EPISODE 60—PHANTOM PLANET, PART TWO
"As news of the approaching asteroid—which some are now calling the 'Disasteroid'—circulates around the globe, countries are combining their greatest technology to stop the oncoming threat!"
They watched videos of three gigantic missiles being launched into space, each with at least two different flags inscribed on them. They rocketed towards the Disasteroid, and exploded hard on impact; a cloud of green smoke billowed out all around it.
People in the streets cheered, but Danny and his friends knew better than to cheer before they were completely certain that an enemy had been conquered; indeed, it was not over, as the asteroid plowed through the smoke seemingly undamaged, and continued to fly towards Earth.
The people in the streets all cast their gazes to the ground. "Sadly, it appears that our best may not be good enough," continued the newscaster. "And speaking of not good enough, let's go live to Fenton Works!"
"Thanks, Shelly," said Lance Thunder, standing in the Fentons' Ghost Lab. "I'm here ringside while a privately funded mission to stop the Disasteroid is underway."
Danny turned the TV off; he couldn't stand to watch Vlad stand in their lab with that smug look on his face. Noah had insisted upon going, to keep an eye on Vlad, but Danny and Dash stayed in Danny's bedroom.
"You think this is gonna work?" Dash muttered.
"Oh, yeah," Danny said. "Vlad couldn't mess up this opportunity to put himself on the highest pedestal in the world. He'll take all the credit for the project."
"He did pay for everything," Dash pointed out.
"True," Danny said. "But not even he wants the entire world to be destroyed."
"You think Noah will be able to keep his temper?"
"I think so. As long as Vlad doesn't—"
There was suddenly a loud screaming from downstairs. Danny and Dash exchanged glances and then bounded down the stairs.
"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" Noah was shouting. "CALL IT OFF! CALL THEM OFF—NOOOO!"
"What was that?" Jack's voice came. "You'll have to speak a little louder. What?"
"The coordinates were wrong!" Noah moaned. "That wasn't the Disasteroid you just fired at—"
There was an explosion as the asteroid burst into a thousand pieces… and then a larger asteroid floated past the spaceship seconds later.
Noah slammed his headphone set on the ground. "WHY DIDN'T YOU HAVE ANYONE DOUBLE-CHECK THE COORDINATES?" he shouted at the top of his lungs to Vlad. "You've doomed the entire earth! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"
"It wasn't my fault Jack Fenton messed up," Vlad said, shrugging.
That set Noah off. He jumped much farther into the air than he should have jumped if he wanted to avoid detection. His fist collided with Vlad's face with such ferocity that the older man flew twenty feet backwards, tumbling on the ground until he smashed into a machine on the other side of the room and dented it.
Noah continued to advance on Vlad, but Jazz grabbed him by the arm. "No!" she hissed at him. "He may still be the world's only chance!"
Vlad picked himself up, brushing off the assistance of Lance Thunder and his crewman. He glared fiercely at Noah. "The young boy simply had a misunderstanding," Vlad said. "The misunderstanding being the one responsible for this accident… of whom the identity is not secret."
He then walked over to Noah and whispered in the boy's ear, "I'm just kidding, you arrogant rat. The real misunderstanding you had was that I own the media and am about to make your life a living hell." He stood and walked swiftly out of the room. Danny and Dash edged into the room to avoid close contact with Vlad, and then they walked over to Jazz, Noah, Sam, and Tucker.
Jazz kept her hands on Noah's shoulders. "Not worth it," she repeated softly into his ear over and over again as he bared his teeth and breathed sharply through them. "Not worth it. Not worth it."
"You're right," Noah said finally, his shoulders dropping a little bit. "It won't do any good to turn on each other now. Until the world is saved, we have to work with him."
"And then you can paint the lab walls with his guts," Jazz growled through her teeth.
"And then I can paint the lab walls with his guts."
Sam hugged Noah. "I know you're so righteous," she said. "But be rational. If Vlad turns this into a media firestorm, stay cool and just repeat the truth. No matter how many people don't believe you, just keep repeating the truth."
They turned to the TV in the room, which seemed to be broadcasting some new breakthrough in the study. "Scientists now know the Disasteroid originated from the rings of Saturn two weeks ago!"
Danny wheeled around and gasped. "The rings of Saturn?" He turned back to his friends, who were all coming to the same conclusion. "Vlad's satellite exploded. That's what moved the asteroid!"
Noah's eyes flared up again. "HE'S the one that caused this?"
"Oh, man," Danny said, pressing a hand to his face. "This is…"
"Why would Vlad have let the mission fail, though?" Sam asked. "He couldn't have decided to let the world end! I mean, he wants to rule it! And he can't flee into the Ghost Zone, either; it's the flipside of our world. If we go, it goes, too!"
"I have a bad feeling of what Vlad's up to," Danny said. "I have no idea what it is, but I have a bad feeling about it."
"Anything having to do with Vlad is usually bad," Tucker pointed out. "Vlad even rhymes with bad."
"If he's gonna do something, it's gotta be soon," Danny said. "We can't do anything else from here. We'll just have to wait and see."
Sure enough, the next day, Vlad called for a press conference, and invited news stations from all around the globe, saying that he had news that would "impact the entire world," as he put it.
Danny, Noah, Sam, Tucker, Dash, and Jazz were all in attendance. Danny's mother was with his father, who was bruised and beaten up by the angry Masters' Blasters when the space mission had failed.
The Masters' Blasters now stood behind Vlad with very severe expressions; but Vlad looked almost insane with giddy as he prepared to deliver his speech.
"Let's see what this is about," Danny muttered.
"Citizens of the Earth! I have news that will impact the entire world!
"Though every attempt at destroying the Disasteroid has failed… I come to you today offering an alternative solution." Abruptly, he clambered onto the podium in front of him, pulling his legs up into a froglike stance; all six of the Masters' Blasters' eyes widened and looked at him. "One I think you will find most surprising!"
"He's not…" Noah started; but Vlad finished.
Vlad leaped off the podium in a melodramatic fashion, and then flew into the air above the crowd effortlessly. As the crowd gaped below him, he split off his signature double ring of darkness that flowed over his body, leaving a white suit and cape with a red interior, pale blue skin, and a jet-black hairline. He floated above the gasping masses in his transformed ghostly self, and then let out an evil laugh.
"N-No!" Danny stuttered.
"I did not see that coming," Jack stated simply.
The Masters' Blasters were the first to react other than stares, gasps or points; they took stances and charged their ecto-weapons. Unfortunately, they had no idea who they were up against.
Vlad split himself off into three separate bodies, each of which fired a violent purple energy beam, blasting all three members of the teen team off their feet at once along with the podium; with a cry they were knocked down the stage and unconscious.
Vlad merged himself back into one being, and he flew lower and closer to the podium, resuming his speech. "Yes… Though I used my human half to walk among you, it's obvious I am a far superior creature!"
The newscaster from the other day held up a microphone and shouted, "Who ARE you?"
Vlad grinned. "Though the world has come to know me as Vlad Masters, billionaire mayor of Amity Park, I prefer you call me by my chosen, slightly more evil name: Vlad Plasmius!"
Maddie staggered backwards into Jack, finally able to voice her amazement. "Vlad's… a ghost?"
"I have a proposition to make," Vlad continued, smiling smugly with closed eyes. "The nations of the world must agree—unanimously—to pay me five hundred billion dollars, and make me absolute ruler. In return, I shall use my ghost powers—"
"To destroy the Disasteroid?" a reporter who sounded strangely like Technus yelled to him.
"No. To turn it intangible!"
