GLE – hello all! Here's another update! It's a quite a bit shorter than the last chapter, but it is the perfect length for what I have planned. I don't really have much else to say, so, enjoy!

-(o)-

Do Superheroes Exist?

Chapter 8: To Save Danny

It was late afternoon and the sun's rays set a haze of heat over the large crowd. Many people who had arrived that morning to protest were getting quite tired, but no one would let up their side of the argument. By now, the protesters had narrowed their views down to three groups; the two main groups were the "Free Phantom Campaign" and the "No More Ghosts Movement", while the third group was rather small and sat as a medium between both extremes whose aim in the protest was to save the human side of Danny, but not the ghost side.

Dash and Paulina, with their popularity and charisma at hand, led the Free Phantom Campaign. All of the cheerleaders and football players from Casper High came to their aid, as well as many other students, and a few teachers, among them, Mr. Lancer and Ms. Tetslaff. The No More Ghosts Movement was of course led by Mrs. Manson, with her husband by her side. A predominant member of Amity Park, Mayer Montez seemed to be siding with their cause. It also appeared that Mr. and Mrs. Foley had been roped in by the Mansons in the bid to rid Amity Park of Danny Phantom, though they were leaning towards the third and quietest group, wanting the best for their son including his happiness.

The police had arrived some time ago to try to keep the peace between protesters, though they were unable to stop a couple of brawls before noses were broken and a little blood was shed. They now stood on the perimeters of the crowd.

The chanting from earlier was continuing. For the No More Ghosts Movement, their main chant was: "Down With Danny! No More Ghosts!". The Free Phantom Campaign adopted the cheer: "Free the ghost we love the most!". There were some breaks, where the cheering would quiet down and the crowd would just buzz with conversation, but inevitably someone would start up one of their cheers again, and the other side would try to outdo them, and everything would get loud once more as people shouted themselves hoarse.

"Free the ghost we love the most!" yelled Mr. Lancer.

"You tell 'em, Lancer!" encouraged Dash.

"I'm surprised at you, Mr. Lancer!" said Pam Manson, approaching the invisible border between the two groups of protesters. "An important educator like you should know better than anyone how dangerous it is to have Danny Phantom around other children!"

"Y-yes," said Lancer uneasily, his face reddening a little. He hated being put on the spot like this.

"Danny has been nothing but trouble ever since he became a ghost!" continued the angry woman. "I'm sure you've noticed his terrible behaviour! And the risks he takes while dragging my daughter around! Putting her into jeopardy all the time! You and I both know that he needs to be locked up for good!"

"Now wait just a minute here!" said Mr. Lancer, finding his voice. "It's true that Mr. Fenton has been skipping out on classes, handing in half-finished homework, coming in late, and sleeping through tests and lectures. His marks and attendance are terrible! But he's a good student when he tries, and he's got an excellent set of morals! There's not a bone in my body that would wish to see the boy locked up! He's protected my students from harm-seeking ghosts many times, and he's saved me on several occasions," stated Mr. Lancer. "And might I add that your daughter's attitude has nothing to do with who her friends are – she's an independent, outspoken, and creative young lady that I think any parent would be proud of."

Silence followed Lancer's outburst, only interrupted when a couple of police officers came to mediate the argument.

"What seems to be the trouble here?" asked the tall one.

After a moment, Pam Manson answered, "No trouble, Officer," and she promptly left, heading towards the center of the No More Ghosts Movement, her husband in tow.

But before she could disappear into the crowd, a shriek sounded from the edge, and it soon spread into the large-scale panic of everyone in the vicinity. The police were at a loss as ghosts had swarmed the throng outside City Hall and were terrorizing the people. The protesters broke up and started scrambling away from the area as fast as they could. The news crews that were still around grabbed their equipment in a rush and commenced broadcasting the situation despite their own personal wellbeing.

Technus floated next to the Ghost Portal door in FentonWorks, having successfully infiltrated the system the Guys in White had left there as a means of catching Danny, and having turned it off.

"Go, go!" he shouted to the ghosts that were speeding through the portal. "You are free! Thanks to my ingenuity we can all have a lot of fun now! The ghost child isn't around! Enjoy your shopping!"

Maddie and Jack, eyes drooping in boredom from their endless wait in City Hall, heard the unmistakable screams of people being attacked by ghosts and jumped into action at once. They joined the uproar outside and assessed the situation.

