Don't kill me for the ending... please? I know most of you wanted something happy...

Thanks to Phantasmatis Rubramentum, Super-Berry, Amazing Bluie, Rahne-Aamar, TanithLipsky, YumeTakato, Flashx11, Appropriate Exclamation, 91Silver, Rachpop15, Random Flying, Angelus-alvus, Completely Different, dragondancer123, Underwater Fire Phoenix, prophetofgreed, Nano Phantom, irezel, SkyBunny, DBack47, starr1095, Invader Johnny, stick fight3, and Garnet Sky!

I'm Still Here
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Chapter Twelve

Danny landed on the ground, panting, gazing into the crater his evil, alternate self had created. "Had enough?" he said. He stood up straight, struggling to keep his legs from shaking. He'd used too much energy too quickly – he'd have to be more careful.

"Ice powers," Dark Dan Phantom growled, shaking a layer of ice off his back and getting back to his feet. "How quaint." The ghost picked a piece of ice off his arm. "Seems like a powerful thing for such a weak half-ghost to do. I doubt you'd be able to do that again."

Danny glared at the bright red eyes of the ghost that had killed his clone. He brought his arms up, blue flaring in his eyes and cold energy cascading down his arms. "I can do this all night," he snapped, sending a bolt of freezing power towards Dark Phantom with the intent of turning him into an iceberg.

It didn't take more than an instant for Danny to realize he'd done just the wrong thing. The ghost smirked, somehow catching the blue energy and deflecting it towards a half-burned car, and then shot towards Danny. Danny raised his hands, struggling to put together another attack, but Dark Phantom was just there.

Claws racked down Danny's raised arm, drawing a scream of pain. The huge rips in his arm burned like fire, bloody ectoplasm pouring to the ground, his eyes flooding with involuntary tears of pain. Danny backpedaled, holding his bloody arm close. His other arm came up, a spark of a shield forming to push the ghost away.

He was too late. Dark Phantom ducked under the forming shield, his green-covered claws slicing across Danny's chest. Danny flinched, shut his eyes, sent an unconscious blast of energy towards the thing hurting him and, finally, connected with something. The ghost was shoved backwards and out of reach.

"What a pathetic thing," the ghost laughed, twisting his voice into a mockery of Danny's father. "Lesson number one in ghost hunting: a big attack means the ghost is vulnerable for a second afterwards."

Danny pried his eyes open and glared at the dark shadow of himself. "Don't," he hissed, his teeth clenched in pain.

"Don't what?" the ghost snorted, a smile dancing on his face. "Don't stop?"

Danny growled under his breath, his eyes glowing brilliantly green, anger bubbling in his mind and causing his fingers to curl into fists.

"Too weak to save your family and your friends all those years ago," Dark Phantom says softly, his eyes glittering with delight. "And too helpless to protect what's left now."

With a snarl of fury, Danny launched himself towards the ghost, energy fizzling around him. Dark Phantom sidestepped the attack, a fist coming down to slam into Danny's back. Danny's breath flooded out of his lungs in a wheeze and sent him tumbling to the ground. The cuts on his chest and arm burned when they hit the dirt and the power he'd collected vanished as he struggled to get a breath of air.

"You want to know who trapped you in that Thermos?" the ghost said softly, his breath tickling Danny's ear.

Danny finally pulled some air into his lungs and pushed himself to his hands and feet, his mind intent on destroying this demented version of himself. A cold foot slammed into his back and pinned him to the ground, Danny hissing in pain.

"The Box Ghost," Dark Phantom continued like nothing had happened, his voice filled with glee. "Can you imagine – the Box Ghost is the one who ruined your life. Of all the powerful enemies you made, that pathetic excuse for ectoplasm is the one who got the better of you for seventy years."

Energy flared around Danny, desperately searching for a way past the ghost's defenses, but nothing worked. Each blast of power was met by one from Dark Phantom, leaving Danny panting and feeling weaker than ever.

"I know a secret," the ghost whispered. "You promise not to live long enough to tell anyone?" The ghost laughed loudly before his voice dropped back to a whisper. "That pathetic ghost was going to let you go. If the reformatting wouldn't have happened, you would have been freed to see your parents, your friends, before they were old and wrinkled and dead. So you realize who's really to blame for you being so alone: your own kind. Those idiot Guys in White."

