EPISODE 53—BLOOD PRESSURE
Danny's powers had grown to the point where he felt that it was safe to go into the Ghost Zone by himself. He just stayed away from Skulker's lair and Walker's prison. And besides, Sam and Tucker were kind of with him—they were watching the view from his camera and communicating with him through the headphones.
He'd flown past the Ghost King's castle almost ten minutes ago, venturing far into the unknown parts. He'd never been anywhere near this far before, and the danger was thrilling him as much as it was making his hair stand on end. This far from anyone that could help him, he felt really alive—ironic, really, as he was a ghost in a world of ghosts.
"Danny?" Sam's voice betrayed the concern she was trying to cover up. "Are you sure it's a good idea to go this far?"
"Oh, I'm sure there's nothing too dangerous," Danny said. "If I sense danger, though, I promise I'll just shoot back in a flash as fast as I can."
"That's only if you see it coming," Sam pointed out. "We don't know how many ghosts are out there, and what powers they have."
"But Frostbite's been here with the Infi-map," Danny reminded her. "He said he'd been to the Zoan Wall. That's where I'm headed now. And he said few ghosts have ever ventured past those bounds for a crazy long time."
He floated slower, approaching the large iron wall that stretched in every direction farther than the eye could see. He was right at the base of the wall, where the Ghost Zone stretched no further downwards. Usually, there were graveyards and zombified skeletons that chased him when he touched down. Here, there were none.
"But what if there's a reason nobody goes that way?" Sam insisted.
"Nobody goes here because it's near impossible to get past," Danny said.
"FOR A REASON!"
"Frostbite found a way in using the natural portals in the Ghost Zone," Danny argued. "He crossed into the human world, and then crossed back into the Ghost Zone somewhere on the other side of this wall. And he said it was unpopulated except for a few ghosts with no powers." He pressed a hand against the wall; it resisted his intangibility.
"Danny, I'm really worried about the thought you're putting into this."
"Sam, relax, will you?" Danny said. "I can handle anything. And besides, if a ghost tries to trap me anywhere, they don't know that I can do this!"
The familiar disk appeared in his body and spread up and down, turning him back into a human; and as they all knew, humans were the ghosts of the Ghost Zone. He kicked his legs, and he spun slowly through the void until he passed right through the wall. "Ha!" Danny said. "Bet they didn't see THAT coming when they designed the wall!" Then he stopped moving and stared at the new landscape.
"Yo, dude," Tucker said, his voice shaking. "After careful consideration, I'm starting to think Sam's right."
The landscape in front of him looked like some crazy desert, black sand streaked with red. There was a breeze—a breeze, in the Ghost Zone. It didn't move the sand, because it seemed to be only blowing several yards above the dunes. The breeze carried hundreds of thousands of little red beads. Maybe millions. Maybe billions. They floated faster than a man could run through the air. The desert began several feet behind the wall and continued farther than he could see, which wasn't very far because the air in the distance was red from the beads that pocked the atmosphere.
Danny turned around to face the wall behind him. "Guys—are you seeing this?" He transformed back into his ghost shape, and flew up and down the wall, examining it. It was filled with gashes and cracks, none of which could be seen from the other side. But the gashes weren't rough; they were smooth, as if eroded like the landscapes on Earth. And so the gashes must have been extremely old.
"This is awesome," Danny breathed. He ran his hand along the gouges, feeling the way they dipped into the steel. Strangely, the gouges were stained with some black crust that came off with his touch. He left a streak in the black crust—it was the only streak he could see on the wall. Nobody appeared to have touched it for eons.
"This is freaky," Tucker said. "What was that red stuff?"
"I don't know," Danny said, "but I don't really feel like touching it. It looks like the best way to get around down here is to fly close to the ground between the red breeze and the sand dunes."
"Okay," Sam said, clearly annoyed, "I KNOW you're not thinking of going further through here."
"I totally am," Danny said. "This is way more interesting than anything I have to go back to there!"
"It's also way more lethal."
"I've made up my mind, Sam," he said, and he floated slowly under the breeze and over the dunes, trekking through the strange land.
"This is freaking me out," Tucker said. "And I eat our cafeteria food. Nothing should freak me out!"
"You two are such nervous Nellies," Danny said. "I'll be totally fine."
He looked up at the small red bubbles floating above him, and put a hand on his chin in wonder as he continued to float several feet above the sands. "I wonder…" he said, and held up a hand. A wave of icy cold flowed out of his hand and rippled into the pulsing red cloud above him; the closest bubbles froze solid, fell to the ground and shattered, turning black almost instantly and adding to the sand.
"I think I found out what the sand's made from," Danny said. "The same stuff as the little red bubbles. …Whatever that is. …So I guess I don't know what it's made of."
"Just go back, Danny," Sam pleaded. "This is insanely ominous. I don't know what you're thinking, pressing forward."
Danny sighed. "Well…"
"Please."
Danny huffed. "All right. If it'll make you stop nagging at me. But I want to come back here sometime! Maybe with some backup. I'll—wait!"
"Oh, come on," Sam groaned. "What is it?"
"In the vague distance," Danny said. "I can see a point. Like an object, really, really far away."
"We can't see it on the camera yet," Tucker said. "Are you sure you see something?"
"Positive," Danny said. "I'm going to go check it out!"
"Danny!"
"Sam!" Danny belted back. "I want to see what this is. When was the last time that anything I did caused permanent damage to anyone?"
"Never," Sam said. "Let's keep that record."
"I'm almost there," Danny said. "I'm going." He sped onward, picking up more and more speed while avoiding the small hills that occurred in the dunes. He rose up in the air until he was a couple feet away from the bubbles and stopped rising, so that he was above the peaks of all the sand dunes and could simply jet forward at top speed.