"Evil," Maddie stated, "but ingenious! That way, it'll just… pass harmlessly through the Earth!"
"It's your choice, world," Vlad finished. "Be destroyed, or be saved! …Oh, and ruled by me. I eagerly await your decision!" He started to laugh, but suddenly stopped.
Noah had clambered onto the stage and righted the podium, then leaned on it with his arms and glared directly at Vlad.
Vlad fired an energy beam, but Noah swept his arm at the incoming blast and deflected it into the wall of the building behind him. The crowd gasped.
"I have news that will impact the entire world, too," Noah said as Danny, Sam, Tucker, Jazz and Dash finally pushed their way to the front of the crowd in his trail and shook their heads no. Noah did not break his gaze with Vlad.
"You disgust me," Noah continued in a low, threatening voice. "World, I have a proposition of my own to make!" He climbed onto the podium, too, and then jumped straight up into the air, and floated there with his arms folded.
With a shimmering all over his skin, he transformed himself into the unnamed ghost who had been terrorizing Amity Park for the past week.
The crowd gasped again, and Vlad's expression turned to fury.
"I'll turn the Disasteroid intangible!" Noah exclaimed. "And I'll do it… for free!"
"Back down, boy, if you know what's good for you!" Vlad spat. "Or I will destroy you completely like I did to Danny Phantom!"
Another gasp. People started to shout things like "It's not true!" and "He's lying!"
"I did!" Vlad laughed. "I destroyed Danny Phantom! Let him show up if he thinks I'm wrong!" He held a hand to his ear. "No? Well, then, I suppose I'm telling the truth!" He pointed at Noah. "If you accept this boy's offer, I will destroy his craft before it leaves the atmosphere!"
A blast came out of the crowd and struck Vlad in the back; he spiraled downwards, and Valerie burst out of the crowd. She fired more shots, hitting Vlad out of the crowd; Noah followed close and punched him hard in the side of the head, where he crashed down hard. Noah ripped off his necklace as Vlad struck the ground.
He whipped the necklace into Vlad's throat, and the older man choked a breath out before a blue light enveloped him and he was sucked into the necklace instantly. He disappeared with a wisp of red smoke, and Noah smirked and held up the necklace.
The crowd cheered and rushed at him; Noah rose up into the air and folded his arms, smiling smugly.
Danny ran over to Valerie and hugged her; she smiled and shouldered her ecto-gun. "You're welcome," she whispered. "Thank Noah for me, too."
Media folk held up their microphones, shouting questions. Noah held up his hands in protest, and everyone fell silent. "One question at a time, please." He pointed to a news anchor who had raised his hand.
"How can we trust you?" the news anchor stated. "You've attacked the local high school and more, fighting off Danny Phantom and the Masters' Blasters!"
"I assure you, as part human, I'd like to see the world relatively not obliterated," Noah answered. "As for my 'attacks,' I've been reformed by Danny Phantom. He's entrusted ghost-fighting to me while he is on vacation."
"So he's not been destroyed by Vlad?" someone yelled.
"No," Noah responded confidently. "Vlad Plasmius simply took advantage of the fact that he knew Danny Phantom had been taking a vacation in the Ghost Zone, and then claimed to have destroyed him, to intimidate everyone."
"And you'll do what Vlad has claimed… for free?" another news anchor yelled.
"Yes," Noah said. "I…" He thought for a moment, stroking his chin.
The crowd was silent, praying that he wasn't rethinking the offer. But Noah smiled and turned back to the crowd, and said, "Just one thing I'd like to see changed. When the world is saved, homosexual marriage shall be LEGALIZED in every country."
The crowd was silent for a moment. Then Gary, the gay kid from school, whistled loudly and shouted, "Amen to that!"
He started clapping, and other people in the town started to join. Finally, the sound of the clapping drowned out the boos that were coming from the vast minority. Noah smiled and bowed in the air.
"How will you enforce this?" shouted Shelly, the local newscaster, when the clapping died down. "There will certainly be some countries who will not carry out on their word, or resist this doctrine from the getgo."
"There will be retribution if that order isn't followed," Noah replied firmly. Then he held out his necklace. "And if they refuse beforehand, I could always let Vlad go, and he'll save the world instead. It wouldn't affect me; I can live life outside of legal bounds. So, religious extremist morons: if you value not being enslaved more than you value stopping good people who love each other from being married, I suggest you follow my lead. I will leave as soon as I am contacted by the majority of the world, and I will force the rest to follow. You know where to find me." He faded into the air, grinning.
Noah, Danny, and Dash hung out in the lab while the decision was being made. Noah was tinkering with the Specter Speeder, making it easier to track specific ghosts.
"I installed the new and updated ghost tracker," he said, wiping sweat from his brow and tossing aside a wrench. "And it only took seven hours, counting yesterday's work."
"Awesome," Danny said.
"Oh, and toss me your necklace," Noah said. "I made an even better one for you… If you activate it, it'll capture any ghost within five feet. Just don't use it near me, okay?"
"That's a nifty feature," Danny complimented.
"Thanks," Noah said. "You can use it now, because you're… well…"
"Mmhm. I getcha." He slid the necklace on and tossed Noah the old one.
"Yeah, this new Ghost Tracker is ultra-sensitive," Noah said. "And it stockpiles information on ghosts, so we could find—let's say, Vlad—anywhere on the globe using his ecto-signature, without having to do more than type in his name. Um…" He stared at the screen and tried to pick something off of it with his fingernail. "What is that? Is there another ghost in here?"
"No," Danny said, looking around. "Your ghost sense would have gone off."
"Oh, don't tell me this thing has bugs," Noah whined. "I spent so much time on it. Why… What is this? There aren't any ghosts of 'scale 0.004' ectoplasmic power. That's miniscule! They wouldn't even be ghosts! They'd be…" He gasped. "OH MY GOD…"
"What? What?" Danny yelled, jumping up.
"Danny, Danny, oh my god," Noah stammered. "It didn't show up until you took off the necklace that masked your ecto-signature. Move to the other end of the room!"
"What—?"
"MOVE!"
Danny ran to the other side of the room, and he could see Noah tracking a path with his finger. "It is you! Danny, there's ghost left in you!"
"There is?" Danny ran to the monitor, pushed Noah aside and stared at it. "I don't see anything! What were you talking about?"
Noah was still holding Danny's old necklace; he threw it aside to the other end of the room along with his own. Suddenly an extremely faint blue dot appeared on the screen, and information started popping up about it.
Levitation max height: 0.04"
Air speed max velocity: 0.01 MPH
There was more information, like max energy output, max energy blockage, max clone count, and, finally, the Scale number: 0.004. But he was definitely still showing up.
"There must have been some sort of weird screw-up with the Fenton Portal," Noah said. He clicked on a red dot on the screen, and all sorts of information popped up, in much higher quantities than the first. "This dot is me. This other one has to be you. There's no other explanation! You still have some ghost traces left in your DNA!"
"What does that mean?" Danny asked.
"It means, with enough spectral energy, you could get a jump almost like a car, and your genome would regress—Danny, you could get your powers back!"
"Don't even say that yet," Danny laughed, putting a hand to his heart. "I think I might die of happiness."
"Danny…"
Dash sidled up to him and hooked his arm around the rejuvenated teen, who gladly hooked an arm back. "Dash, can you believe it?" Danny laughed.
"This is great," he said. "But… Noah, quick question. Where are we going to get all that spectral energy?"
Noah took out a calculator. "I could blast you with an energy ray for… one hundred and six hours," he offered. "Rough estimate."
"Wait!" Danny said. "What about the Ecto-converter that we used on Riptide?"
