her hands stuffed into her pockets, her feet buried deep into the freezing mist, her red eyes glinting in the morning sunlight. "The Fool," she acknowledged, bowing her head in greeting. Her eyes flickered to the spectral siren for a moment before returning to me.

I shivered under her harsh gaze, quickly changing into my ghost form. For a long moment, we just watched each other. "Ember," I whispered, "go away." That probably wasn't the nicest way to put it, but I wanted her gone. I didn't want to have to think about what she might do while I was trying to keep track of Tarot.

"Tarot," Ember breathed, not seeming to hear my command. I glanced over at her, but her eyes were wide as she stared up at the powerful ghost. Her whole body was shaking.

Tarot seemed to be tired of waiting. She waved her hand, a thick swirl of fog shooting through the air and slamming into Ember. Ember screamed in pain. "Tarot, stop!" I yelled at her, pushing off the ground and flying up into the air. I didn't trust Ember, I didn't even like Ember, but that didn't mean I wanted to see her get tortured.

The girl looked over at me, the fog vanishing. She dug through her pockets and held up a card, one I'd seen before. A knight astride a white stallion with a raised sword, charging into combat.

I was sick of all this! I couldn't take it any more. Vlad's plan was too complicated, too confusing, and too head-ache inducing for me to even try to figure it out. "Yes, yes, I'll fight you," I snapped. "Come on, then!" I spread my arms, an open request for her to attack.

"My hands," Ember whimpered behind me, cradling her hands to her chest. Tarot had frozen them with her mist. Tears streaked down Ember's pale face, her thick makeup tracing dark lines on her cheeks. "Give her Hell, Danny," she said with pain cracking her voice. "Don't worry about your friends, we'll get them back." Then, with one last whimper, Ember vanished.

It was just me and Tarot.

Power built up around the ancient ghost to the point where it hurt to even look at her. I closed my eyes, my arms still spread. Crap. What did I get myself into?

Maddie Fenton sighed and stared down at the hundreds of newspaper clippings that littered the floor. She had been looking through Danny's room for some sort of a clue that she was right with her thoughts, but hadn't found a thing. Well, she hadn't found anything but a battered and dirty Fenton Thermos – but that wasn't really a blinding bit of proof. In a flash of insight, she'd quietly searched Jazz's room and found a shoebox full of things under her bed. Hundreds of newspapers clippings from around the world that centered on Phantom.

Maddie had brought the box down into the kitchen, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and had looked at every single one. Most of the articles proclaimed the ghost a hero and many had pictures that went along with them. Each one of the blurry pictures had driven home just how much her son and Phantom looked alike.

Each one of the articles that portrayed the ghost-boy as evil or malevolent sent a wave of guilt crashing through her. Now that the shoebox was empty, she buried her face in her hands, thousands of feelings swirling chaotically inside of her.

Pride, terror, guilt, fear, happiness, wonder, betrayal, excitement, heartbreak, love, anguish, worry, joy…

All of her emotions crested on one thought that rang through her mind like a bell.

"Why didn't I know? What kind of mother am I?"

When Jack got home from his shopping trip a half-hour later, Maddie was still sobbing on the floor. "Mads?" he asked. He'd never seen Maddie this broken before. "Maddie, what's wrong?"

Tarot raised a hand, power lashing down through the sky. I ducked, my hair getting singed in the process. I dove towards the grass, hoping to get underground and get away from some of these more powerful attacks.

She moved with a suddenness that I'd never seen in a ghost before. She went from high above me to staring up at me from the ground in a split second. I was suddenly diving towards her upraised face and bloody eyes. One hand went up and a wave of gray energy flooded out of her and slammed into me. I went flying head over heals into a tree.

"Wonderful," I coughed, slipping into intangibility to extricate myself from the clinging branches. "I just had to go and pick a fight with an Ancient, didn't I?"

I hovered just above the tree tops, glancing around. Tarot hadn't moved. She was just watching me with her eerie eyes that would flip between gray and red at a moment's notice.

Control, a voice whispered in my mind. I shook my head sharply, not being able to deal with anything else right now. Tarot had my entire attention. How was I going to beat her?

Your new power. Try it again, if you think you can.

That almost killed me last time. There was no way I was going to do that again. I'm not stupid, I do learn from my mistakes.

Tarot crouched down on the ground, then leapt up towards me, her tendrils of fog snaking around the tree and flying up over her head, wrapping around me like a giant net. For an insane moment, an old nursery rhyme popped into my head about going on a bear hunt. "Can't go over it," I whispered, "can't go under it. Oh no! I'll have to go through it!" I dropped, letting gravity take control as I plummeted intangibly through the tree.