Even at top speed, it took him close to five minutes to finally be able to see what it was he'd spotted in the distance. It was an enormous black castle, and within another minute, he could see that it dwarfed any building he'd ever seen or heard of from the world from which he came.
"And how many times has breaking into a castle gotten you anywhere good?" Sam said.
"I'm thinking about turning off the headset if you keep badgering me about this," Danny said. Then, as he finally approached the door, he turned into a human and phased through it without hesitation.
Instantly, he regretted not listening to Sam. There were countless skeletons strewn awkwardly about the palace, and in the center of the room he'd entered was a vertical, crystal sarcophagus, the size of a small house, almost transparent but not quite, like the end stages of a butterfly's cocoon.
"Skeletons everywhere?" Sam said. "Oh, yeah, nothing dangerous could possibly live here."
"Clockwork has… skulls in his lair," Danny whispered, groping for arguments.
"He doesn't have them as carpeting!" Sam shouted.
Danny heard the skeletons rattling before he heard the source: a low rumbling that made dust fall from the castle walls around him. That wasn't good. In every movie he'd ever seen, it was not a good sign when earthquakes and raining dust were combined.
He looked closer at the sarcophagus, and was beyond alarmed to discover that it was opening. He turned to phase back through the door he'd come through, when it opened in front of his face.
There was a creaking sound, and Danny's head turned as the sarcophagus door blasted off, passed through him, and disappeared into the swarm of red beads—they were now blasting by at a far more frantic pace than before.
He tried to go back out, but he couldn't move his arms or legs. He was twisted into a standing position by some strange force that was controlling him, and he turned to directly face the creature that was now emerging not from the sarcophagus, but from a void inside of it.
It was a pale-skinned woman with long black hair that fell past the fingertips on the thin, bony arms that dangled loosely in front of her; she was hunched over, which revealed long bat wings extending behind her back, still emerging from the sarcophagus. She wore some kind of a cloak with shoulder extensions like spider legs; she also donned jet-black pants and shoes which blended into her black cloak, making it look like she had no lower half to her body. Her nails were long and red, and her stature was gaunt and menacing. And she was ten times his size.
"Young boy," said a dangerous yet silky voice. "You have freed me from my prison. What business have you here in my home?"
"P-Prison?" Danny stammered, only barely able to move his mouth. "Why were you in a prison…?" He dreaded the answer.
"Oh, like the ghosts cared about humans," she spat. "I suppose they decided that they'd have nothing to terrorize if I sucked the life out of every animal on the planet."
Danny's throat tightened—that was him. Every muscle in his body tightened—that was not him.
"I am called Hemozoa," she purred. "I control your body because you are a sack filled with life fluid, which I feed on to grow powerful. I cannot thank you enough for freeing me, for the only thing that could awaken me from my enchanted slumber was the presence of living… pumping… blood." She licked her lips and sighed. "Now stay still while I puncture your arteries and bathe in the flow to rejuvenate my power."
He knew of no other ghost who had directly threatened his life like that. What had he just done, releasing this thing? …But she was walled in and couldn't escape to wreak havoc elsewhere. The only reason he could get in was because he was part human…
But she'd just revealed that she could only control him when he was human filled with life! He quickly concentrated and the band of light spread across his waist yet again, turning him into his ghostly alter-ego; immediately, her hold on him was broken, and he could fly freely again.
"What?" she shouted; she had been advancing on him, but she stopped abruptly with an intense look of rage when Danny transformed.
Danny blasted an ectoplasmic energy ray, which shot directly into her face. She toppled over with an enormous crash due to her size, pulverizing the skeletons below her. She looked up and growled, but she appeared to still be powerless, having just been released from her prison for the first time in who knew how long, and she did not defend when Danny struck next.
He shot an intense ray of freezing-cold energy—he could tell it was the most powerful blast he'd used yet—and it struck Hemozoa in the chest. She cried aloud as she spiraled across the room with the energy and struck the opposing wall, and was instantly encased in ice. Danny delivered one more blast of energy in the form of an exploding ecto-bomb, and the ice shattered.
She fell onto the ground; her pale skin turned ash-gray. She struggled to lift herself with wildly shaking arms, staring at the ground, but failed and struck the floor hard.
"Danny!" came a shout from Sam that startled Danny violently; he'd forgotten they were watching. He'd been so focused on Hemozoa, and they'd stayed quiet to let him stay focused.
"Sam, you scared me half to death," Danny gasped.
"And he's only half alive to begin with," Tucker quipped.
"Wrong time, Tucker."
"Come on! I've been waiting weeks for him to say that line!"
"Shut up, Tucker. Danny, you have to try to shove her back into that coffin. What if she breaks loose?"
"You're right, I think," Danny said, but he didn't have time to react, because something was happening.
Hemozoa shriveled up as if fast-forwarded in the sun, and then she broke apart, her skin turning to ash and her immense bones clattering against the floor with the rest.
"I think my work here is done," Danny said, gaping.
"I'd shove the bones in, just to make sure," Sam maintained.
"I'll do that," Danny said, "but indirectly. I'm not touching those bones." He flew to the other side of the bones and shot energy blasts at them which launched them into the air; they landed in front of the sarcophagus. He then moved to the other side and shot more energy blasts, knocking them into the sarcophagus. He slammed the door shut, and there was another tremor; this spoke to Danny that the seal was back on the sarcophagus. The doors began to close extremely slowly.
"Okay," Danny said. "That was close." He turned around and flew out relatively slowly, keeping his head turned to watch the sarcophagus. But he didn't notice that he was flying too far upwards, and little drops hitting his head told him he'd just flown into the red bubbles that were floating above the dune.