"Oh, yeah!" Noah said. "Danny, that's perfect!" He ran to the drawers and started opening them.
"Riptide," Dash said, laughing. "Fun times."
Noah pulled it out. "Um… I don't know how this would work, though. It would probably intensify my energy to the point that it would cremate you."
"Oh," Danny said. "Can't you think of something—"
He was interrupted by the sound of footsteps; when he turned around to look at the lab stairs, he was shocked to see that it was Valerie Gray who was walking down them. She waved at Danny, and he waved back nervously.
She sidled up to him and whispered, "Do both of them know?"
Danny nodded.
"Oh," she said, backing up and looking at Dash. "That's… odd. I never really saw you and Dash as good enough friends to share that…"
"We weren't," Dash said confidently. "Until we started going out."
Valerie gave some cross between a hiccup and a cough, and then started laughing. "Oh, you got me," she said, wiping a tear from her eye.
"We're… serious," Danny said, and pulled himself close to Dash.
Valerie raised an eyebrow. "All right, why don't you kiss?"
They took her suggestion immediately, and Valerie gawked. "Whoa!" she shouted. "Really?"
"Really."
Valerie rubbed the back of her neck. "Forgive me, Dash, but I thought your parents were a little…"
"I really don't care," Dash said. "I left and I'm not going back until they can suck up their fundamental Catholicism and deal with me."
"I think that's great," she said, smiling. "And you, Noah… I think I get now why you were so adamant about gay rights?"
Noah laughed. "Yep."
"Look at you, Dash," Valerie laughed. "If Paulina only knew! You're going out with Danny Phantom!"
Danny sighed; Noah spoke for him. "Valerie… he doesn't have his powers anymore."
"WHAT?" Valerie almost fell down. "What do you mean? That's not…" She held up her watch to him, and nothing was going off. "Wait, your necklace!"
"That's a new one," Noah said. "It doesn't mask him."
"How is that… How did this happen?" Valerie fiddled with her watch.
"Vlad threw me in the Fenton Portal and turned it on," Danny said. "That's how I got my powers. It took them away this time."
"That son of a…" Valerie growled. "Is there any way to fix it?"
Noah nodded. "He still has the tiniest bit left in him. We think that if he was hit with enough spectral energy, he'd be able to restructure his DNA and become half-ghost again! But… it's going to be difficult."
Valerie took out a large ecto-gun and smiled. "I'd be happy to help if you need it!"
Noah laughed. "Nah, I think even with both of us firing, it'd probably take three days at the least to get enough energy, and he might be dead by—" He cut himself off with a sudden realization, and jumped about three feet straight up in the air, grabbing his hair with both hands. "Wait! WAIT!" he yelled on landing.
"We're waiting," Dash said, laughing. "What?"
"Valerie!" Noah shouted, running back to one of the lab tables. "Let me hook up with your guns!"
"Ex-CUSE me?"
Noah slapped himself in the forehead. "God, I'm sorry. I meant, let me hook this up with your gun!" He picked up the ecto-converter.
"What is that?" Valerie said, handing him the larger weapon. Noah took it and ran back to the lab table.
"It's an ecto-converter," Danny explained so that Noah didn't have to take his mind off the task at hand. "Noah built it when we were fighting Riptide. It takes spectral energy and intensifies it massively in the user. The problem is that if Noah shot me while holding it, it would probably destroy my body… I don't know how Noah plans to fix that."
"Danny, I think I might be able to do this," Noah said, bouncing up and down on his heels like an excited kid. "I think I can modify the gun to make this work! If that's okay with you, Valerie."
"Oh, do it," she said happily. "I've got dozens."
"It might take a while," Noah said over his shoulder. "I have no idea how long."
Danny laughed to himself. "Sometimes I wish the world was more like a video game," he said. "I could walk up the stairs into the living room, and then when I walked back down, you'd be done."
"I wish it was like a kid's cartoon," Valerie said. "Then we'd know everything would turn out okay."
"I wish it was like the romance channel," Dash said. Then he elbowed Danny softly in the side. "Oh, wait… it is!" He grabbed Danny and kissed him again.
"As much as I'd like to do this right now," Noah said, "I think we're probably close to a decision."
Almost on cue, Danny's parents rushed down the stairs and held their hands together. "Noah," Maddie said. "The world accepts your offer! The rocket's all ready!"
"My own flesh and blood," Jack said, tearing up. "Saving the world! I'll have to get my autograph hand ready!"
"We're so proud of you," Maddie said. "Not just for the world-saving thing… for the other part, too." She brushed aside his hair and pecked him on the forehead. "The world-saving thing is pretty neat, too, though."
Noah nodded and ran up the stairs; the three other teens followed closely behind him, with Danny's parents coming up last. Noah flipped on the T.V.
"The world has come to a decision: to NOT be obliterated!" proclaimed Shelly the local newscaster. "Local boy Noah Nightingale, now known as the ghost kid that some had titled 'Inviso-Bill Jr.' or 'DisapPeter,' is taking to the jet to board the asteroid now! With his ghost powers, he will hopefully turn the Disasteroid intangible and save the planet! And in doing so, he's accomplished what millions of activists have dreamed of doing for decades—equal marriage opportunities for all! Of course, there are some who actively spoke out against this ideal…"
The screen changed to a man with long hair and a beard pacing back and forth on a stage, screaming and ranting. "Let the world be destroyed!" he shouted. "It has been foretold in the Revelations! We have failed to destroy this Disasteroid because it is not up to us to decide the fate of our planet! We should allow the world to be destroyed, and then collect our reward in Heaven for being faithful, rather than allow this sacrilege to become the norm!"
The screen switched back to Shelly, who grimly stated, "Security has been heightened to the extremes around the rocket that is to carry Noah. In fact, the only people allowed to work on the project are people with proven homosexual relations—to ensure that they do not intend to sabotage the mission!"
"I'm going," Noah said. "I should have left earlier. Wish me luck." Without looking back, he transformed and shot out of the room like the rocket he was about to board.
"I wonder how he managed to fool us that whole time," Maddie said, stroking her chin.
"I know!" Jack agreed. "After all, it's nearly impossible to fool me! Isn't that right, my one-hundred-percent-human son?"
"Wait a minute," Maddie said. "Danny, did you know that Noah was a ghost?"
"Um…" Danny said, biting his lower lip, trying to decide what he should say. "Uh… yes. Yeah. He had to let me know, because he was meeting Danny Phantom." It was true, after all. "And I needed to know where he was going."
"Wow," Jack said. "So, who's Danny Phantom, then?"
Danny started to sweat again. "Um… he's not a half-ghost." This was also not a lie—Danny Phantom was less than one percent ghost at the moment.
"Interesting," Maddie said. "Oh—look! The rocket's taking off!"
They watched the T.V. screen. "That was quick," Danny said.
Noah was waving hello to a cheering crowd as he climbed into the rocket with a member of the space program named Theo Austaire. Steam billowed from the bottom of the rocket. Then there was a roar, and the rocket started to lift off into the air.
There was a small explosion near the bottom of the rocket, and it suddenly stopped its ascent, plummeting back the thirty feet it had climbed.
Noah dove at Theo, making himself and the astronaut intangible, and knocked the man outside of the rocket as it crashed back into the ground with an enormous rumble.
The Fenton household stared, shocked, until Shelly came back on looking happy as ever. "Folks, there are no worries," Shelly said. "Noah and Theo had been warned that sabotage was entirely possible. A second rocket had been built in case of such an event, and it is to that location that Noah is currently headed!"