"The ghosts are taking over the city! We've got to do something, Jack!" cried Maddie.

"You're right, Maddie! Let's go kick some ectoplasmic butt!"

With their weapons confiscated, Maddie and Jack had only one resource each left to them – their jumpsuits. Diving into the throng, they began their acrobatic routine, firing at the ghosts nearest them. But with their limited arsenal, they barely made a dent in the large contingent of ghosts that had arrived in their beautiful city. It looked like the beginning of a losing battle on their part.

Damon sat on his couch, watching the six o'clock news. Ghosts had attacked the downtown core of Amity Park, and had now spread out to the rest of the city. There hadn't been any ghosts in his area though, and if any had come into his apartment to attack him, he was glad of the White-Ceiver on his fridge that he'd obtained from the Guys in White. It supposedly would provide him with a shield, should an ectoblast be fired at him.

But he wasn't much concerned with his own safety. He was worried about his daughter, even though he knew she had handled herself against a fair number of ghosts before today and could probably take them on, if attacked. Tucker's house was close to the high school, and ghosts were likely to be lurking in that neighbourhood. But Tucker was also a friend to the famed ghost boy, and he had perhaps trained himself against ghosts as well. Damon attempted to call the residence, but no one answered. Maybe they'd already left for the poetry reading? But where were Mr. and Mrs. Foley?

Sitting around wasn't doing him any good, so he stood up to stretch. And to get his mind off of things, he decided to have a shower. The warm water always succeeded in relaxing his nerves.

A few hours later, he got ready for the graveyard shift at work. Dusk had fallen quite some time ago as he stepped out into the night air and made a beeline for his car.

Vlad sat in a high-backed chair next to a fireplace, a teacup in one hand, a saucer in the other. He stared at the flames that were dancing about, casting shadows around his room. There'd been a lot to think about in the past week and he hadn't yet decided what he was going to do about it. How did Daniel's predicament affect him? Ultimately, that was the question beneath it all. That and, 'How could he use this situation to benefit himself?' This second question was the question that existed in every action that he took.

Vlad lifted his drink to his lips and downed the rest of the tea in one shot. He'd found his answers.

Five shadowed figures crept silently towards the perimeter of the complex. They moved as a unit from bush to bush and tree to tree, thankful that it was a mostly cloudy night with darkness upon black to cover them. Jazz had parked the car on the other side of the small forest and the team had stumbled their way through the woods to arrive here. Three yards ahead of them, the last bush sat solitarily, and five yards beyond that stood the fence.

They could see into the yard of the base. Most of it was empty, but as they waited, a guard appeared briefly on his rounds, disappearing again around another corner. Now was their chance!

They approached the wired fence quickly, covered by Danielle's invisibility. Sam and Jazz stood behind her, each with one hand on her shoulder or back. The halfa had placed her left hand on Valerie's back and her right hand on Tucker's. Valerie held two small weapons. Tucker was armed with his PDA.

The operation began with Tucker. He was doing some fast typing on his baby, calculating the energy levels of the ghost shield on the fence. Once he had them confirmed, he flashed the screen of his PDA in Val's direction. Valerie double-checked her ectoguns to verify that they were at the proper setting. Nodding to the others she began a careful procedure. She fired the gun in her left hand and a low beam emitted from it that hit the shield and cancelled it out. Then she aimed the gun in her right hand at a point that was far enough from the first to allow space for a person to pass through. The two guns were still close enough to one another that when the beam from the second gun hit the shield the canceling effect formed a circle between them. Dani turned the entire group intangible and they each squeezed through the opening one at a time in a line, passing the guns to one another as they made their way through until Jazz was holding them both behind herself.

The firing from the ectoguns was stopped and the guns were quickly put away. They hurried to the wall of the complex. Jazz's original plan for this phase of the operation had been complicated, but once she'd devised the way to get through the outer fence, she decided it was also the best method to get into the building. And so, they repeated the processes and broke into the base.

They quietly made their way down the halls. Dani continued to use invisibility on the entire group, while Jazz led the way with hand and body gestures to indicate the direction. Jazz had gone over the plans in her mind so many times, especially during the long drive here. She aimed to execute them perfectly. Danny's cell was at the north-west end of the complex. Since they'd entered in the east, there was a lot of ground to cover until they reached him. They passed by labs and offices and other such rooms, only pausing when they arrived in a corridor that appeared to have been hit by a tornado – or an explosion, at the very least. They had to tread cautiously over the rubble and a draft of air brought their attention to the outer wall of the complex. They could see it through the broken windows and the two-storey lab – most of it had been blown out and the lawn was clearly visible from where they stood.