He dropped down and felt the side of his head; it was pretty wet. He brought his hand away, and saw that the bubbles were dripping down his hand, staining his outfit red. There was a metallic smell to his hand, and he instantly guessed what the red bubbles were made out of.
"That's… nasty," Tucker said, understanding as well.
"As a Goth, I try not to show emotions," Sam stated, "but I have to admit, I'd be just delighted if you got out of there as quickly as possible."
"I totally agree with you this time," Danny said. "I'm heading out." He flew back to the wall; once there, he turned human briefly and phased through in about a second, and he turned back into a ghost immediately. He was a little paranoid still from the encounter. And he was still covered in blood, even when he changed back to a human. Even when he turned intangible, it wouldn't run off. He wondered how he'd explain to his parents how his hair and clothes came to be stained all over with blood.
He passed through the Fenton Portal and touched down on the ground, turning back into a human. Tucker and Sam looked at him, grimacing.
"Okay, so that was a little ill-advised," Danny admitted, shaking a little bit. "I'll listen to you from now on, Sam."
"Where'd the blood on your clothes go?" asked Tucker.
Danny looked down. "That's weird," he said. "It didn't come off the last time I transformed." He turned back into his ghost form, and the blood was still gone. "Well, I'm not going to complain about that. Saves me the trouble of trying to sneak my bloody clothes past my parents."
"You have a bit of an advantage there," Tucker said. "You can turn invisible."
"I was afraid for a while that it would never come off," Danny said. "It didn't come off when I turned intangible."
"Passing back through the portal!" Tucker said. "That's what got it off."
"Oh, yeah," Danny said. "It was on me until just that moment, I'm certain."
"Danny!" came a call from upstairs; it was his father.
"Oh, wow," Danny frowned. "They're back early."
His mother and father bounded down the stairs. "Your father got kicked out of the square dance for eating all the fudge," Maddie said in her normal "Oh, Jack" voice. "So we're back a little earlier than expected."
"Can't keep myself away from the fudge," Jack said. "Ah, well. So, Danny! Have you seen the new gadgets?"
"No," Danny said, grimacing. This usually meant that he was going to be in pain at some point when the "gadgets" turned on him, and then hide it from his parents.
"I invented these yesterday!" Jack said, holding up a pair of thick, wire-strewn glasses. "I call them the Spooktacles!"
Jazz, who had just come downstairs, smacked a palm on her face at the terrible name her father had given the device.
"I just put them on over my eyes," Jack said, holding it up, "and it highlights the figure of a ghost, whether or not it's invisible, or even if it's overshadowing someone!"
He was about to put them on, and Danny suddenly panicked—if his father looked at him…
Jazz thought the same thing, too, and she shouted, "Dad! I'm pretty sure I just saw a ghost fly through our house! It went out the window and raced down the street!"
"I'll get it!" Jack shouted and charged up the stairs at a speed Danny hadn't thought possible for his sizeable father. He jammed the glasses on as he sprinted.
Maddie smiled and showed Danny another device. "See this one?" she said. "This one, I made. Well… Technically, I finish all your father's inventions to make them work, so they're all kind of my inventions. But don't tell him I said that." She smiled wider. "Here's the Spirit Spear!" She held up a long, thin metal rod. "This handy device is for if the ghosts get up close and personal instead of flying around. You jab it right through 'em—" she gave a thrust dangerously close to Danny, who tensed momentarily— "and it absorbs their ecto-energy and makes 'em weaker with every hit. And the best part is, it stores that energy for its batteries!"
"What does it need batteries for?" Danny asked, dreading the answer a little bit.
"Because it can also do this," Maddie said. She held the rod up vertical, and thrust it into the ground. Out of the top, a familiar green energy blasted into the air about ten feet up and then flowed downward around like the surface of a sphere. "Portable ghost shield. Great if you're surrounded. And if you twist the top before you take it out, it'll send extra energy out to keep the ghost shield intact for almost a full minute after you take it out! Then you can stab all the ghosts through the ghost shield and plop it back in the ground."
"Wow, Mom," Danny said, admiring the technology. "That's really neat!"
"Well, thank you, Danny!" She basked in pride for a moment. "I've been working on that one for a while. It's nice to know it turned out right." She twisted the top and pulled it out of the floor; the ghost shield remained for a while. "Come on, everyone, let's go upstairs and see what we can find to eat." She stepped out of the ghost shield.
Danny, Sam, and Tucker stayed in place.
"Well, come on, kids," Maddie said, staring back with her hands on her hips.
"It's, um… really pretty in here, inside the ghost shield where no ghosts can get out," Danny said. "I mean, in. I think we'll stay for another fifty seconds or so."
"Well, all right," Maddie said. "I'll go check what we can have for dinner. Come up when you're done admiring the Spirit Spear. Oh, and did I mention it's retractable?"
As she disappeared up the stairs, Danny huffed. "I hate it when they have new inventions."
"Hey, look on the bright side," Tucker said. "Those things might come in handy someday."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Unattractive as those Spooktacles are, they might come in handy someday if you need to find a ghost that's hiding."
"I guess so," Danny said. "Or, my dad could bust in whilst wearing them at any time and could discover I'm a ghost."
There was a brief silence.
"We could…" Sam sighed. "I'd hate to do this for any other reason, but we could steal them and then blame a ghost."
"I think we'll have to," Danny groaned. "I can't risk my dad just throwing them on while I'm around. He'll tear me apart for impersonating his son before he finds out that I AM his son."
The ghost shield flickered and slowly dissolved from the top. The three teens stepped out and walked up the stairs to the kitchen.