The sighs of relief were almost worldwide. They watched the T.V. tensely as the television switched scenes, the second location of which was not explicitly revealed. A smaller rocket emerged from the ground, and Noah flew into it swiftly. It hadn't taken him more than five minutes to arrive—it worried Danny that the second location was so close to the first. He just stared at the screen and prayed that the world would be safe.
Noah and Theo phased into the rocket, and the take-off procedure was almost immediate in fear of another sabotage attempt.
"Come on," Danny whispered to himself, watching the rocket lift itself off the ground as the last one had done. "Come on!"
His heart stopped completely as a man popped out of the hole from which the spaceship had emerged—he was holding what looked exactly like a rocket launcher.
Noah could be seen through a thick window in the craft; he held a hand up to his ear, as if he was listening to a transmission describing what was going on below. He nodded and pressed his hands to his seat—the other hand held the ecto-converter.
The transparency effect swept throughout the entire ship, turning it intangible just as a rocket blasted out from the end of the launcher towards it. The rocket passed harmlessly through, and Noah released the effect after it exploded high in the air above him.
A shot rang out as the man attempted to reload, and the rocket launcher exploded in his hands. The media refused to show what happened to the man after that—probably to avoid making him a martyr, Danny figured. But then his mind focused back on the ship that was now entering space, and he jumped for joy that everything was about to be okay. And Noah had brought the ecto-converter—how smart was that? He hadn't even noticed that it was gone. That was brilliant in case he wasn't powerful enough to affect the entire Disasteroid. It looked like they were all safe.
The process was painfully long as Noah went deep into space. When they finally encountered the Disasteroid, Noah phased out with a helmet and the ecto-converter. He gave a thumbs-up to Theo, who smiled back; then, he hooked the ecto-converter around one arm, and reached for the Disasteroid with the other.
Something was wrong. Something was horribly, horribly wrong; a painful electric-like shock coursed throughout his entire body, and he shouted out. It was agony—what was going on? What was this? He ripped his hands away, and something happened to his necklace. The metal shattered, pieces floating off gently into space, and Vlad Plasmius appeared, holding his head and growling.
"What—what is this?" Vlad howled, looking around; Noah could only understand him through reading his lips, as sound did not carry in space.
Vlad spied the spaceship and the Disasteroid, and turned an angry gaze towards Noah. "Why have you released me up here?"
"We—don't need helmets up here?" Noah asked, and then shook his head, trying to return his thoughts to the problem at hand. "Why can't I touch it?"
Vlad didn't catch the first sentence, but he read Noah's lips to understand the second. He stared at the Disasteroid. "Why can't you touch that?"
"It… hurt me," he responded. "Badly." Vlad wasn't looking, and he didn't see Noah speaking; he simply reached his hand out and poked the Disasteroid quickly. A burning sensation flooded his finger and swept throughout his entire body, even seconds after he pulled his finger away. "How can this be? No… This isn't…"
He turned to Noah and flew inside the ship. Noah followed shortly after.
"It's Ectoranium," Vlad said grimly, staring with a horrified look at the Disasteroid. "A naturally occurring anti-ghost element! The entire asteroid is composed of it. We… We can never touch it. So… the earth is doomed…!"
Noah sat down on the floor of the ship and put his head in his hands. "This can't be happening. It can't be."
"I'm afraid it is, young Noah," Vlad said softly. "We'd be better off hijacking this ship and finding another planet. If we stay in our ghost forms, we won't need to eat."
Noah stood up again and stared him down. "You really just don't know how to be a good guy, do you?"
"I never found it worthwhile to learn," Vlad replied.
Noah sighed. "Theo, you'd better turn this bucket around and head back to Earth to spend your last moments with your husband and other family. Vlad, I'm afraid that, for my safety and Theo's, I'm going to have to take you in." He shot at Vlad, tackling him out of the ship again, and they tumbled through the stars.
"Idiot boy!" Vlad yelled silently. "No one can sneak up on me this time and save you. You're nothing compared to me!"
Noah held up the ecto-converter and smiled sweetly. "And now I am."
Vlad took on a shocked expression as Noah used one hand to hold the converter and the other hand to blast a ray of energy that exploded into Vlad and sent him flying backwards through space at a speed that Noah couldn't even comprehend.
"That's for Danny," Noah said. He nodded shortly and then flew back into the spaceship as it was finishing the turn to blast back to Earth.
Vlad laughed without sound as he clung to the side of the ship invisibly. Had they really fallen for that sacrifice-the-clone trick again?
The world was mostly silent, having received news of the mission's failure. Hopes everywhere had crumbled, and it seemed like there was nothing left they could do.
Sam hugged Noah when the sullen teen returned, and kissed him on the cheek. "This is in no way your fault," she whispered in his ear. "There was nothing you could do."
"What are we gonna do?" Tucker cried out, his voice cracking.
Danny suddenly walked wide-eyed into the room, looking excited. "What if we didn't make the asteroid intangible…?"
"Then… it would obliterate the earth," Tucker answered.
"Not if we made the earth intangible!" Danny replied.
Sam and Noah glanced over at him. "The entire earth? Intangible?" Jazz said amazedly. "Are you joking?"
"Yeah, you'd need like, a bazillion ghosts to do that!" Tucker piped in.
"Behold!" Danny said, whipping out the Infi-map and slapping it against his open palm. "The addresses of a bazillion ghosts!"
"That's the spirit!" Dash yelled. "We could totally do this!"
"Danny," Noah said. "I want to fix you up first. I think I could get your powers back within a day!"
"Do that," Danny said. "I'm going to go describe the plan to the world. But… I don't know how anyone is going to listen to me… I'm not, like, Danny Phantom."
"You could be," Noah insisted. "Give me a moment's time."
"Wait!" Danny said, the last line having triggered a breakthrough in his mind. "Clockwork!"
"Clockwork?" Sam said. "Danny, I don't know if he's going to help. He's a neutral presence. He doesn't usually interfere."
"No, we don't have to make him help us," Danny said. "Clockwork's lair exists outside of time! If we bring Noah and all the materials there, then he doesn't have to worry about a time limit! He can work as long as he wants to, and no time will go by!"
"That's great!" Noah said. "What are we waiting for?"
"We don't have a ghost portal," Tucker pointed out. "And Vlad's place is probably going to be swarmed now that everyone knows who he really is."
"We'll take a portal from the Infi-map," Danny said. "It can lead us to any entrance into the Ghost Zone! Let's go, now!"
"Agreed!" Noah said. "Everyone go outside! I'll bring the Speeder!" He phased through the floor of the house into the lab to retrieve the Speeder and his materials.
When the rest of the group—Danny, Dash, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Valerie—had gone outside and circled around to the back of the house, Noah rose up through the ground with an intangible Specter Speeder. It faded back into tangibility as the six teens climbed inside it, and then the Speeder blasted off.
"According to the map, a portal is about to open, right… here!" Danny said, pointing to the Nasty Burger billboard, which pictured a teen eating a burger. True to his word, a second later the billboard flashed green, and a spiraling neon energy vortex filled the spot around the mouth. The Speeder blasted through, and Tucker screamed, "Now I know how my chili fries feel!" Everyone in the Speeder rolled their eyes.
The core members of the gang looked around to try and figure out where they were. Jazz had not been in the Ghost Zone more than once, as far as Danny remembered. She was still looking around with amazement. Dash had only been in a few times, and Valerie had only gone once (but didn't remember it). Tucker was holding the Infi-map and scanning it with his finger. "We're actually pretty close to Clockwork's lair," he said. "We've only got maybe two minutes of trip to go. Let's hope we don't get found."
"It seems pretty empty," Jazz said. "Is it usually like this?"
