Breaking Dawn
A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Quill N. Inque
I do not own Danny Phantom.
Chapter 21: To Spring A Trap
Outside Fentonworks, 2:00 A.M.
The guys on CSI make it look so easy, a thoroughly uncomfortable and cramped Danny Fenton thought dryly to himself as he sat, cramped like a sardine, in the unassuming and unmarked van that he shared with Agent Brody and half a dozen of the old agent's "friends" from the FBI. The ghost boy's muscles ached abominably from hours of sitting in the same position, and he was actually beginning to feel somewhat claustrophobic as the long wait began to take its toll.
Danny's eyelids were beginning to grow heavy, as though they were made of lead. No matter how great his desire to take down the Society of Light may have been, the fact remained that it was still two in the morning, and Danny was only fourteen. To be awake at such an ungodly hour was almost certainly unhealthy for someone his age; already, Danny's eyes were beginning to grow shadows from lack of sleep.
The young hero glanced at Brody, seemingly undaunted and infallible in the driver's seat. The floor by which the agent sat was littered with spent coffee cups of all sizes, and Danny guessed that it was the mixture of caffeine and long experience that helped Brody keep his senses sharp so early in the day. Surely the old cop had done dozens, perhaps hundreds, of similar operations such as this, and it made sense that he would seem unfazed at being awake for nearly thirty straight hours. The entire vehicle and all its operatives were eerily silent as the empty street lay balefully silent, and Danny took a moment to distract himself from the unnatural quiet by studying the associates that had turned up in Amity earlier that day to assist him and his friends with setting the Society's trap.
They were all veterans, Danny assumed, each and every one a grizzled, stubble-faced and bulky FBI agent with at least ten years' service under his belt, their badges scratched and pitted and their firearms well-oiled. They were tough, no-nonsense and street-smart, and the men that Brody now commanded seemed to be as individually formidable as Brody himself.
All in all, Danny reflected, these were not the kind of people he would want to go up against. The Society would have a nasty surprise in store for them if they expected the cops to let them off the proverbial hook. Normally, of course, such manpower would have been deemed excessive for dealing with something as seemingly small as the Society of Light, but Brody was able to convince his superiors that the deranged religious group posed a significant threat to the public health and welfare, and in any case the venerable cop had turned out to have more than a few old friends in D.C. who didn't react kindly to the news of his abduction. Brody, one must remember, was a living legend of the FBI, and the agency didn't take kindly to one of its most esteemed operatives being treated so. Thus, Brody had used his combined influence (as well as calling in a few old favors) to have the Society labeled as nothing less than a group of domestic terrorists.
And, as we all know, the standard procedure for terrorists was simple and straightforward: respond with overwhelming force.
The ghost boy glanced at Brody, who for all intents and purposes looked to be dozing. "Why haven't they shown up by now?" Danny whispered, breaking the silence that reigned inside the vehicle and drawing the gazes of Brody's compatriots. "Are you sure they're coming?"
"I'm sure, kid," Brody grinned ferociously. "I overheard it myself, and you overheard when I played out the tape that the bug recorded, remember? Unless they knew we were listening, which I doubt, they'll come crawling out of the woodwork sooner or later. Just sit back and relax; I know it's hard, being a teenager and all, but it helps the time go by."
"I don't have any room to sit back," Danny retorted playfully. "I barely have any space to sit at all, to be perfectly honest."
"Have we heard back from Beta or Gamma Team yet?" one of the other agents asked.
Danny's ears perked up. His was not the only squad that Brody had mustered for this particular operation, far from it. Two more teams lay in wait like hungry wolves, all armed to the teeth: one at the corner of the intersection several blocks down, and one at the alley at the end of the street. Together, Danny and his allies formed a "T" shape that would box the Society in; when the trap was sprung, there would be avenue of escape open to them.
Brody pressed a button on the walkie-talkie that was plugged into the van's dashboard, and the machine squawked with static as he spoke into it. "Beta Team, this is Alpha checking on your position. What's your status? Any sign of the target? Over."