Danny twisted his head to glare up at Dark Phantom, green eyes meeting red. "I don't care," Danny muttered.

The pressure on Danny's spine lifted, the ghost removing his foot to back away and tip his head in confusion. "What?"

"I don't care." Danny grunted with effort as he got to his feet, swaying slightly, his head spinning from the blood he'd lost. He held his mutilated arm close to his chest, spread his feet to give him balance, and poured all his anger and loneliness and desperation into the energy that was cascading around his hand. "It's the one thing I've learned about time: the past is the past and you can't change it. So I really don't care."

The blast of emerald power sliced through the air, Danny's legs feeling like limp spaghetti for a few heartbeats at the sudden energy drain. Dark Phantom didn't duck in time; the energy slammed right into his face. Danny watched in vindictive pleasure as the ghost collapsed to the ground for a second, his body steaming.

"But I do," the ghost snarled as he slowly rose into the air. "I do care. The past is what matters and I'm not going to give up until I correct the mistake that happened all those years ago.

"What mistake?" Danny asked, tensing and raising a hand, waiting for the attack he knew was coming.

"You beating me last time." The words were almost lost in the feral snarl of the ghost as he leapt towards Danny. Dazzling blood-red energy slammed into brilliant green and Dark Phantom snaked out his hand.

Danny grunted in pain, feeling an odd and very wrong sensation in his stomach. He blinked at his ghostly counterpart as pain started to curl around his brain, chewing into the edges of his vision. His mouth moved a few times, his mind trying to formulate a question and failing, his body struggling to remember how to breathe. Finally, he looked down.

Dark Phantom's clawed hand was inside Danny's abdomen, greenish blood leaking from around the ghost's wrist. "Isn't this nice?" the ghost hissed, his mouth inches from Danny's ear. "I believe this is how your clone died."

Sam panted for breath as she lugged her load of weapons up the street. Eighty-five years of living had done irreparable damage to her body despite years of training to help prevent it. She was in excellent shape for someone of her age, but her muscles were nonetheless weakened, her bones brittle, and her senses dulled. Only a few decades earlier, she would have been able to carry twice as much at a dead sprint. Now she was barely moving at a jog with what amounted to a pathetic excuse for an arsenal in her arms.

She'd lost sight of the fight when it had taken to the street and she was struggling to locate her long-lost friend. Her teeth were grinding against each other in panic, her heart pounding loudly from her throat. He's just a child, her mind whispered as her eyes searched for any sign of where the two combatants were, he shouldn't be doing this.

A flare of light from a block away caught her attention and Sam changed course, remembering from her teenage years hunting ghosts with Danny that eerie lights usually equated to supernatural presences. "Danny," she panted. "Don't get hurt."

When she finally got close enough for her eyes to pick out what was happening, the weapons tumbled from her arms in horror. Danny was covered in blood, his face pale and his body shaking. The ghost was pulling its hand out from Danny's stomach, greenish blood gushing from the wound left behind.

"NO!" she whispered, panic causing her hands to tremble as she ducked down and grabbed the first weapon she could find. The gun – which was a bit too heavy for her to aim correctly – whined as she pointed it in the general vicinity of the two ghosts and started to pull the trigger. She hesitated for a moment when she noticed how much the barrel of the gun was wavering, worried she'd hit the wrong thing, but when Danny collapsed to the ground her finger clenched on the trigger involuntarily.

The kick from the blast sent Sam sprawling backwards on the pavement. When she got back onto her hands and knees, she looked up to see what damage she'd done, her stomach in her throat in worry that she'd just killed her friend.

Danny was still on the ground, the ghost crumpled into a pile a fair distance away. "I hit him!" Sam whispered delightedly, grabbing another weapon from the pile as she pushed herself to her feet. "I'll just keep shooting-"

She stopped talking when a red-glowing shadow fell over her. Sam looked up, blood draining from her face when she saw the ghost snarling at her from only a few feet away. "I remember you," he growled.