I pulled up just before I hit the ground, flying towards the gray ghost with every ounce of speed at my command. She just had time to blink in surprise as I slammed into the smaller ghost with a full-body check. We both tumbled to the ground. I was on my feet almost before I hit the ground, already racing towards anywhere but here.

She appeared in front of me, her head lowered, her glowing red eyes narrowed in surprised fury. One hand was up in a fist, gray energy boiling around her fingers and up her arm, her dreadlocks floating around her head like Medusa's snakes. Her fingers suddenly spread and a wave of power so strong it looked like a tangible wall flying in my direction.

I threw up a shield at the last moment, but the effort was futile and I knew it. I was trying to stop a tornado with a paper fan. Her attack fizzled through me, scorching my skin and sending waves of pain up every single nerve in my body.

Panting, I stumbled away from her, not even thinking to fly. I was tired, confused, and in too much pain to try and think. "Stay away from me," I moaned.

She swirled into existence just a few feet to my left, her red eyes glinting in the darkness. Use your new power. Control it. Her hand came up, another attack glowing around her clenched fist.

"No," I groaned. I couldn't survive another attack.

Use it. You can.

Another wave of gray energy rushed out of her fingers like a supernatural title wave.

I braced myself, closing my eyes and turning away.

Then I decided: what the Hell, I've got nothing to loose right now.

I reached down deep inside of me in that split-second that I had left, searching for that freezing green power that had been plaguing me for over a week. It was right there, coiled around my stomach. With the barest flicker of thought, I let it curl up around me.

Wild and uncontrolled power flared, sizzling against my skin and burning into my brain. Control! a voice shrieked in my head, barely audible over my own screams as I fought to contain this thing that I had unleashed.

Power flooded around me, digging into my veins and shrieking in my ears. My fingers curled up into fists and I dropped to the ground, screaming in pain. Suddenly, something felt like it clicked in my head. The pain vanished, the wild power disappeared, and I was left gasping for breath, my forehead pressed against the welcome cool of the ground.

For some reason, I wasn't in ghost mode anymore. I knew that deep down inside of me… but I wasn't human. I didn't feel like a ghost or a human. It was the weirdest feeling. It was like flying with your feet on the ground. Freezing during the heat of a summer day. Climbing stairs just to end up where you started.

Finally I managed to get my eyes to open. My fingers were dug into the thick grass, the remains of my gloves on my hands. The fingers had been burned away, leaving them looking something like the fingerless gloves Dash had taken a liking to.

Pushing myself to my knees, I fought back a dizzying urge to throw up what little I'd eaten for breakfast. I was back in my normal clothes… kind of. My t-shirt and jeans had turned a night black color, Sam's DP logo emblazoned on my shirt rather than its normal oval. "What…" I staggered to my feet, pressing my hands against the tree. "What happened?"

Good, the voice whispered. Tarot suddenly appeared right in front of me, her hand raised, gray eyes sparkling. Now, use that power. Fight.

Power surged around the girl's fingers before racing towards me in a flood of gray energy. I raised my arm in a futile gesture of defense, a strange icy-green mist swirling up from the ground and deflecting her blow.

She laughed out loud, twirling around in a circle, her dreadlocks and her huge jacket flying around her. Wonderful! You did it! Now, do it better.

"Better?" I breathed in surprise just before a huge wall of gray mist rolled over me and threw me painfully into the tree trunk. The world went black.

When I opened my eyes again, Tarot was still there. She grinned at me, sitting quietly on her bank of fog just above the ground, a few feet away from me. Her eyes were back to their normal, soulless gray and she was shuffling a deck of over-large cards in her hands, waiting for me to pick myself up off the ground.

"Vlad's not control of you, is he?" I groaned as I rolled over onto my back.

Her grin grew and she shook her head.

"Then why are you doing this?"

She motioned with her hand for me to come over and see what she had. The first card she dealt onto the table was of a medieval court jester, a sword slung over his shoulder and a rose in his hand. "The Fool," she said with a smile.

"Me?" I reached out to touch the card and she nodded.

The cards stand for things, but they can also stand for people, the voice in my head whispered.

"Beginning, innocence, unlimited potential," she whispered, looking up at me with a raised eyebrow. She flipped over another card, showing me the picture. A man with a cruel smile was stealing swords from some soldiers. "The Five of Swords. Self-interest, dishonor, discord."

I blinked down at the card, sudden understanding slipping into my mind. "Vlad…"

Does that answer your question?

"You're doing this… because of us? Vlad and me?" I looked at her in confusion. "Why?"

She shuffled her cards, picking another card out and smiling down at the picture of a wheel with angels and demons. "The Wheel of Fortune." Fate, destiny.