This was followed by a split second of quiet, and Brody was beginning to think something was amiss when the agent on the other end picked up. "Negative, Alpha team. We're sitting here like a bump on a pickle and there's no sign of the Society anywhere. Over."
"What of our boys in Beta? Any word from them?"
"Nothing to report there, either, I'm afraid. They checked in with us about fifteen minutes ago. Nothing on their end, either."
"Let me know the minute you see anything fishy," Brody ordered him. "And I mean anything. If the bushes so much as tremble, you call it in, understand? I'm not taking a chance on these sons-of-bitches getting away again."
"Still holding a grudge?" Danny smirked.
"Damn right I am," Brody growled back. "Just you wait, Danny. You and me are gonna kick the Society's collective ass so hard that their ancestors won't be able to lie down!"
"I wish I could say I disagreed," Danny murmured. "But if I did, I'd be lying. To be honest, I've had it with those guys. It's fine if they target me; I can defend myself, but when they target Mom or Dad or…" his voice broke for a moment, "…Or Sam, that's where I draw the line. They could have killed her. They would have, if I hadn't found her sooner."
"Well, after tonight, the Society won't be our problem or anyone else's," Brody promised. "I'm through messin' around; this time, we're bringing the battle to them!"
The venerable agent would have said more, but his words of war were interrupted when the speaker on the van's dashboard emitted a burst of static.
"Alpha leader, do you copy? This is beta team . Over."
"Go for Alpha leader," Brody replied. "What's going on?"
Danny's heart nearly skipped a beat at what he heard next.
"Possible group of hostiles headed your way, bearing five-nine-two-one-zero-zero at six o'clock! Be advised, be advised, targets may be armed and dangerous! What's our next move? Over."
"No one moves until I give the signal!" Brody shouted. "Maintain your positions! Danny, with me!"
"Got it," Danny nodded determinedly, his heartbeat speeding up a little. He'd never been on an honest-to-God police raid before.
"Get ready to move on my mark!" The agent addressed his comrades. "When they get close enough, we take them down hard!"
"It's the only way we know how, Brody," one of the other Bureau operatives replied with a feral grin.
Meanwhile…
The city street was absolutely deserted in the dead of night as a single lamp flickered erratically, casting dancing silhouettes and sparse light over the abandoned thoroughfare. A stray piece of newspaper swirled like a tumbleweed in the gentle, whispering wind that swept over the asphalt, and the entire scene was utterly silent as the city of Amity slept deeply.
One could see the long shadows of the approaching enemy long before he could see the enemy himself.
Like a swarm of locusts they came, and the scout who had reported their immediate arrival had been correct in his assumption that the rioters were armed. Indeed, the Society members were equipped with a variety of crude household implements that had been modified to serve as makeshift weapons. Pipes, clubs, axe handles and even a smattering of torches were very much in evidence, and in the ghastly pallor of the flames, the masks and hoods in which the Society was clad gave them a nightmarish appearance. In utter silence they closed in on Danny's beloved home with only the pattering of footsteps to denote their arrival, and their combined strength gave off an aura of incredible, religious fanaticism whilst hate poured off them like heat from an oven.
None of them gave a second thought to the seemingly abandoned minivan that lay parked by the curb. Inside, regardless of the blacked-out windows, Danny gasped and hunkered down as the mob passed only inches away from his face. A mere pane of glass separated him from them, and if he wanted to, Danny could have looked one of his tormentors right in the eyeball as he passed him by.
The ghost boy looked somewhat sick. "There are so many…" he mumbled.
"What are we waiting for?" one of the other cops asked. "Let us at 'em Brody!"
"When I say wait for my command, you wait for my command!" Brody snarled back. "We don't spring the trap until all the pieces are in place!"
Outside, one of the rioters, clad in the hideous visage of a mask fashioned to resemble a Western lowland gorilla, raised her torch aloft so as to halt the Society's progress. "Blessed be the Light of the Truth, for we are its children!"
"The Light will spread over the entire Earth!" a hundred voices chanted back in a uniform drone.
"The Lord will strike down the Child of Darkness and all who hold with him!"
"Death to the Son of Lucifer! Glory to the Light and the Great Crusade!"