They didn't notice the movement in the corner of the lab. A small red puddle oozed along the floor until it encountered a small mouse skittering along the floor. It engulfed the mouse, which writhed around for a moment and then stopped suddenly. The red mass grew and then slithered away. The mouse wandered off feebly for a while and then collapsed.
Jack Fenton came back about an hour later from his run across town looking for the ghost, wearing the extremely unsightly glasses and embarrassing Danny more than usual. He looked upset, but he was even more upset when he discovered he'd missed dinner. He sighed and took the glasses off, placing them on the table. "I'm wondering if these work at all," Jack mumbled, sitting at the table with more force than usual. "I can't invent anything."
"Oh, honey, that's not true," Maddie said.
Jack didn't notice the invisible hand pop from under the table, grab the Spooktacles, and pull them under.
"I might as well throw these—" Jack grabbed at empty air. "Where did they go?"
"GHOST!" Maddie yelled, dropping down and aiming a wrist ray under the table; there was nothing there.
"Ha!" Jack yelled. "A ghost wouldn't have stolen that thing unless it worked!"
Danny shoved the Spooktacles under the lab floor and pulled his hand out, fusing the Spooktacles inside the ground. He flew back up and walked into the kitchen as his father was bragging.
"I'll bet you anything it was that Danny Phantom kid," Jack said. "He's probably just jealous of my genius!"
"Um, actually, Dad," Danny said, trying to save his reputation a little, "I saw the ghost that did it. It was the, um, Glasses Ghost, and he wanted to add your brilliant device to his collection."
"The Glasses Ghost?" Jack said. "Why wasn't he interested in the windows? That's a lot more glass. Did you see where he went?"
"No, he turned invisible," Danny said.
"Cheating ghost scum. Well, keep an eye out for those glasses, son!"
"Will do, Dad."
He went back, climbed the stairs and approached his room—but his ghost sense went off and he felt the cold feeling run down his body. "What…?" Danny said. "Is there really a Glasses Ghost here or something?"
He looked around but didn't see anything, so he had to be cautious. He peeked into Jazz's room, and his own, then ran down the stairs again.
"Something wrong, Danny?" Maddie asked, noting his quick ascent and descent.
"Uh," Danny said. He decided to be honest. "Looking for a ghost."
"Good job, Danny," she replied. "You're your parents' son!"
"Thanks," Danny said, and ran down to the lab again.
His eyes scanned the lab and didn't detect anything significant until something discolored managed to catch in his peripheral vision. He approached it and bent down—it was a dead mouse. "I thought we got rid of the mice," he said.
A pulsing red blob shot from a corner in the lab. If Danny hadn't forced himself into a hardcore training regimen, he might not have had the reflexes to defend against it. But he'd been focusing hard on improving his reaction time, and it was paying off nicely. He threw up a shield of ecto-energy (slightly more difficult when he was a human, but he managed it) and his attacker splattered against the shield. The red ooze started to run around the shield and towards the side.
"Whoa!" Danny yelled. "No touchie!" He jumped back far into the air and transformed into his ghost half. "We don't even know each others' names yet!"
But strangely, as soon as he turned into a ghost, the red blob fell back to the ground and oozed around the lab floor blindly. It ran along the wall for a while.
"What the…" Danny muttered. "This is freaky. And… is that the blood that was on my outfit before?"
The blood puddle slid over to the stairs and slowly climbed them. Danny gasped—his family was up there, and they couldn't hide the blood in their bodies by turning into ghosts. He had to stop the puddle… He grabbed the Fenton Thermos, and decided to take the Spirit Spear, too, in case the puddle was too evasive for the Thermos to capture.
He changed back and ran up the stairs. "Mom! Dad! Jazz! Look out!"
"Danny? What is it? Why do you have the—JAZZ!"
The red puddle leaped at Jazz, but when it made contact, it sizzled with electricity and flew off into a corner… Jazz was wearing a Specter Deflector.
"That was lucky," Jack said, a brow twisted.
"I saw Danny running around looking for ghosts," Jazz said, winking at Danny, "and I figured, why not, I'll take the precaution."
"Good girl," Maddie said, then activated her wrist ray again, swiveling to check around the room.
"Here," Danny said, handing Jazz the Fenton Thermos. "Use if you get a good shot, but, you know… not if I'm anywhere near it."
"I've got it," Jazz said, patting the thermos. "Do what you need to do."
Danny kept a wary eye out. The next attack came from the same spot, and he was totally ready for it. He thrust the Spirit Spear into the flying puddle as it launched towards him, and the spearhead glowed green as it sucked the energy out of the blob.
The blob jettisoned backwards into the wall, knocking off a picture, and sank to the floor. It rippled and pulsed until it formed a vague human shape, and then the first layer peeled off, revealing the miniature form of Hemozoa.
It was exactly as Danny had seen her in the Ghost Zone, but only six inches tall. She stared at Danny curiously, making the connection instantly that he was the one she had seen in the Ghost Zone. But he had defeated her and sealed her bones in the Ghost Zone! Unless… unless all the blood floating outside the castle was hers. That must have been the explanation—when he'd gotten her blood on him, he'd carried it out, and she was slowly regenerating by taking the blood from others, starting with that mouse in the lab. And she almost got Jazz. She would have sucked the blood out of his sister like that mouse—he had to stop her before she got anyone else.
Jazz was quicker to act this time. While Danny was piecing together the situation, she leapt forward and activated the thermos. A beam of blue light shot out of the end, but Hemozoa bounded upwards and slid through the ventilation. As she left, Danny thought he heard a pained grunt, as if it was taking a lot of effort from her to perform the simplest of actions. The Specter Deflector and the Spirit Spear must have weakened her a lot.
