I got stuck on 'Shadows Are Supposed to Stay Sleeping' again and I have so many awesome plans for this that I just had to keep going!

Three: Consequences

It wasn't right. It didn't feel right, it didn't look right, it just wasn't morally right. None of it was. It had happened once before but that was on a completely different and idiotic scale; personalities ripped apart rather than beings. But now…now it was strange. There was a weird buzzing in his head that hadn't gone away for the past couple of hours though it had dwindled away slowly. It was dull here, and boring, and it wrecked havoc on his consciousness. It wasn't supposed to be this way!

"I can't believe your trusting me, of all people, to do this…!"

"You're the only one who'd have a chance."

"I could kill you right now and get it over with."

"You could…but you won't."

"Darn you. How do know he's not just going to start blasting me, huh? I'd say he's more than inclined to! He hates me!"

"Not with the peril he's about to go through. He'll see the light, trust me."

"Trust you…ha!"

"They'll both die if you don't help."

"Like I care…!"

"Alright then, I suppose, since you don't want to help…"

"No! No…I…I hate your guts. I'd blast you away now if there weren't so many things on the line…!"

"On the line for you or for him?"

"For both of us, darn it! I mean, all three of us! Or whatever! It doesn't matter!"

"Your tune changes awfully quickly."

"Heh, if you'd spent almost three years in that dratted, cursed piece of junk with nothing to do but think about the crap you've done and been through you're tune'd be changed too."

"Hmmm…I'm prone to believe you however I still don't trust you. We act a week from now."

"T-what!? A whole week!? They could destroy him by then!"

"He'll live."

A feral snarl of disobedient rage.

Danny wandered the streets, towing Sam and Tucker along behind him. It was the weekend after he'd gotten back from the Observers and everyone was shocked by the sudden change in the boy's attitude. When asked, he merely replied that life had taken a turn for the better and walked off grinning.

Not that Sam and Tucker weren't glad to have the old Danny back it was just that sometimes, when they knew he thought they weren't looking, he'd stare off into space with a blank look on his features, remembering…something. Sam thought that perhaps, however much he acted like he didn't, Danny really wanted his ghost powers back.

"You know, the arcade's open, we could hang out there!" The Fenton boy said cheerfully, hands in his pockets, stopping at a cross-walk where the cars were zipping through the green light, "What do you-DUCK!"

He grabbed Sam and Tucker and dove to the ground just as a missile spun over their heads and exploded in the traffic light, creating a perfect chaos. Coughing from the smoke, the trio pushed themselves to their feet.

"Hello whelp…!" Skulker leered through the thick plumes of dark gray, pointing a gun right at Danny's temple, "I'll have your hide this time!"

"Back off!" Danny whipped a tiny ecto-gun out of his pocket and fired a powerful blast from the dinky thing, blasting the 'Greatest Hunter' backwards through the air, before turning to his friends, "Run! Now! I'm right behind you, I swear!"

Tucker ran and Sam took off after him but, glancing over her shoulder, she found that Danny was not following. She started to run back to him when one of Skulker's missiles exploded into the concrete, sending dangerous slabs of cement into the air, and she had to back off again. It was impossible to see through all the debris and smoke that was everywhere.

Danny, meanwhile, was dodging as best he could. Without his ghost powers he was nothing more than the klutzy fifteen year old he had always been and it was proving to be his end. He'd already tripped and ripped his jeans open, sporting a bloody gash on his knee, and one of the smaller flying pieces of rubble had knocked him on his cheek, making his head spin as he fell. He spat out blood as he pushed himself upright, putting a hand against the stinging cut. That had sent the ecto-gun he'd been using to fight back into the air and now he had no hope of finding it. It was only a matter of time now…

"Well, Ghost Boy, why don't you transform!?" Skulker was obviously angry that, while he had this beautifully opportune moment to 'take Danny's hide', he was not getting as much fight out of his prey as he would have liked, "Is this some new trick!?"

"Not a trick, Skulker…" Danny snapped, standing unsteadily on his feet, "I'm just…not a halfa anymore…"

Skulker lapsed into a thoughtful and rather angry silence as he studied Danny with narrowed, robotic eyes. This gave Danny a chance to franticly search for the tiny ecto-gun he'd lost. It was nowhere to be found and 'The Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter' was not about to let him look for it.

"Then I think I'll just kill you." The ghost rumbled, cocking one of his laser guns and pointing it straight at Danny's heart, "You have wasted my time, unworthy prey."

"Wh-what!?" There was no witty banter in the world that could combat that statement, "Skulker, hold on! I'm not interesting anymore, sure, but you don't have to kill me!"

"Silence, foul human child! You have wasted too much of the Greatest Hunter's time!"

"Stop repeating yourself!"

"Stop backing away, filth!"

"Like living brimstone I will!" Danny leaped backwards at the same moment that Skulker fired his weapon. The blast hit Danny in the chest, ripped a nice sized hole in his shirt, sprayed blood everywhere, and sent the boy flying right towards a dangerously sharp looking pile of shrapnel that had been a car at one point.

"TIME OUT!"

Everything froze.

I wonder who that could be…? Care to venture some guess? Just leave them in the reviews if you want to take a stab at who some people are. XD