"And with our swift and righteous strength, we will strike down the Dark One and free humanity from his evil influence!" Claudia Barousse cried, tearing off her disguise in a moment of peak religious fervor. "He will know the fury of the glorious Society, and with a great hammer-strike, we will cast him out from man and back into the abyss from whence he came!"
"AMEN!"
Barousse lifted her blazing weapon aloft, making ready to cast it into the Fentons' living room, and Danny's face contorted with anger as he saw at last the full extent of his teacher's fanaticism. His blood boiled with anger at the joyous expression on Barousse's face; the old crank actually believed, with every fiber of her being, that she was actually doing the right thing. That Barousse was even capable of justifying what she was doing in a moral sense gave no uncertain indication as to the kind of person he was.
But anger turned to nervous excitement as Danny reminded himself that this time, the advantage was his. Barousse and the others had no idea that the ghost boy they so despised had taken the home field advantage; any moment now, they would find themselves staring down the barrels of over a two dozen pieces of remorseless metal, each wielded by no fewer than thirty of the best men that the FBI could spare.
Clubs and hammers tended to fare rather poorly against a Sig Sauer semi-auto or Smith and Wesson revolver.
Danny clenched his fist as the wait seemed to drive him mad, and though only seconds had passed since the Society had besieged his domicile, those few moments seemed to last for an eternity.
Then Brody picked up his mike one last time, and the agents around Danny took the safeties off their weapons with an ominous chorus of deadly clicks. Danny's palms smoldered as spheres of searing green ectoplasm appeared in his hands, and telltale twin rings of light moved over his body as he shifted smoothly into the ghostly form that the Society hated with such conviction.
Time seemed to slow down to a snail's pace as Thomas Brody moved his lips, and he placed on hand on the vehicle's door as he slid it open just a notch.
"This Brody to all units. Go."
Then, like a general of ages past leading his troops into battle, the venerable cop hurled himself out of the van like a bat out of Hell with his weapon at the ready. In single file and with admirable speed, the minivan's occupants poured out onto the street as they kept their weapons aimed steadily at the enemy ranks. Tasers crackled in the night air as the wolves of the law streamed onto the pavement.
Several of the Society's members had the good sense to glance behind them to investigate the source of the sudden disturbance, and some lesser part of Danny roared in vengeful joy as he saw the color rapidly drain from their terrified faces. Bigoted shouts turned to cries of alarm as more of the Society's men and women realized what was going on, and from that point it wasn't long before alarm turned to outright panic seconds before the large group of hate-mongers scattered in all directions. They fled like foxes running from hounds, clawing at fences and pounding on doors in their vain attempts to get away, but despite their desperation no avenue of escape presented itself to them.
To the left, their way was blocked by the dead end of the cul-de-sac.
To the right, the avenue to freedom was cut off by the wailing squad cars whose brakes screeched on the pavement as they formed a barricade against the routed foe.
With Brody closing in and their backs to the proverbial wall, the Society of Light went absolutely berserk. Some tried to stand in fight whilst other ran, sobbing with terror, and a greasy man in a stained T-shirt threw himself at Danny with a wrench clutched in his meaty fingers.
Danny glanced at the Agent in silent inquiry, and a nod from Brody was all he needed to knock his attacker out cold with a blast of ghostly energy.
The Agent rolled the unconscious man over with his foot, and he cuffed the fat fellow's wrists with grim satisfaction as gunshots began to split the night air.
"Relax, kid," Brody nodded at Danny's horrified expression at the sudden discharge of firearms. "Rubber bullets. They won't kill anyone, but they will sting like the dickens."
Danny smoothly side-stepped a pipe-wielding hooligan and landed a punishing blow in the small of his back. "Just making sure," he said, rounding on yet a third attacker and cracking the man's jaw with an uppercut that rattled the fillings in his teeth. A gold filling clattered on the ground as that fellow dropped like a sack of potatoes, and Danny promptly seized the fallen pipe and, holding it over his head, used it to deflect a downward swipe with a rather large cleaver. The ghost boy turned the man's weapon aside with a turn of the wrist, and without sparing a moment he darted inside his enemy's guard and broke his nose with the point of his elbow. Blood gushed down the attacker's face as he instinctively clutched his ruined olfactory sensor, and he turned to run just seconds before Brody tackled him like an NFL quarterback and slapped a pair of cuffs on his hands.