What happened here? wondered Sam anxiously. Was Danny involved? Is he ok?

Prompted from her thoughts as the group began forwards again, she maneuvered carefully over the rest of the debris with the others, glancing back several times. It was then that she noticed a basketball-sized hole in the wall across from the demolished lab. There was something familiar about the web-like shape beyond it. She nudged Tucker who passed the nudge along and the team stopped once more. Jazz argued silently that they needed to continue forward, but Sam insisted with big hand gestures that there was something in the room behind the wall with the hole in it and she thought it was important. Exasperatedly, Jazz gave in and they walked to the wall. Dani peeped in and whispered almost inaudibly to the others what she saw.

"There's a lot of stuff," she said. "It's like a storage… hey! That one has the Fenton symbol on it!"

Her words were enough to pique Jazz's interest and so the whole group phased into the room. The emergency lights cast a glow around them, probably having turned on due to whatever had caused the devastation of the lab. They were surrounded by all of the Fenton gear that had been confiscated by the Guys in White. Sam immediately recognized the Ghost Catcher that had caught her attention from outside the room.

Tucker pulled out his PDA and used it to check the camera on the ceiling.

"Good," he whispered to the others. "The camera's power is out – its wires probably got caught up in whatever it was that happened across the hall."

"Thanks, Tuck," said Sam. "So can we grab some of this stuff, Jazz? It does belong to your family, after all, and we might be able to use some of it when we're with Danny – give ourselves an advantage."

"Yes," replied Jazz. "That's a good idea… Plus, I'm quite happy to see it returned to us. Don't weigh yourselves down with anything, though. Just grab necessities."

A few ectoguns, a couple of belts and a couple of thermoses, the Jack o' Nine Tails, and the Fenton Bazooka comprised their loot. Most of it was stashed in the backpacks they were carrying, except for three ectoguns that each Sam, Tucker, and Jazz placed on themselves.

"Ok, let's go," ordered Jazz. "We shouldn't spend longer than we need to in this building. Let's get Danny."

A few corridors later, they arrived at the metallic door behind which Danny slept. Tucker was ready with his PDA to enter the high security code on the lock and Sam pulled a mini-heater from her backpack. Grab Danny and toss the heater inside, she rehearsed in her head. Dani will power it with an ectoblast as Danny crosses the threshold of his room. We'll fool the thermal sensors into believing he's still inside. Tucker will unlock the collar on Danny's neck with the code he hacked from the Guys in White before we shut the door, so they won't be able to track him. Then we get as far away as possible. She closed her fist tightly. We can do this. We're getting you out of here, Danny.

Just then, her ears detected a sound from down the hall. Someone was whistling and coming closer.

"Hurry, Tucker," she whispered urgently.

"Almost there," he said. "And… done!"

The light on the keypad changed from red to green and the locks clicked open. Jazz reached out and pulled the door towards her. This is it! she thought. We're here Danny!

With the door wide open, shock stunned the team. Jazz felt as though a big weight had just hit her hard and she stopped breathing for a moment.

"He's not here," stated Dani after a few seconds, and hearing the footsteps and the whistling getting louder she urged, "We've gotta get away from here."

They shut the door and it clicked to lock itself. Before they could even turn around, the alarm suddenly sounded. The lights along the hall blinked, the ringing echoed off the walls, and the keypad was flashing red: "XTHRM PTRN". Everyone flinched and scrambled to leave. Dani tripped and fell, losing contact with the others.

The whistler appeared at the end of their hall and spotted the four visible teens. Two guards were rushing towards them from the other side and more backup was on the way. The four high-schoolers pulled out their weapons while the fifth member of their team, still invisible, stood and prepared her fists. There was shouting and soon the blasts of a battle would begin, but in an instant, Sam's stance changed. She pulled the Fenton Bazooka from her backpack and fired it once, hitting her target perfectly.

Dani's feelings of betrayal were evident, even though Sam was unable to see her, as the mini-portal began to suck her into the Ghost Zone.

"Catch," said Sam, tossing to the younger girl the weapon she'd just used on her, and seeing it satisfactorily become invisible. "You need to get away from here before they know about you."