Darn it! Danny thought. She could be going anywhere. How am I going to find… Wait! The Spooktacles!
He ran back down to the lab, ignoring his mother's concerned shouts that he was going alone. He passed a hand through the tile that he'd phased through before, and grabbed the mechanical glasses. He transformed into Danny Phantom and slipped them on, noticing the eerie blue glow that was surrounding his arms when he looked at them through the glasses. He grabbed another thermos, jumped through the ceiling of each floor and then popped out through the roof.
He scanned the general area and discovered a trace of red through his glasses disappearing down the street. He followed it, but lost the sight almost instantly.
"This isn't good," Danny murmured.
"It's the Ghost Kid!"
The Guys in White, unfortunately, just happened to be passing underneath. "He's donned some sort of visual enhancement device!" one of them shouted.
"But I bet he didn't see this one coming!" the other one called, and pulled out a large mechanism that looked like a machine gun. It fired an array of energy shots which Danny only narrowly avoided by halting his progress and simply falling. He passed through the ground to avoid his attackers as they launched jetpacks and flew after him.
He ended up in the town sewer system, floating above an underground river. Some workers in the tunnel caught sight of him and ran, waving their arms around and dropping their flashlights. Danny sighed. What did he have to do to convince these people that he wasn't something to be scared of? …Though maybe the strange glasses on his face added to the fright factor in this dark tunnel.
He looked around before deciding that it was unlikely that Hemozoa had come in here. He flew for a while under the ground in the direction he thought she had gone, and then he rose up again through the ground. He didn't see any ghost activity in the vicinity, other than himself, and he flew around the town for a while, invisible. He flew down every street in the general area, and when he was completely exhausted, and night had fallen, he returned to his house begrudgingly. He couldn't just leave Hemozoa out there where she might attack anyone at any time… He'd have to go out again tonight. But he needed a moment's rest before he did so, and he also needed to make his parents think he was in bed.
When he phased back into the house, he saw that the ghost defenses were on the ready, probably due to the attack from before. A blast of energy shot from one of the shelves—he ducked it and turned human again so that it would no longer fire at him.
Jazz stuck her head out from her door at the noise and saw Danny with the Spooktacles. She smiled. "Mom and Dad were looking for you," she said. "They wanted you to wear a Specter Deflector like the rest of us. Which is bad, of course, because that would hurt you and they'd probably find out. So I snuck into the storage, stole one, and disabled it. Here. They'll never know!" She tossed him a Specter Deflector, which he caught without pain.
"Hey," Danny said, taking the glasses off. "Thanks! That was really smart!"
"I do what I can to help," Jazz said, and pulled her head back into her room.
Danny put the Specter Deflector on and locked it just as his mother was coming around the corner. "Danny!" she said. "Where have you been? I was worried that something had gotten you. Jazz told me you went to Tucker's house?"
"That's… right," Danny said. "I wanted to make sure he and Sam were okay."
"That's sweet of you, but tell me first next time, okay?"
"I told Jazz to tell you 'cause I was in a hurry, but next time, I will."
"Oh, good." His mother tousled his hair and strode down the hall.
Danny sighed and took a deep breath. "I think I'm going to bed now. I'll keep the Specter Deflector on."
"Good boy," his mother said. "Are you sure about bed? It's only a little past 9."
"I'm sure," Danny said. He went into his room and locked the door, then sat on the bed and collected his thoughts.
Okay. Hemozoa was heading in the same direction as the museum when I saw it the first time. In that direction is also… the package store… Marley's Home Appliance Market… and, if you go past the museum and keep going for a while, the Lincoln Farm. Where would she be going?
After several minutes of pondering what Hemozoa could be doing in that direction, he still had no idea where she could be heading, and decided that there was no strategic location. He had to just go out and search further. He donned the Spooktacles and grabbed a Fenton Thermos and the Spirit Spear, then jumped out his window, transformed again, and flew off, still tired and sore from his last long flight.
As he flew past the home appliance market, he saw a tinge of green inside the window. He stopped his flight for a moment and ducked down to look through the window, and saw a ghost sifting through the refrigerator aisle.
Danny raised an eyebrow, and then passed inside with his Fenton Thermos at the ready. He cleared his throat, and the ghost looked over with a curious face at him, shooting up an eyebrow when he saw the glasses.
This new ghost had a forest green jacket over a gray shirt and sunglasses on his forehead, above his eyes. His skin was a dark green and he had shifty, dark eyes. His pockets were bulging all over.
"Can I help you?" the ghost asked.
"Are you the refrigerator ghost or something?" Danny asked.
"I am Filch," he replied. "Ghost of theft."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Then I guess you're up to no good."
"Got that right," Filch said. "Who're you?"
"I'm Danny Phantom," Danny said. "Ghost of righteousness."
"Then I guess you're up to good," Filch said.
Danny aimed the Thermos at him and fired it. Filch jumped out of the way but his jacket got caught in the suction effect, and he freed his arms from it as he flew out the roof. Danny passed through, too, and caught Filch in his second blast from the thermos, and the thieving ghost disappeared, yelling, into the container as Danny slapped the top on. "Got that right." He frowned. "What was that about? I've never seen him before, and that was way too easy." He had to keep an eye out for Filch in the future. As for now, he needed to continue looking for Hemozoa. But it was nice to get one ghost out of the way quick. One thing was for sure: These Spooktacles may have been his dad's most useful invention for him yet, apart from, of course, the thermos that he'd just used.
He flew up and out of the home appliance market. Looking around, he still saw nothing; he needed to continue his patrols.