"Funny," Sam found herself saying, her mouth dry, "I don't remember you."

"I'm just a bad dream, a timeline that never happened but should have," the ghost hissed.

Sam stared at the ghost in confusion, her eyes catching on the emblem blazed onto the ghost's chest and her eyebrows knitting together.

"Still don't remember me, huh?"

Sam shook her head, the tiniest of memories struggling to unbury itself after seventy years. Something Danny had been afraid of, some nightmare he insisted had really happened, something about a future that he wouldn't let happen…

"Well, you're not going to live long enough to care," the ghost simply said.

Sam stared at the ghost as a lethal amount of power flooded around him. Her fingers clenched around the small gun in her hand, but she knew she'd never be able to raise it and fire in time – not at her age. She tried anyways.

Danny couldn't get a full breath into his lungs. His stomach kept clenching in pure agony, his chest shrieking in pain whenever his body moved. Spots of light dance in his eyes as he shifted, pressing a hand over the wound in his abdomen. His eyes closed tightly in pain, biting his tongue to keep from screaming, and then he levered himself to his feet.

The world spun, darkness fighting with the motes of light in front of him, but Danny managed to stay on his feet. Dark Phantom's voice chewed at the edges of his consciousness and Danny turned towards it, blinking a few times to clear his eyes.

"Sam?" he breathed, the name cutting off short as a blast of pain sliced into his brain at how his stomach had to move in order to speak. "NO!" His good arm reached out towards her as energy built around the ghost, knowing that he couldn't get there in time to save his old friend's life. No... not Sam!

The world seemed to move oddly, blacking out and stretching, something Danny completely attributed to blood loss until he blinked and realized that Dark Phantom was somehow standing right in front of him. Without time to stop and figure out what happened, Danny raised a hand and formed a shield – smaller than usual but powerful enough to stop an attack at this range. The shield shattered painfully when Dark Phantom's blast slammed into it, sending Danny stumbled backwards into Sam and knocking her gun from her hand.

"Danny," he heard her gasp, catching him and holding him up.

"Get out of here," he whispered, struggling to find his balance and keep himself upright without help.

"Teleporting?" an evil voice cut in, the ghost arching an eyebrow in surprise. "You learned a lot more in those months you were free than I gave you credit for."

Sam held onto his shoulders. "You can't win on your own. I can help."

His whole body trembling with effort, Danny shrugged off her arms, swallowing down a moan of pain at the movement. "No, you can't. Get out of here."

"Ah well," the ghost muttered, seemingly ignoring the two friends' conversation. "Teleport away from this."

Danny looked up at the ghost as Dark Phantom's body blurred and stretched, forming into multiple copies of the ghost from his nightmares. Danny swore softly under his breath, taking a small step backwards as four identical copies of a particularly evil smile solidified before him. "Sam, get out of here."

"No," she whispered. She moved, pulling the Thermos's strap over around her head and holding it tightly in her hand. "I can't let you-"

Two of the Dark Phantoms moved, reaching out and grabbing each of Sam's hands. The Thermos tumbled from her grasp and her eyes widened, gasping in pain as the two Phantoms began to pull in opposite directions.

"SAM!" Danny shouted, raising his arm and sending blasts of power towards the two copies. His legs turned to water and the world spun dizzily before his eyes as he drained his body of even more energy.

The two ghosts let go, dodging the attacks and chuckling, their eyes glittering as they watched Danny struggle to stay upright. "You can't win. You can't beat me."

Danny ignored them, focusing on Sam's wrinkled face, her pale skin and wide, frightened eyes making her seem older than ever. She wasn't ready for this, not anymore. She doesn't remember what it's like, he whispered to himself. It was too long ago. She doesn't remember how violent ghost hunting can be. "Sam…"

She shook her head, stooping to pick up the weapon that had fallen from her grasp when Danny stumbled into her.

I've got to get her out of here. Danny stared at her, the four ghosts circling around them a distant worry compared to saving his old friend's life. "You're too old," he said, his eyes boring into hers. "You're too weak. You're not-" He cut off, shaking his head, but forced himself to continue. "You're not Sam Manson anymore. You're Mrs. Madel."