"Skulker!" Danny shouted, pointing forward; Noah shielded the front of the Speeder as they barreled past the hunter ghost, who was still firing blue energy beams at them.
"Come back here, ghost child!" Skulker yelled. "What are you doing here? Seeking refuge in the Ghost Zone like all the others?"
"What others?" Danny yelled into the loudspeaker.
"All these ghosts!" Skulker yelled, flying in front of the Speeder, which slowed to a stop as Noah prepared to fight. He pointed around at hundreds of generic-looking ghosts who appeared from every corner up ahead. "They've returned here because you humans put your world in danger. Now the Ghost Zone is bursting at the seams!"
"But it's the flipside of our world," Tucker protested. "If the earth gets destroyed, the Ghost Zone goes, too!"
Skulker fired another blast of energy; Noah pounced through the windshield of the Speeder and kicked the blast aside with ease, then slashed his other foot through the air in a follow-up, producing a stream of fire that scorched some of Skulker's armor. He stumbled back, staring at the human boy who had apparently assaulted him.
"Another one," Skulker said, stroking his chin. "I shall have your pelt on my wall as well!"
"That's weird," Noah said, backing towards the Speeder again. "Not likely, though!"
"That's what you think, whelp!" Skulker said; he tossed a glowing black cube at the boy. Noah blasted energy at it, but it did nothing to stop the cube, which enveloped and electrocuted him.
"Not good!" Danny said. He opened up the windshield with a button on the dashboard. "Valerie, do your thing!"
Valerie clicked her heels together as she jumped into the air and pressed a button on her wrist. The bio-suit that enveloped her whirred with energy as a hover-board formed under her. She blasted after Noah, slamming into Skulker with the prongs of the board, skewering his mechanical exo-skeleton.
Skulker shouted out. "You again!" He looked into the Speeder and spied Dash. "And you, too! The one who destroyed my last suit! How am I supposed to hunt all of you at once?"
"How about we do the hunting, then?" Valerie shouted as she whipped out a cannon and slammed it against Skulker's forehead.
Skulker winced as the cannon charged up and exploded into the head of his outfit. The small ghost who inhabited the head floated off unconsciously into the Ghost Zone as Valerie kicked off the lower half of the armor from her hover-board.
Noah's cube faded into the air, and he took a deep breath as he looked at Valerie, who headed back into the Speeder. He followed shortly after and closed the windshield behind them; they continued through the Ghost Zone towards Clockwork.
More ghosts were following them; it looked like they, too, wanted to pick a fight. But they weren't faster than the Speeder hooked up to the ecto-converter, a process which had taken Noah only the thirty seconds it took to pilot the Speeder towards the Nasty Burger sign. He was really a whiz with electronics.
"There it is," Danny said, pointing at Clockwork's lair. They passed through a strange dark halo that surrounded the castle, and Danny looked at his watch—it had stopped ticking. Instead, the second, minute, and hour hands all spun so fast it looked like they were on every time at once. In fact, they might have been.
They landed on the ground-level floor—then again, there wasn't really a ground in this part of the Ghost Zone. The seven teens stepped outside, four of them looking around in amazement at the lair of the ghost of time, which they had never seen before. A voice above them mused, "You're welcome to visit any time, of course."
They all looked up to see Clockwork leaning on the terrace above, looking down from the face of the grandfather clock. His form was currently that of an old man. "I still think it's cheating just a little bit, but you may stay for as long as you need."
"Does he already know why we're here?" Dash muttered to Danny.
"I know everything," Clockwork said. "Come inside. Please." He floated back into his tower.
Danny waved to the rest of the group. He stopped for a moment and looked back—it was interesting how the posse had grown. At first, it was just him, Sam, and Tucker. Then Jazz had found out, but that was a while ago. Then Dash had discovered Danny's secret but hadn't let on to it, and then Noah appeared, and Valerie found out, and Dash disclosed to Danny that he knew… they had gone from three to seven. Would they get anyone else?
…Maybe. But only if the world was still there.
They trudged into the atrium; Valerie, Dash, and Jazz looked around in awe at all the mechanisms inside the clock tower. Noah ignored it and immediately set to work on the machine he'd brought; even knowing that they had all the time in the world, he still felt like he couldn't move fast enough.
"Danny," Noah whispered, beckoning his friend over.
Danny walked over to Noah and leaned down. "What is it?"
"I was just wondering." He sighed. "I'm a little distracted by it, so I want to see if you know. The Ghost Tracker couldn't comprehend Clockwork's power—there was a dot on the screen that I assumed was Clockwork, because the numbers were freaking out and spazzing between 0 and 99. But… there was another dot in this fortress. It was a scale 15 ectoplasmic entity. It was separate from Clockwork, and it stood completely still. Do you have any idea what it was?"
"N…" Danny thought as hard as he could. "Give me a moment… I feel like I should know this."
Noah went back to working, and Danny scanned his thoughts. Scale 15… Has Clockwork ever mentioned anything like that…? A powerful—
"Oh," Danny said. "Um… duh."
Noah looked up. "You remembered?"
"Yeah," Danny said. "It's evil me from ten years in the future, which is no longer destined to happen because Clockwork intervened under orders of the Observants. He was ordered to destroy me, but he instead gave me a second chance to not cheat on the test that caused my family and friends to die in an explosion in the Nasty Burger."
Noah blinked slowly. "Care to explain it without being sarcastic?"
"No, that's what happened," Danny said. "I know it's a little weird, but… Whatever. This'll take a while to explain. I'll tell you later."
Noah nodded and got back to wiring in the ecto-converter to Valerie's gun. The challenge wasn't hooking it up—the challenge was filtering the ghostly energy so that it wouldn't destroy Danny's physical form; it would simply zap him with enough energy to spark the ghostly remnants of his alter-ego's genome to return.
The science of this sounded ridiculous. Noah just ignored how strange everything sounded and trudged on with his work.
Danny admired Noah's diligence for a little while, and then offered to take everyone on a tour of Clockwork's dominion. He walked hand-in-hand with Dash up the stairs, and opened the door to the top floor. Valerie, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker followed, leaving Noah alone so he could focus on his work.
"Wow," Dash said, looking around. "This is amazing! Are those… portals to other times? He gawked into the eighties portal. "Are those my parents?" He whipped around with a grin on his face. "Valerie! Valerie, fly me into the past! Maybe I can change my parents' minds about homosexuality!"
Danny put a hand on Dash's shoulder. "Trust me," he said. "I've had experience trying to change the past. And the future. Believe me when I tell you that these sorts of things are best saved for the present."
"You've learned well," Clockwork said, floating into the room. He was a small child again.
"Who's that?" Dash asked.
"It's Clockwork, Dash," Danny said. "You saw him when we came in."
"That's Clockwork?" Dash asked. "I thought he was—oh."
Clockwork's form changed into an old man again. "I see the parades of your timelines have finally met," he said, looking from Danny to Dash.
Dash looked confused, but Danny brightened up. "Oh!" he said. "When I was tracking Wardback! You told me that Dash would play a significant part in my life!"
"Why were you tracking Wardback?" Sam asked. Danny winced; he still hadn't told them about Wardback's temper tantrum that almost turned the entire world backwards forever.
Clockwork interrupted, much to Danny's relief. "You kids are a noble group," he said, becoming a middle-aged adult. "Selfless, and accountable. I would not have allowed you to bend the rules of time if you were doing this for yourselves. But the one who remains downstairs… What a noble cause he works for."
"I'll tell him you said that," Danny said, smiling.
"I know you will," Clockwork said, winking. "Have a good stay." He turned back into a child and phased through the wall.