After another full minute of scanning the general area, he flew past an ambulance with its lights flashing violently. Another one followed shortly afterwards. He wondered what had happened, and where, when he suddenly made a connection in his mind.
The hospital. The hospital! It's in roughly this direction! They probably have blood supplies somewhere; it'd be perfect bait for Hemozoa! Or maybe she's already there…
He flew as fast as he could towards the hospital. It only took him about a minute—it was fairly close—but he skidded to a stop when he approached.
People were running away from the hospital. Ambulances from all over were picking people up; that's probably why he saw the two with flashing lights before. And inside, he saw a pulsing aura of red. When he took off the Spooktacles, he could still see it, but it was much fainter.
He flew in with his thermos at the ready. He passed through several walls and looked to each side, flying towards wherever the light seemed the strongest. Eventually he passed through a wall and wound up inside a very cold storage facility, where Hemozoa was standing, twenty feet tall already, and still visibly growing.
"Foolish boy," she said. "You shouldn't have come. You should flee now, into the Ghost Zone. And take your ridiculous face contraption with you. This is my domain now."
"People are going to die if you don't stop draining their supplies!" Danny shouted before he could stop himself. He heated up a little in embarrassment; why would a ghost that had tried to kill him care about human lives?
Hemozoa laughed. "You poor, idiotic child. Those people are leaving for other hospitals because I scared them away. They will survive. And you can stop worrying about your friends from town. They will all survive, too."
Danny's eyes narrowed. He didn't trust this ghost. He readied the Fenton Thermos behind his back.
"No, they all must survive," Hemozoa said silkily. "I will keep them alive so that I may have an endless supply of blood on which to feed. I will take a little bit from everyone every day."
"That's sickening," Danny said.
"Even now, I grow," she said, and Danny realized that he had to capture her now before she got too powerful. He whipped the Fenton Thermos out and uncapped it, but a pressurized blast of red fluid hit him from the side and he dropped it. The blood swirled around and slammed into the Fenton Thermos, destroying it. The ghost Filch popped out and soared through the ceiling immediately.
Danny shot super-cooled energy blasts at the blood, freezing it solid, and then fired more energy blasts at Hemozoa. But she was far more powerful than last time. The blood blasted out of boxes all around him and first intercepted his shot, then smashed him against the wall hard. He looked up in time to see a red blast of energy fire from Hemozoa's hand and knock the wind completely out of him. He inadvertently turned back into a human from the impact, and found himself thrust into the air. He felt his blood boiling as she used it to control him for the brief moment before he turned back into a ghost.
If that happened again, she would probably react faster and end his life before he could turn back. He'd never been so frightened while facing a foe. He'd been threatened with death before—Skulker did that all the time—but this was the first time that he knew that if he slipped up once, his life would be terminated instantly.
He was on the defensive now, putting up a shield of energy that was shattered by Hemozoa's energy rays; he threw up another one but was shot back into the wall anyway. He flew around the room, continuously dodging until he was struck again. He had to use so much concentration on keeping himself as a ghost that he was unprepared for the next strike.
"Let's see how long it takes me to destroy you when I intercept your powers," Hemozoa said, and her next blast of energy was bluish-purple. It hit Danny full-force, and he turned intangible to pass through the wall instead of hitting it. When he passed through, he tumbled along a hallway, and when he came to a stop, his powers shorted out and he turned back into a human. He focused hard, but he couldn't change back, and his heart started thumping like crazy.
"Where are you, my little sack of blood?"
Danny staggered to his feet and sprinted away. A blast from the other side told him that Hemozoa was in hot pursuit. He began sweating hard, especially the part on his leg where the Spirit Spear was pressing—
He grabbed the Spirit Spear and thrust it into the floor of the hallway, and a ghost shield erupted out of the top, enclosing him in a sphere of safety. Hemozoa, now perhaps thirty feet tall, crawled on her hands through the hallway and frowned when she saw the ghost shield around Danny. She closed a hand around it, perhaps intending to crush it, but she was zapped hard when she touched it. She brought her hand back and hissed, and Danny saw her shrink slightly when she was injured.
Danny grimaced as he tried as hard as he could to go ghost again. He didn't know how long of a battery life that device had. But he knew how to recharge it.
He finally reached some sort of threshold as he broke out into a further sweat. Some sort of barrier snapped and he changed back into a ghost. He grabbed the Spirit Spear out of the ground and, as the ghost shield disintegrated, he jabbed it into Hemozoa's arm. She screeched as the spear drained her of her energy, and she swatted Danny away; Danny carried the spear with him.
She shrank further, then snarled and fired more energy at him. When Danny hit the floor again, he passed through it, then came up under where he thought Hemozoa was with the spear pointing upwards. The spear dove into the blood ghost's stomach, and she screamed and batted him off again. Danny knew this was working; she was now perhaps only fifteen feet tall. But her power was still immense, and another blast from her hand was too quick for Danny to block. He span in the air down the hallway until he hit the wall on the opposite end; when he opened his eyes, Hemozoa was gone from sight, even sight from the Spooktacles.
His mom had really done a wonder with the spear. Danny had to remember to compliment her on it again. For now, he visited the storage room again; no sign of Hemozoa. There was no sign of her outside, either.
"There's the ghost that's been terrorizing the hospital!" came a familiar shout from below. "It's that ghost kid, Danny Phantom! And he's got my glasses on! See, I knew it was him!"
"He's got my Spirit Spear, too! How did he get that?"
Danny gasped when he saw his parents below. And his mother had the Fenton Bazooka! No! he thought inwardly as the bazooka powered up and fired. That was the worst possible thing they could have brought! The Fenton Bazooka was a portable ghost portal launcher that could send any ghost straight to the Ghost Zone!