Danny ignored the stunned look on Sam's face as he stumbled forwards, turning her around and pushing her away from him, leaving bloody handprints on the back of her shirt. "I'm going to distract the ghost and you're going to leave," he ordered. He watched her glance over her shoulder at him,but her feet were still moving in the right direction – away.

"Enough talking," the ghost suddenly snapped.

Danny twisted around, barely catching sight of the fist in time to duck. He felt it glance off the top of his skull, making the world fizzle out of focus for a heartbeat, and he sliced out with his foot. Catching one of the copies of the ghost right in the stomach, Danny unleashed enough energy into the copy to do two things: destroy one of the copies and keep the attention of the other three on himself.

I'm going to protect Sam. His teeth clenched, swallowing down the pain rocketing through every nerve of his body with even the slightest movement. Energy grew between his hands, sending jolts of static up into his brain, and he tossed it into the air. It caught another of the copies in the back, the ghost dissolving into motes of energy. And I'm going to protect this town.

His good arm reached down and snagged the Thermos off the ground, looping the strap over his arm. "Splitting yourself four ways wasn't a good plan," he shouted to the two ghosts floating in the air, then launched himself up to join them.

Blood poured down his front from the slices in his chest and the hole in his stomach. One of his arms was essentially useless, ripped open from shoulder to elbow by his evil counterpart's claws. His lungs still wouldn't take in a full breath of air. Agony was making the world spin and continued to chew away at his vision; already dark bands of nothing had swallowed everything but what was right in front of him.

He couldn't spare the time to take his eyes off of Dark Phantom – he could do nothing but hope that Sam was getting as far away as she could. I'm not going to last much longer, he thought desperately, sending a blast of power towards the nearest copy. The ghost dodged. This plan had better work. I'm only going to have one shot at it.

The copy he hadn't been paying enough attention to suddenly appeared in front of him, a fist slamming straight into Danny's nose. His nose shattered was an incredibly loud crack inside of Danny's head.

"You can't win," the ghost snarled as Danny tumbled from the air, his watering eyes stealing his vision and the blood gushing from his broken nose clogging his throat. "Why are you even trying?"

Wiping the tears from his eyes and spitting out a mouthful of blood, Danny pushed himself back into the air. Power curled up from his toes, slicing over his body with an agonizing tingle, and rushed out through his outstretched hand. The glowing ball of energy slammed into the last copy, dissolving it.

Danny had only a moment to celebrate the minor victory before a cold hand clasped his ankle and jerked him to a stop. A scream of pain worked its way out of his lips, and he coughed and trembled in agony, struggling to breath while being held upside down.

"You look truly awful," the ghost said, his voice not sounding at all tired. "I almost wish I had a mirror."

Danny blinked through the blood dripping into his eyes, glaring at the red orbs only a few feet away. He raised his arm, trying to pull in enough energy for a last blast.

Dark Phantom snorted in derision and tossed Danny into the air. The ghost spun, landing a hard kick right into the bloody mess that remained of Danny's stomach.

The world went dark. Danny blinked his eyes open, surprised to find himself on the ground, his heart struggling to keep beating. He turned his head to the side, catching sight of the Thermos lying next to his hand. I have to catch him…

He reached for the Thermos, feeling his body shrieking in pain at even that small of a movement. His bloody, slippery fingers catch on the Thermos – and it slipped out of his fingers and rolled just out of reach. "No…"

A blast of power whirled out of the sky and slammed into his chest. Danny would have shrieked in pain, no longer able to hold back and no longer having the energy to protect himself from the spectral onslaught, but his battered body didn't have enough air to scream with. All he could do was writhe on the ground in agony.

When the world finally righted itself and he was able to see again, Danny blinked up into the eyes of Dark Dan Phantom. The ghost was grinning down at him. "This was fun," the ghost murmured, "but now you die."

Vlad Masters, on his perch several blocks away, pushed himself to his feet. His hands clenched into fists by his side, knuckles white, muscles straining. "Daniel…" he whispered, pacing towards the end of the building.