"It's fate?" I shook my head. "I don't understand."

She smiled and nodded sympathetically, reshuffling the cards and then holding them out to me, spread in a fan. Pick one.

I sighed. I couldn't really press her for more answers – she was a lot more powerful than I was and I'm not sure her answers would have actually solved my problems. I reached out and snagged a card, turning it over to look down at the picture. A glowing woman was pouring water into stream, stars gleaming overhead. "The Star," I read across the bottom.

Tarot laughed suddenly, her eyes sparkling. "Hope," she whispered. "The Star means hope."

Then, once again, she just vanished and I was alone.

About an hour later, I still hadn't moved. The clock on the big tower was proudly proclaiming that it was about eleven fifteen, but I wasn't hungry enough to try and go anyplace to eat lunch. I was waiting.

I didn't have a single thought as to what was going on anymore. The gray ghost, Tarot, was apparently following her own little agenda. Ember may or may not be rescuing my friends and I had some new power that I still didn't know if I could control.

To top it all off, my parents might be onto my secret. If they weren't yet, they would be the second I walked in the house. I was stuck in this weird half-ghost, half-human state. I couldn't get myself to go one way or the other. I couldn't be a ghost or a human.

In the end, I had nothing left to do but wait. It was Vlad's turn to make a move. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait for long.

By eleven thirty, a ghost nameless blob of a ghost was floating in front of me, its red eyes flickering nervously at me every few seconds. It handed me a small package before taking off as fast as it could go. "Thanks," I mumbled.

The small box was ringing.

I ripped it open, grabbing the offered cell phone, and flipped it open without bothering to check the caller ID. "Hiya fruit-loop."

"Daniel," the smooth voice came through the speaker, "we need to talk."

Vlad Masters grinned into the phone, setting his three hundred dollar leather shoes onto his mahogany desk. His slave, the powerful gray ghost, was sitting in the corner, blindly shuffling her tarot cards.

"No duh," the boy's voice crackled through the phone. "You built some kind of ghost controller out of the shards of Freakshow's staff, gave me some kind of virus, kidnapped my friends, attacked my town, and now you're calling with some sort of ultimatum. What do you want?"

"Nothing more than usual," Vlad said, picking at his fingernails, impressed that the boy had figured out that much on his own. "I'm actually not calling with an ultimatum. I'm calling with a choice."

"A choice?" Danny sounded skeptical.

"Exactly. You may choose one of three options, any of which I'm fine with and I really don't care which you pick." Vlad shook his head, a predatory smile on his face. "The first is that I send my slave to destroy Amity Park and kill anyone who gets in her way while you rescue your friends."

Tarot looked up at this, her red eyes glittering in the light. She had just drawn a card from her deck, one that showed people jumping out of a burning tower and falling to their deaths on the jagged rocks at the bottom. Downfalls, revelations, misfortunes. She grinned happily, shuffling the card back into her deck.

"The second," Vlad continued, "is that you save your town from ultimate destruction, but your friends will die at the hands of my servants." He chuckled softly. "And the third is that you come live with me for one month, and I'll call off my slave and send your friends home to their families."

Danny was silent on the other end of the phone. Only his harsh breathing made it possible to know that the connection hadn't been cut.

"You have to pick," Vlad murmured. "You, your friends, or your town. Which will suffer? You have one hour." He clicked the phone shut, a grin on his face.

Of course Daniel would pick for himself to suffer instead of the 'innocents' around him. That was Daniel's way, and his major weakness.

"I just need that one month," Vlad said softly, listening to the quiet sounds of the cards shuffling in the background, "and I can turn him into my slave." He picked up his Plasmius Bender and smiled down at it. "Daniel will be mine."

He reached out a pushed a small button on his desk. "Begin phase five," he said aloud. Then he whispered to himself, "Just in case." Without waiting for a reply to his command, he got up and walked out of the room.

Tarot chuckled in the empty room, the card she had just flipped over showing a coffin adorned with four swords. "Perfect."

I think I've got my chapters right now... Now I'm going to go do review replies or something...

Thanks to my wonderful reviewers of chapter four: FreakLevel27, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, southernstarshadow, dizappearingirl, Nylah, TexasDreamer01, Oats-FFCC27, Werewolf of Suburbia, KittyGrl24, Thunderstorm101, Sasia93, Kinoshita Kristanite, Lockblade, and Shining Zephyr. THANKS!

Hopefully next chapter up tomorrow night. Reviews get a preview of chapter six: The Five of Cups. Up... sometime. I'm going to quit with predictions of when. Things always go wrong when I pick a date.

-Cori