The other Society folk, seeing Danny, automatically began converging toward the ghost boy in a last, desperate attempt to succeed in their "mission." Wielding sticks and plumbing implements, they charged headlong at Danny as their fanaticism took hold. Though many fell on the way to tasers or false ammunition, several managed to get within range of the ghost boy and promptly attacked as one.
Danny's fist made a resounding SMACK as it collided with the side of a woman's spitting face, and he followed this up with a nauseating blow to the lady's midsection as the breath left her body in a massive whoosh. She crumpled, gasping, her features contorted with pain, and Danny promptly seized the wooden shaft she dropped to bring it down on the cranium of one of her compatriots. The fellow's eyes rolled up into his head as he let out a gasping whine, and Danny, without even breaking his pace, half-stepped to the side to avoid being skewered on a butcher knife before backhanding the weapon's wielder on the back of the neck. The cutting implement clattered to the asphalt seconds before its owner joined it, and Danny used the distraction to send another Society bigot flying through the air with an ecto-blast to the chest. The man's momentum shattered a nearby shop window before he collided with several shelves, and there was a great crash as the aisles broke his fall. Danny did not even pause to acknowledge this; with speed so great that it made the air hiss, he surged forward like a striking snake and struck together the skulls of two more enemies. The cranial bones made a sound reminiscent of coconuts colliding as the Society of Light began to fall, and Danny promptly turned around on his heel and backhanded yet another enemy right across the chops. His knuckles became skinned and bloody from strikes against bone even as Danny's foot collided painfully with the side of an attacker's rib cage, and Danny lifted the screeching racist bodily before hurling him like a wrecking ball into a cluster of his own comrades. The Society members went down in a crashing jumble of arms, limbs, and startled cries, and Danny leapt to avoid a stiletto thrust before landing a punishing side-kick on his attacker's cheek. The man stumbled as he went past, grabbing at his rapidly swelling face, and after blasting another into a nearby wall, the young hero turned bravely to face the newest threat-
-Only to be halted in his tracks by the sight of Claudia Barousse herself advancing upon him, her eyes glittering with malice and a torch clutched in her bony fist. "Burn, Satan-spawn, burn!" she screeched, lunging toward him like a deranged raptor as she swung the flames like a lethal club.
Danny, taken by surprise, jumped back as the searing heat passed by the spot where his face had been a split second before, and he rolled to escape a plunging stab, firing ecto-beams as he went.
Barousse gasped in dismay as one of the shots blasted the torch right out of her hands, and the blazing weapon spun through the air before landing harmlessly in a nearby birdbath with a resounding hiss. With nothing more than her long, polished fingernails, Barousse let out a piercing shriek and threw herself at Danny's smirking face with wild abandon. Her hands sought to throttle the life out of Danny as they shot toward his throat, and her eyes widened with what might be called insanity.
Danny was undeterred. Fighting a sixty-year-old woman was much easier than fighting Undergrowth or any one of a dozen of his most erstwhile foes. Danny waited until the very last second, and just before Barousse's elongated nails gouged out his right eye, he twisted to the left and landed a brutal knife-hand strike on the nape of his former teacher's neck.
Barousse's charge turned into a halting stagger, and she wobbled a few steps before collapsing with an agonized groan.
The Society was beaten, and this fact was not lost upon Brody as he brought a bullhorn to his mouth and switched it on. "THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!" his amplified voice boomed. "WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED! IF YOU ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE OR RESIST ANY FURTHER, WE WILL USE LETHAL FORCE!"
The sudden and unexpected interruption of Brody's announcement brought the chaos to an abrupt and screeching halt. Men and women paused in the middle of tangling with the agents of the Bureau, and Brody's gaze never wavered as he stared down the long barrel of his scratched and pitted firearm.
The silence was paradoxically deafening and seemed to stretch on forever, but then the unnatural quiet was halted as a skinny, pudgy-faced fellow released his grip on the knife he held and sent it falling loudly to the asphalt.