He stopped just before his feet would have gone over the edge. There he waited, one beat, two beats, three, four… all the time, watching Daniel lose. All the time knowing that when the boy lost, Vlad would be alone again. He'd go back to being 'Mathew' Masters for as long as that moniker would hold, an old bachelor, with nothing but a hologram to keep him company.

He tore his eyes away from the battle to stare at the gold watch on his wrist. That little watch held all that remained of his precious Maddie – a stupid computer program. It was all he'd been allowed to keep.

But Vlad wasn't fooling himself. He was far too old to do that. That hologram wasn't Maddie and, to be perfectly honest with himself, the hologram hurt to look at more often than anything else. After an entire lifetime living with a computer image, Vlad was willing to admit that it wasn't enough. A fancy computer, a life of luxury, a woman he could never have... The bright spot in all of his memories were those precious months when he'd found someone smart enough and stubborn enough to stand in his way.

He was finally old enough to admit it and he was finally old enough to realize that he'd been given a chance to have that back… and the one chance was slipping away.

For the first time in decades, Vlad closed his eyes and reached inside himself, searching for something he swore he'd never use again. It took a long moment, nearly a dozen strained heartbeats, before his mind closed on the cool, powerful feeling flooding around inside of him.

Light danced on his body, cold and tingling, and Vlad finally opened his eyes. He glanced down at his body, grimacing at how time had affected him so much in both forms, and clumsily took to the air.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

Danny's world was black as his heart struggled to keep breathing, his battered lungs gasping pointlessly for oxygen. His fingers reached for the Thermos, miraculously snagging the strap and pulling to towards himself. Danny rolled onto his side, unable to breathe, focused solely on the task of loosening the lid. I've got to catch him NOW!

"I don't get why you're still trying," Dark Dan Phantom laughed, "you can't win."

Weakly yanking at the lid of the Thermos, Danny couldn't help but agree. Something inside of him suddenly gave way and the pain doubled, Danny loosing his ghost form in a sparkle of supernatural light. His body screamed in pure agony, his human form feeling everything so much more than his ghost form had. The Thermos fell from his limp hands to lie uselessly on the ground beside him. "No…"

"Yes," Dark Danny hissed. "Don't you get it yet? I'm inevitable."

"No you're not," Danny coughed, using his arm to pulling the Thermos closer to him, watching the muddy device get a coat of his red, human blood in the process. Every movement was agony, but Danny managed to get his numb hands back on the lid and grasp it just enough to twist, finally uncapping the device.

A boot came down to slam onto his fingers, bones snapping. Danny was too hurt to feel it – in too much pain to scream.

"Don't even think about it," the ghost whispered, leaning over. "I'm not going back in that thing." Blue eyes met red, understanding passing between the two.

It was over.

Danny's head slowly dropped back to the ground, listening to his own heart stammering through its last few beats, the pain that was racking through his body finally beginning to fade as a cold numbness slipped over him. His eyes stared upwards into the fiery hair of his future, sadness in his heart in knowing that it would be the last thing he'd ever see.

The ghost chuckled and removed his foot, arching an eyebrow and turning away. "Pathetic," the ghost hissed. "Truly pathetic."

The Thermos tipped upwards slightly on the muddy ground, Dark Dan Phantom walking straight into its path. With a grunt of pain and a wash of blackness, Danny's broken hand pressed the button on the side of the Thermos, activating it for the last time.

With a scream to rival the dying of the ghost zone all those years before, Danny's future self was sucked into the Thermos in a wash of blue light. Bloody fingers feebly screwed the lid back on before falling to the ground, never to move again.

One, two, three breaths rattled in Danny's throat before his heart finally stopped beating. Danny's body twitched a few times, lying in the growing pool of blood, before falling still. Just before his mind descended into a cloud of darkness forever, he heard a familiar voice scream for an ambulance. He felt a wash of annoyance – Why hadn't she left when I'd told her to? – but then let it fade as he realized that this was Sam Manson he was thinking about. She wouldn't leave for anything. He thought momentarily about telling her that he was sorry it had to end like this, but he couldn't.

Cold arms curled around him, picking him up, and he heard a voice from his past whisper in his ear. "You did a good job, sweetheart. Relax – it's over now."

And it was.

To be concluded...

See you for the epilogue!