"Well, geez," Valerie said, turning to Danny. "If he really knows everything… I'd have asked him if you ever get your powers back, and if the world gets saved."
"It's not our place to know that," Danny said. "I have a feeling Clockwork left before you could ask him."
Valerie laughed. "We don't get to know the fate of our own planet?"
"It's not that," Danny said, turning to her. "It's because we decide its fate."
Nine hours later, Noah was still working, and the teens were still exploring the castle, marveling at its wonders. There were many artifacts dating back hundreds of years. In one room, they encountered dinosaur skeletons; in another, they encountered living dinosaurs, frozen in time.
"This is crazy," Tucker said, putting his head between the jaws of a carnivorous dinosaur the size of a horse. "Do you think, if we put medallions on these, they'd come to life?"
"I don't want to try it," Danny said. "But they might very well."
"This castle is a lot bigger than it looks on the outside," Sam noted.
"Maybe it's a distortion of space-time," Valerie said. "Scientists often say that space and time are connected."
Danny nodded. "He seems to be able to teleport or transport other people anywhere, too," he said. "I went from the University of Wisconsin to Amity Park in a half a second when I was here a couple times ago. Or maybe it's just because when time is nonexistent, you can't perceive movement, so it seems instantaneous. Whatever. Who are we to try and decide how these things work?"
They left the dinosaur room and passed a long, narrow hallway that seemed about a football field's length. "I wonder what's down there," Dash asked.
"Let's go find out," Danny said, shrugging. They walked down the length of the hallway, which was so thin that they had to walk single file to fit comfortably.
The door at the end was not sealed tightly, but it still looked ominous. It was a plain wooden door with a wooden beam across the handles that had to be lifted in order to gain access.
They slid the beam down and creaked the door open, peeking in slowly.
Danny was the first to see, and he gasped, recognizing it immediately. He waved the others in and held the door open.
It was a Fenton Thermos, suspended in the air, with a hand punching through the side, frozen in time. Small pieces of the Fenton Thermos had been frozen while shattering apart from the whole; when Danny walked around the side to look inside the hole, he could see a pair of red glowing eyes staring directly at him.
"It's my evil self," Danny told them. "Frozen in time at the point where he broke through the other side of the thermos."
"Your evil self?" Dash asked, staring concernedly at his boyfriend.
"Evil me from ten years in the future," Danny informed him. "Don't worry; we avoided that future. With Clockwork's help. But I guess my evil self still exists, since he began to exist outside of time."
"Clockwork can hold him, right?" Sam asked nervously.
"Of course," Danny said. "Clockwork is all-powerful. He'd know if an escape was possible."
"You should have seen that future," Danny said, turning to Valerie. "It was crazy. You were the main enemy of my evil future self… Amity Park was in shambles… Future me had no problems nearly killing me, and almost killed my entire family. Scariest thing I've ever encountered."
Clockwork could be seen at the opposite end of the hall. He called to them, "Your friend is about finished."
"Awesome," Dash said. "Come on! Let's go do this!"
They raced back down the hallway and weaved through the maze of Clockwork's lair; arriving in the atrium just as Noah lifted up the gun and shouted, "YES!"
He turned around and laughed. "Figured Clockwork would send you up here at the exact second that I finished," he said. "Danny! All Valerie needs to do is point this at you and fire while I bombard the converter with energy from above. And it'll trigger the reformation of your ghostly half!"
"That's so great," Danny said. "You sure there's gonna be no side effects, though? I won't, like, be stuck in ghost form or anything?"
"I sincerely, sincerely doubt it," Noah said brightly. "Though I'd rather be all ghost than all human… That's not the point, though. You don't have to choose!" He held up the gun. "Valerie, could you get this?"
"Of course!" Valerie ran over and held the gun, pointing it at Danny.
Noah floated above them, winking. "Ready?" he called.
"Ready!" Danny yelled. "Hit it!"
Noah held both of his hands straight downwards and channeled his energy into a blast that struck the ecto-converter; Valerie fired the gun with a bright orange ray that did not smash into Danny as he expected it to; rather, it seemed to flow into him, heating up his chest and flooding his fingers with fire.
He strained against the urge to collapse in a heap on the ground and endured the pain; his skin flashed transparent and his bones were visible by the crowd; his hair flashed opposite colors, and there was a small explosion. Noah let go of his energy blast, and watched and waited.
When the smoke cleared, Danny was whooping and hollering, floating in the air a foot above the floor. His Danny Phantom outfit was back!
The other teens threw triumphant fists in the air and hollered victoriously. They slapped high fives; Dash yelled, "Danny Phantom's BACK, baby!"
Danny, however, had stopped cheering. He floated back to the ground. "Noah?" he said, staring at his hands. The cheering stopped. "Noah, is this supposed to…?"
"Is what supposed to what?" Noah asked, turning paler than usual.
"I'm…"
Danny gasped and coughed wetly; green liquid splattered out of his mouth. "Guys. GUYS. I'm—Oh my god. Oh my god." He fell to his knees on the floor, which squished and splattered several feet in each direction.
Sam, Valerie, and Noah all screamed. Dash ran over to Danny and cupped the ghost's face in his hands. "Danny!" he shouted. "Danny, concentrate! You can stop this! Concentrate on forming yourself again!"
Danny's face was starting to drip down Dash's hands, but Dash didn't pull away. Danny tried to concentrate on reforming, but he felt powerless over his own body.
Danny's eyes managed to roll up and look into Dash's one last time as he whispered, "E…Ect-ecto de… ecto dej—" His mouth stopped moving.
The liquid was gushing out of him like a fountain now. His face melted through Dash's hands and a pool of green liquid was all that was left when it stopped flowing outwards.
Dash screamed the most violent scream anyone in the room had ever heard. "DANNY! DANNY!"
Noah screamed next. "I KILLED HIM!" he howled, slamming his forehead into the floor. "OH MY GOD… I KILLED HIM."
Dash whipped around to face Sam and Tucker. "He whispered something!" he shouted. "Like he knew a solution. He said… 'ecto dej.' What does that mean?"
It was Valerie who gasped. "Ecto-Dejecto!" she yelled. "ECTO-DEJECTO!"
"What is that?" Noah asked, looking up. "Is that something that could help?"
"Yes! Yes!" Valerie cried. "It's what saved Danielle when she melted down!"
"That's brilliant," Sam said. "I can't believe Danny had the presence of mind to think of that! Quickly, get some sort of—container or something. We need something to put Danny in!"
They rummaged through the Speeder's storage compartments; Tucker found a beaker large enough to hold the whole puddle. With a thoroughly disgusted expression, he scooped the entire puddle into the beaker with a duster, and brought it back on board the Specter Speeder. They blasted back off into the Ghost Zone.
"Where would Danny have put it?" Sam asked. "I'd be willing to bet my life that he kept it; he keeps everything like that. But where would he put it?" She turned to Dash. "Did Danny show you any sort of secret hiding place that he had for his stuff?"
"Yes!" Dash shouted out. "He did! Inside his wall!"
"Inside his wall?" Sam asked. "That's… actually pretty good for a hiding spot that no one else can reach. But Noah can get in there!"
Noah nodded from where he was sitting on the floor. "I'm so sorry," he said, tears streaming down his face. "I had… no idea anything like that could happen…"
"You don't have to be sorry," Jazz said, putting her hands on his shoulders. "We're going to fix this!"
"We'll get Danny back," Valerie assured him. "And he'll have his powers back, good as new—thanks to you!"
Noah remained staring wide-eyed at the floor, hugging his knees to his chest.