He tried to fly away, but the ghost portal that appeared next to him had too strong a pulling force, and he disappeared into the Ghost Zone. The Spooktacles fell off of him as he disappeared and clattered to the ground.
He groaned when he popped into the green landscape that was the Ghost Zone. This was horrible. He had to find a way back, fast, before Hemozoa took over his town and maybe the world. But he had no idea where he was!
There were four places or people he could find to get him out. If he found Wulf somehow, that ghost could tear a hole between dimensions. But that was unlikely; Wulf was probably in the human world. So if he found a landmark, he would have to decide which was closer—Vlad's portal, his own portal, or Frostbite with the Infi-map.
He flew in a random direction, looking for anything familiar at all and not finding anything. But finally, after maybe thirty full minutes, he rose over a cavern and saw one familiar landmark: the skull-shaped rock formation carved under the waterfall in the River of Revulsion. If he was remembering correctly, this meant he was closest to Vlad's portal.
Vlad's was probably a good place to go, anyway. If there was anyone who could help him now, it was Vlad—because that billionaire politician could turn into a ghost, too, and was therefore the only person in Amity Park who would consider helping him. Especially if Hemozoa was putting Maddie in danger.
He shot off in the direction he knew Vlad's portal was, passing more familiar landmarks, until he came to a giant football floating in the middle of the Ghost Zone. He shoved it aside, and passed through the portal that was on the other side.
He found himself in Vlad's lab, as he expected. What he did not expect was to stumble upon Vlad in a bathrobe watering flowers with a dainty expression on his face, next to a holographic version of his mother. The latter made him far more uncomfortable, and he almost had an urge to turn around and fly back through the portal. He cleared his throat.
Vlad looked over and gave a startled shout, pouring too much water onto the plant and sponging it off the soil with a towel nearby. He then turned around vehemently and shouted, "What are you doing here? Trespassing in my secret lab, eh?" The holographic Maddie faded.
Danny held up a hand. "Wait! I'm sorry. But I needed to come here. The whole town is in danger!"
Vlad's stormy expression did not fade.
Danny sighed. "Including my mom. The non-holographic version, I mean."
Vlad almost boiled over with rage, but he cooled himself down. "From what, may I inquire?" he asked as calmly as he could manage.
His question was answered immediately by a stampeding sound overhead in his mansion. Vlad's expression darkened, and he rose through the ceiling without transforming into a ghost, and Danny shouted, "Wait! Don't go up there as a human!" and followed.
He passed through the floor into the mansion above and saw an army of little four-legged ghost animals made out of a solid red substance. They were dragging Vlad towards the door.
Vlad transformed into Vlad Plasmius, and let loose an energy burst that incinerated the minions of Hemozoa. He glanced around at the red splotches they left on the floor, and folded his arms as he stared at Danny. "I believe you may have some explaining to do."
Danny wasn't paying any attention to Vlad, though. He was staring outside at the red glowing silhouette of a fifty-foot Hemozoa against the skyline; she was still growing.
"What have you unleashed this time, Daniel?" Vlad huffed as he turned around to look, too. "Or was it your idiot father?"
"Doesn't matter," Danny said. "What matters is how we get rid of her. She's called Hemozoa, and she controls all blood—"
"I know who Hemozoa is," Vlad said. "I've chronicled much of the Ghost Zone already. How do you think I discovered the secrets of the Skeleton Key, or the Infi-map? I know that she is nearly invincible when she has access to this many creatures with blood. She'll be unstoppable by anyone by dawn. And I also know that, for that reason exactly, she was sealed away by the Observants behind the Zoan Wall, which is completely impenetrable by ghosts. Perhaps not, though, by half-ghosts."
Danny decided not to approach the subject of how she got out. "Look. Do you know how to beat her or not?"
"She's sent her minions to every house in the town within several miles by now, most likely," Vlad said. "Wherever they sense blood."
"And she'll keep them alive while draining them a little at a time," Danny said. "To increase her power without bounds."
"You've really done it this time," Vlad said. "I suppose we could try to save Maddie, but other than that, there's nothing we can do."
"What?" Danny shouted. "Are you kidding?"
"She's already too powerful for any ghost to beat," Vlad said. "We'll have to wait for the Observant Court to handle it."
"But I was weakening her with this!" Danny said, holding out the Spirit Spear. "I know she can be weakened!"
"She can be weakened?" Vlad asked, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know you were making her less powerful?"
"This device drains energy out of ghosts," Danny said. "My mom invented it."
"Ah, so then it actually works," Vlad mused.
"Anyway," Danny said, teeth grinding, "when I hit her with it, she shrank in size. By a pretty good margin. She seems to shrink whenever she's hurt."
"Well then, that's something," Vlad said. "I suppose…" He nodded. "Did you recognize the plants that I was watering when you arrived?"
Danny nodded. "They were blood blossoms."
"We could have someone eat a large amount of them," Vlad said, "like your friend Tucker did back in 17th century Salem when I used them on you. Or more than one person. The blossom's anti-ghost effect will be running in their bloodstream, and then when Hemozoa drains them, it will weaken her."
"And then I'll sneak up on her with this," Danny said, hitting the spear against his hand.
"Whatever makes you feel like a hero," Vlad said, rolling his eyes. "I shall go downstairs and fetch the Blood Blossoms. However, after this, as punishment for your trespassing, I'm going to reveal to the city as its knowledgeable mayor that you were the one responsible for the mess that's occurred, and then I will further proceed to destroy your life afterwards."
"Whatever!" Danny shouted. "You'd probably do that anyway. Come on, we have to hurry!"
"You want me to eat more vegetables?" Tucker cried out.