The discarded weapon was soon joined by dozens more as wooden and metal implements clattered and clanked cacophonously as they were dropped from nerveless, shaking fingers. One person at a time, the Society of Light's resistance melted away like butter in the microwave, and more than one of the beaten racists shot Danny looks of utmost loathing as Brody signaled his men to begin mopping up. The still night air rang with the ratchet of handcuffs as the outnumbered agents rounded up the beaten Society into small groups, and these were collectively read their rights before they were cuffed hand-to-hand like links in a chain.
As suddenly as it had started, the fight was over.
And yet, the relative peace that had been restored to Danny's neighborhood was shattered one final time as no fewer than four of Brody's men struggled mightily to force a positively rabid Claudia Barousse into the back of a patrol car. Her tightly bound hair was now frenziedly askew as she fought tooth and nail against the agents, and spittle sprayed from her lips as she threw every ounce of her strength into her bid of escape.
"YOU CAN'T STOP THE LIGHT'S JUSTICE!" Barousse screamed shrilly at the top of her lungs. "IT'S THE ONLY WAY WE'LL EVER BE SAFE! WE ARE THE SOLDIERS OF THE TRUTH, AND WE'LL DESTROY DANNY PHANTOM YET! I'LL GET OUT, FENTON, AND WHEN I DO, YOU WILL KNOW THE WRATH OF THE SOCIETY! I WON'T REST UNTIL I HAVE FULFILLED OUR GLORIOUS MISSION-Mmmmph!"
Barousse's tirade was cut off as Brody removed a hankerchief from his pocket and forced it into Barousse's mouth. "Oh, for Pete's sake, shut the hell up," he said tiredly. "You'll have the whole neighborhood awake, carrying on like that, and then I'll have to add disturbing the peace to your list of charges."
Danny, looking very much unharmed despite the brawl he'd been fighting only moments earlier, took a moment to wave at his teacher as he turned intangible and stuck his head through the window. "I wonder if prison food is as bad as they say it is," he snickered. "Even the lunch ladies' cooking will probably look good compared to that."
Barousse tried to yell a reply, but the rag betwixt her lips turned her protests into unintelligible mumbles.
"Normally, I'd tell you not to enjoy this so much," Brody shrugged as the last of the prisoners were carted away. "But after the hell these people put you through, Danny, I think I'll make an exception."
"Uh…thanks," Danny replied uncertainly.
"No problem, kid," Brody yawned as he surveyed the riot site. "I don't think either of us need to linger here for very much longer. You're dead on your feet and the late hour is starting to catch up to me. You go on and get some shuteye; I'll be in shortly."
"No need to tell me twice," Danny agreed ruefully, checking his watch with a grimace. "I can barely keep my eyes open."
"Folks your age aren't built for late-night work," Brody grunted in reply. "It ain't healthy, and I speak from experience."
"At least I can sleep knowing that those guys won't be there when I get to school," Danny muttered, reflecting on just how thoroughly he and his ally had crushed almost two-thirds of the Society's membership. The cost to the hateful organization had been steep indeed; with any luck, Danny thought hopefully, the rest of them would be too scared to come crawling out of the woodwork when news of what happened here reached them.
Disdaining the front door, Danny merely walked through it and headed upstairs to his room, utterly exhausted but exhilarated from the entire experience. A sleepy smile spread across his face as he flopped onto the pillows without even changing into his pajamas, and for the first time since returning home, Danny slept a deep, dreamless sleep of enormous relief.
It's a pity that such relief turned out to be premature.
A/N: Well, THAT bodes ill for Danny, doesn't it? XD And it looks like the Society FINALLY got what was coming to them, especially that cow Barousse! But what vile plans does Skryme have up his sleeve? Will he be caught or get away clean? Find out in coming chapters! And PLEASE REVIEW! If you have ANY ideas or suggestions, LET ME KNOW!
I know you all have been waiting for this moment for a long time, and I sincerely hope that you found this chapter to live up to all its hype…*is nervous*
Your humble servant,
-Quill N. Inque