They sailed through another portal from the Ghost Zone to Amity Park, and flew back to Fenton Works. Noah didn't even bother to phase the Speeder back into the garage; he wanted to get the search over with and fix his mistake.
He carried Sam and Dash up to Danny's room—Dash to tell him where to look, and Sam to identify the Ecto-Dejecto if it wasn't labeled. He reached into the wall and pulled out a cornucopia of items—their old Ghost Zone map, a teddy bear, the Ghost Gauntlets, a Fenton Thermos, the Spooktacles, a small diary, a smashed-up PDA from one of their battles, a shard of a mirror, a copy of a magazine with a gorilla on the front, and other souvenirs from battles they had.
Finally, when Noah had about covered the entire wall, he pulled out what looked like a syringe with a satellite dish instead of a needle. It was labeled clearly: "Ecto-Dejecto." Noah cried out in joy. "This is it!"
"Come on, come on!" Sam said, holding out her arm; Noah grabbed her and Dash and flew back down to the Specter Speeder, where Tucker was waiting with the bucket of Danny.
"Please work," Noah prayed as Valerie took the vial and sprayed it onto the bubbling liquid. "Please… please… please work."
"It took a while last time," Valerie promised Noah as his gaze fell with every passing second. "It worked even when Danielle was melted completely." She bit her lip and silently mouthed to herself, please work.
And then the miracle happened—Danny's head poked out of the slime. He looked around. "What happened?" he asked. "Where…" He looked down and shouted. "WAH! My body—" And then he sailed out of the fluid, laughing, completely intact and whole in his ghostly form. "You guys did it! How did you do it?"
Valerie held up the Ecto-Dejecto. "Courtesy of your dad," she said. "I always wondered why Danny Phantom kept such a close eye on the Fentons!"
"Then we're back at my house?" Danny asked, looking around the backyard. "How much time has passed here since Noah got back from the spaceship?"
"Not a half hour," Tucker replied. "Are you ready to shake the world up?"
"To stop it from shattering, I'd do anything," Danny said. "Time to make a statement!"
"Danny Phantom is back," said Lance Thunder to a camera. "Seven teens from Casper High—Noah Nightingale, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton, Jasmine Fenton, Dash Baxter, and Valerie Gray—have gone to the Ghost Zone and found Danny Phantom while he was on his vacation, and brought him back here! Now that his absence is over, the teen ghost fighter has a message for the world!"
Danny stepped awkwardly up to the podium in his phantom form. A human clone of his stood by the rest of his friends; Noah winked at him from the crowd. Dash mouthed, Go get 'em!
"Uh, hello there," Danny said nervously, trying not to let Dash's handsome face distract him. "I have a plan that could save us all from the asteroid. And this one is absolutely free! How great is that?"
An old woman near the front yelled, "If ghosts can't touch the asteroid, then how are you gonna stop it?"
"Because we're not going to turn the asteroid intangible," Danny replied. "We're going to turn the EARTH intangible!"
Small gasps came from the crowd. Tucker stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat. "Ahem. Ladies, gentlemen… various nations and stuff… My name is Tucker Foley, and I… am a techno-geek."
Chester, Carl, and Patrick piped up from the back, holding up their hands in a "live long and prosper" position. "Hi, Tucker!" they yelled.
Tucker held up his hand in the same pose as a response. "Dudes," he said, acknowledging them. He then returned to the task at hand. "The new plan is very simple. With a strong enough ghostly power source, and a big enough transfer device, we could send the ghosts' intangibility across the entire planet. This way, the Disasteroid will pass harmlessly through it." The animation described what he was saying, ending with the asteroid flying through an intangible earth. Then a happy bouncing ghost appeared on the screen, followed by the words "THE END" and then "A TUCKER FOLEY JOINT."
Danny returned to the podium. "That's the plan," he stated, invoking the greatest leadership quality he could muster in his voice, just like Youngblood had taught him. "Who's with us?"
There was a moment's stunned silence… and then the first one to start clapping was Jack Fenton. His large hands slapped against each other as he smiled in approval. Maddie smiled back at her husband, and then she started clapping, too.
Mr. Lancer was next; then Kwan; Mr. and Mrs. Manson and Mr. and Mrs. Foley. The applause grew to a roar as the rest of the crowd joined in, clapping and cheering their approval. In the back, Danny spied what looked like Mr. and Mrs. Baxter; they were clapping, too.
Mr. Lancer stared at Tucker; Sam was near him and she heard him say, "They never put that much effort into their schoolwork…"
Danny had expressed his approval of Noah's policy on homosexuality, and had stressed that he would stick to it. All of the nations came together to build the transfer devices, centered on the South Pole. Danny gave several speeches to world councils, about coming together not as separate nations, but as one world. He felt like a true hero.
Noah and Tucker headed the development on the transfer device, while Jack and Maddie Fenton headed the process of spreading the transfer cables across the globe via helicopters. The entire project was coming together—and good thing, too, since the Disasteroid was less than six hours from impact.
There had been rumors that Noah was gay, based on the policy he'd tried to enforce before—this rumor was quickly dispelled when he kissed Sam, not knowing there was a broadcasting system stalking him. Danny noticed it on the news, and he smiled, deciding to go see Sam and Noah before he left on his trip to collect the ghosts for the power source.
"Not bad," Sam said, admiring the machinery. She was dressed in a black winter coat, due to the freezing temperatures of the South Pole; it was still freezing, though, so she hugged Noah close to her. "You sure you don't want us to come with you?"
"I'm sure," Danny said. "I can move faster on my own. …By the way, where do Mom and Dad think Danny Fenton is right now, anyway?"
"With them," Jazz answered proudly. "I redressed the Tuckbot 9000 to make it look and act like you. They'll never know the difference."
Danny imagined this and laughed to himself. Then he stepped over to Noah and nudged him in the side. "A moment alone," he said. Noah nodded, waved shyly to Sam and then stepped away for a word with Danny.
Danny opened up his clenched hand, revealing a ring inscribed Sam. "Sam gave this back to me with a little bit of a laugh when I started dating Dash… I think you should give it to her. It'd be cute." He flashed a grin. "I can't believe I used to be jealous of you because Sam liked you. Now I'm so happy for you two. You might even say I'm gay!"
"Thanks," Noah laughed. "So, I'll see you back here in under six hours. Or else!"
"Of course," Danny said.
Noah shifted his feet in the snow and blushed a little bit. "Hey… while you're alone here with me…"
"What?"
"I always wanted to do this," he said. "Hope you don't mind." He stepped up close and pecked Danny on the lips for about a second, then leaned back.
Danny laughed a little bit. "What was that?" he asked.
"Just a thank-you," Noah said. "I kind of always wanted to. I'm not bi, I don't think… I just wanted to see what it was like." He shrugged. "No difference. I don't get what the big deal is about boys kissing."
"Well, feel free to do that again any time you'd like," Danny chuckled. "Just don't let Dash see; he might get jealous."
Noah winked. "Don't let Sam see, either."
Danny opened up the map. "Oh, geez, I gotta go," he said. "According to the map, a portal's gonna open up over the pole any minute now."
"See ya soon," Noah said. "Safe travels." He extended a hand.
"What, no ferocious make-out session?" Danny grinned and shook the hand.
"If the world is saved, I think I'll make out with everyone I see," Noah responded. "Go!"
Danny flew over to the jet that had been prepared for him. It was about time to head into the Ghost Zone with the ghost net and snag as many ghosts as possible for the power source.