"It's necessary, Tucker," Danny said, waving the bag of blossoms. "We've already had Sam and Jazz eat a bunch of them!"
"B-But they eat vegetables all the time!" Tucker sputtered. "I promised myself that time in the 1600's was the only time I would betray my all-meat diet!"
"You eat burger buns," Danny argued. "Now just eat them! It's… necessary to keep the blood ghost from attacking you." He decided not to inform them that they were bait and were eventually going to have some of their blood sucked out. That might have made them a little too nervous. But he felt a little bad for lying.
"Fine," Tucker spat. "But you owe me big time again. You're paying for the next version of Doom when it comes out."
"Okay! Okay!" Danny bellowed. "Eat! Quickly!"
He heard the door bust open downstairs, and winced as he heard the shrieks of Tucker's parents as they opened the door and were grabbed and carried out by the blood minions.
Tucker opened up the bag, shoveled all of the blossoms into his face, and then swallowed, grimacing. He just finished the thirty-blossom helping when the door burst open and he was grabbed by the minions.
"Hey!" Tucker wailed as he struggled and was carried out the door. "You said they wouldn't go after me!"
"She won't kill you, don't worry!" Danny called. "I feel really, really bad for this, and I'll do whatever it takes to make it up to you, but this is what we need to do to win!"
He flew off towards Hemozoa's growing form, now taller than any of the buildings. She continued to lightly pierce the skin of every person carried to her, and absorbed more and more blood. The sight was horrifying.
He waited for Tucker to be carried in. Sam's and Jazz's blood would probably be absorbed at about the same time. He flew as close as he dared and hid behind a building as he watched Hemozoa grow…
Suddenly, she let out her signature bat-like screech, clawing at her face. The oversized veins that ran through her body started to bulge and inflame, and she howled in pain and started to shrink.
This distraction was what Danny needed. He flew up behind her with the Spirit Spear and thrust it so deep into her back that it disappeared completely.
Hemozoa screeched and shrank continuously from the pain, falling to the ground on all fours with a slam, shaking the nearest buildings. She was still eight stories tall, but she was shrinking. As her body contracted and tightened, the Spirit Spear pierced out of her skin again and snapped, part of it tumbling to the ground.
Vlad pulled up in the air alongside Danny and split into four. Not wanting to be outdone, Danny attempted the same trick, and to his surprise, he also split into four copies. He silently pumped a fist in victory.
The eight total ghosts in the air then charged each hand and fired sixteen rays of energy directly into Hemozoa's back. She howled and writhed, shrinking at a growing rate until she was about the size of a normal person. She still looked like she was in pain, but she was maintaining her size as she breathed heavily, keeping her head facing the ground. "Who has done this?" she growled shakily.
Vlad snapped his fingers. As Danny had been going to his friends and sister, giving them the Blood Blossoms to eat, Vlad had trekked to the Ghost Zone and found the Observants. They didn't take kindly to his presence, since he had freed both the Ghost King and Vortex, but they took his word that Hemozoa was loose, and Hemozoa was a far greater threat.
At Vlad's snap, two Observants materialized and held up hands. Their hands glowed, and Hemozoa rose into the air, squirming again.
"Ghost Queen," one of them said, "you have committed severe crimes against the human world for which the punishment is indefinite incarceration."
"In other words," the other said, "once a filthy ghost, always a filthy ghost."
Shards of crystal began materializing in the air around her and slammed into an area just off of her body, encasing her in a crystal coffin that was about the same size as the one that Danny had encountered.
"Young half-ghost," the first one said, staring directly at Danny. "You have made a grave mistake. Admittedly, so have we, apparently, in allowing Clockwork to let you live. But this havoc cannot continue. Next time you step out of line, there shall be no escaping your justice."
"Um… Understood," Danny said, awkwardly bowing in the air.
"And you," the other one said, staring at Vlad. "You have acted most unwisely against the court in the past. Your actions here have caused us to decide against pursuing you, but you are at the same level as this one. Should you step out of line, again, we shall be forced to dispense necessary justice."
Vlad laughed. "If you think you can."
The Observants seemed to be unable to narrow their eyes, but they seemed to be glaring anyway. Then they flew to either end of the coffin, and they both drew whips out. They each cracked the whip twice on either side, and where the whips struck, little green cracks appeared in the air around them. The green realm expanded around the Observants and the coffin, and then disappeared, leaving nothing behind; presumably, the whips had somehow returned them to the Ghost Zone. Danny wondered why no other ghosts had anything like that.
"I look forward to seeing you clean up this mess, Daniel," Vlad said. "Both the publicity mess and, of course, the actual mess." He gestured around to all the shaking people laying around the ground with the rubble from the damaged buildings and cars. "I would wish you good luck, except, I don't wish that. Ta-ta!" He laughed and vanished into the air with a wisp of energy.
Danny noted his mother below readying the Fenton Bazooka, and he shot off into the distance to go back home and pretend he'd been there the whole time.
When Danny got to school tomorrow, everyone looked neurotic. People were glancing left and right all the time and physically attacking those who tapped them on the shoulder from behind.
Tucker was smiling—that was a good sign. Danny had assumed he'd be furious. He'd already seen Jazz and Sam, who were both a little disappointed in him for not being completely honest, but they'd understood the dire situation and had forgiven him this time.
"Glad to see you're not furious with me," Danny said. "How are things?"
Tucker continued to just smile and held up his PDA with an email he'd received this morning for being on the email list for the Doom computer game. According to the email, the new version of Doom was available for download for $59.99.
Remembering the promise he'd made the night before, Danny's shoulders slumped and he sighed. "Well," he said, "I guess I bloody well deserve it."
-THE END-