Dani's presence vanished completely, but Sam was sure the halfa understood why she'd fired at her.

"Good thinking," said Jazz.

"Good aim," said Valerie.

"Thanks," answered Sam, astonished by Val's compliment.

"Let's kick some butt and get outta here," Valerie added.

Sam smiled, despite herself, turning swiftly to face the oncoming operatives of the Guys in White.

"Hold it right there!" yelled the whistler to them. "Drop your weapons and put your hands up! We've got you trapped."

Valerie replied by dropping a smoke bomb that covered the area. The team followed her lead and slipped past the guards, heading back in the direction that they'd come from. Valerie noted with some gratification that the distraction had worked, and she was glad that she'd added it to her arsenal. But the smoke cleared quickly enough and the Guys in White began their pursuit.

Team Phantom had arrived at the beginning of the corridor with the destroyed lab. But their advancement ended there. The backup had arrived, blocking them off from the rest of the hall, lab included.

The teens reversed themselves and ducked back around the corner, using the wall as a shield. Gunfire opened, the Guys in White were aiming to stun them. They returned the fire.

"Uh, guys…" stated Tucker uneasily.

Sam whipped her head around to see the approaching men who were drawing their weapons. She shot at them once to get them to back off a little bit. Valerie joined her, pulling out her hoverboard to act as a shield. Tucker and Jazz concentrated on the men up ahead, in the hall with the devastated lab. The four teens were crouched against the corner, back to back with one another as the battle raged on.

"We're at a stalemate," said Jazz. "But it isn't going to last long. They'll have an advantage if more people arrive, and we can't hold out forever. If we can get to that lab, we can get into the yard. We'll have to blast at the fence to get it down. It's going to be tricky. And I don't even want to think about what we should do after that… they've definitely got us on camera by now."

"It'll be alright, Jazz," said Sam in what she wished was a reassuring voice. "We'll be fine if we get out of here. I just… I just hope that Danny is ok."

The fight continued as the group lapsed into silence. Everything had gone so well, until they'd discovered that Danny was missing from his room. Where could he be at this time of night? What did the Guys in White do to him? Was it possible that he'd escaped on his own? With little time to think, the subject of Danny was dropped from their heads as the teens rushed ideas through their minds about how they were going to get out of this situation.

"What did we grab from the storage room again?" asked Tucker. "The Jack o' Nine Tails was in there, right? Who has it now?"

"I do," Jazz replied.

"Alright, I'll back you up," Tucker said. "Sam and Val, keep firing until we're ready."

Tucker stepped closer to the corner, flattening himself against the wall. Glancing into the hall beyond them, he shot six successive rounds as Jazz dove out below his fire. She ran towards the men who were ducking behind their shields, and when Tucker's firing stopped and they popped up their heads to aim and return the fire once more, Jazz attacked. The Jack o' Nine Tails went flying, catching the three men in front and binding them together. In the confusion of tangled wires, the struggling opposition lost all concentration on the battle, dragging their co-workers into the mess.

"Now!" called Jazz to the others. Tucker and Sam bounded forwards as Valerie remained to provide backup fire. As she did so, she hastily typed instructions to her hoverboard. The hoverboard started floating of its own accord and began firing at the group of men gathered behind them, advancing slowly towards them. Valerie hurried to follow the others.

They rushed through the rubble in the hall, and over a half-wall into the deserted lab. It was surprisingly easier than they expected to get through the disaster area and soon enough they'd made it onto the grounds that surrounded the building. Breathing heavily as they ran back towards the east end, the crisp night air filled their lungs. Their eyes were open for any possible weak point in the outer fence that they could use to break through; otherwise, they'd just have to hope they were successful at getting through it rapidly once they made it back to their starting point.

But they never got near enough to the fence to try. A small army of about twenty guards had come out to greet them and floodlights soon caught them like deer in headlights. Turning on the spot, they realized they were completely surrounded. In defeat, they dropped their weapons and raised their hands, palms open.

-(o)-

GLE – I've already written part of the next chapter, so it should be finished relatively soon. Then we'll just have to hope that I finish the last two chapters before the end of the month, otherwise we'll be looking at another year-long hiatus.

I've now graduated! And I'm back home for a month, visiting family and friends! I've also had some time to myself, so in comes the writing of this fic. Anyways, as you all know, I love reviews, so feel free to send a comment my way!