He charged up the engines of the jet as a portal appeared in midair slightly above him. He looked down to see Dash waving at him; he waved back and then blasted off into the Ghost Zone, holding the Infi-map in front of him. "One ghost power source, coming up!" he said, pushing forward the lever on the dashboard to put the jet into top-speed. He blasted through a door to one ghost's lair, activating the ghost net; he flew back out with a lizard-like ghost stuck in the net.
"Okay," he said, looking back and smiling. "One down… ninety-six bazillion to go." He looked back at the Infi-map and traced the path to the next ghost lair.
For the next exhausting five and a half hours, he chased down ghosts and captured them, traveling everywhere he knew and many places he didn't know. Finally, he had what seemed like enough. "Awesome!" he said to himself. "I think this is gonna work!" He directed the jet back towards the portal.
A blast rocked the ship, and he looked around with fright. Two more small explosions followed; the third shot blasted the net at the connection to the jet. Danny watched helplessly as his last quarter-day's worth of work spilled out all around him. A smooth female voice stated, "Auto-eject."
"What?" Danny cried as the seat rocketed out of the jet. He turned intangible so that the rocket-powered seat passed through him, and then he looked back.
The jet flew in a wobbly path at the portal. The ghosts were pouring out of the net, laughing and swarming around him. Skulker was hovering above them, with a smoking cannon; he blew away the smoke. "We warned you once, ghost brat!" he declared. The thousands of ghosts that Danny had caught in his net swarmed him now in every direction.
"Wait! Let me explain!" Danny yelled as he floated backwards and was pushed aside. He avoided Johnny 13's swipe and backed into the center. "Our worlds are linked! If mine goes, yours goes, too! I have a plan!"
Skulker readied a cannon, ignoring Danny completely; he blasted Danny straight in the chest. Danny flew backwards into Vortex, who gripped him by the head and shocked him with a violent blast of lightning. How had Vortex escaped the Observants?
Danny screamed as Vortex dropped him, and he hugged his chest, looking up. "Look!" he shouted. "I know you hate my world, and wouldn't lift a finger to help it. But I thought you might care about saving your own!"
The angry ghosts descended upon him anyway. Danny blasted them off with a sphere of energy and flew up into the air. "You're dooming yourselves if you don't listen to me!" Danny yelled. "I know I've been a nuisance to you in the past. But hurting me anyway isn't doing anything for you right now. Tomorrow you can hunt me, Skulker. Tomorrow you can feed on my misery, Spectra. But that can only happen if we're all still here tomorrow! And for that to happen, we need to work together today! Why can't you see this?"
Danny had expected some ghosts to maybe understand, but he was utterly shocked when Skulker spoke up.
"You raise a valid point," he grumbled.
Danny tried not to outwardly show his surprise and offend Skulker. He simply let Skulker take the floor.
"I don't care about the human world," Skulker said. "Not a bit. They've put themselves into this peril. But they also put us in peril, and as much as I would hate to save their skins… it seems that's the only way to save ours."
"It is," Danny said.
Skulker narrowed his eyes, but he gestured to all of the ghosts. "Say what you need us to do, and we'll do it," he said. "But only this once will we cooperate… and only because it's for our world. Write that in the history books: the ghosts came to save their world… protecting the human world was not a bonus, it was a price."
Danny nodded. "I'll make sure humanity gets the message," he said. "Follow me!" He turned and shot towards the portal.
Meanwhile, in the human world, there was an intense shock that had come with seeing the jet fly through the portal and crash into the side of the mountain—but Noah had insisted it was unmanned.
"Then where is he?" Dash uttered nervously, shifting from foot to foot. "Come on, Fenton, come on, it's coming!"
Jazz glanced over to Dash with teeth clenched as Maddie and Jack turned. "Dash?" Maddie said, raising an eyebrow. "Did you just say, 'Fenton?'"
"Oh, yeah, sorry," Dash apologized. "Force of habit. I'd been calling him Fenton since I'd known him."
"But Danny's right—" Maddie turned to the robot, and stared at it.
"Oh," Dash said, retracting his head into his turtleneck.
Maddie whipped the hair off of the robot. "A robot?" she gasped. "Where's Danny? Jasmine, where's your…" She looked to Dash, who was biting his lip and staring at the ground; then she looked to Jazz, who was staring at the portal. "You mean…"
Noah had seen Maddie take the hair off the robot; he flew over. "Mrs. Fenton?" he asked. "Did you…"
Maddie turned to him. "But… we knew that Danny wasn't—" She pointed at Noah. "When we figured out you were a ghost… we scanned Danny to see if he was Danny Phantom. Nothing registered!"
"I'll explain that later," Noah said. "We should just wait for Danny now." He stared at the portal. "It looked like something was coming."
Maddie and Jack stared at the portal, amazed with the information they'd just registered, waiting for their son to arrive.
Then the portal exploded as thousands of ghosts swept out, heading directly towards the transfer device. The crowd cheered as the mass of ghosts enveloped it, spiraling around and latching on.
Noah pumped a fist, then grabbed the re-reformed ecto-converter and flew out the window to add its energy to the mix. All around, Danny' ghostly enemies, allies, and neutral presences were placing hands on the machine, preparing to send their energy through it. Walker, Desiree, the Box Ghost, the Lunch Lady, Technus, Skulker, Danielle, the executioner and archer ghosts, Frostbite, Pandora, Medusa, Vlad's ghost animal experiments, the ectopusses, the Ghost Writer, Amorpho, the Behemoth, the Fright Knight, Klemper, Undergrowth, Vortex, Hotep-Ra, Sydney Poindexter, Lydia and the three ghosts from Freakshow's original circus, Cujo, Nocturn, Dora and Aragon, the ghost squid and snake, Johnny 13, Kitty, Shadow, Ember, Spectra, Bertrand, Wulf, and Youngblood and his parrot…
And even though he couldn't see it, an invisible Vlad Plasmius had his hand on the very top of the machine, adding to the power.
Noah placed the ecto-converter on the ground and touched it with one hand while holding on to the transfer machine with the other hand.
"I still can't believe you guys agreed to help me," Danny said. "Looks like there is a heart under all that cyber armor!"
"Don't get too sentimental," Skulker said in a low voice. "We're not here to save you, we're here to save us."
Danny didn't care; his plan was going to work and the earth would be saved. "Let's just get this party started!"
The ghosts activated their energy while the humans inside the machine scrambled to get things one hundred percent operational. A green glow surrounded the entire machine as they all strained to channel their energy through it.
"Tucker!" Danny called in a strained voice through the Fenton Phones. "How… much… longer?"
The Disasteroid swept through the stars, and finally, it was seconds from impact. Tucker wheeled around in his chair and shouted, "Now!"
The effect spread around the entire globe. Earth and water alike and plants and animals everywhere transformed into a clear shade of crystal as the asteroid plummeted down to the earth. The effect reached the other side just as it was about to touch down, and it began to fly through the center of the earth.
The ghosts were getting fatigued; Danny yelled, "Where's the asteroid?"
Then it burst through their end of the planet.
The masses of ghosts released their collective energies, and the planet returned to its normal state. The entire world began to cheer; families everywhere hugged and wiped sweat from their brows, relaxing in their chairs. The world was safe for another day.
Danny floated down to the ground and was immediately tackled over by Jazz, Sam, Tucker, Valerie, and Dash. Noah floated down behind him and smirked.
"Awesome," Sam said, laughing a little bit with relief.
"Nice job, little brother," Jazz said. "Or should I say… hero!"
Skulker loomed over him, and Danny stood up. "I don't know what to say, other than, thanks, Skulker," he said. "To all of you."
Skulker grabbed him by the front of the shirt. "Don't get too mushy on us, ghost child," he said. "Remember… I'll never stop hunting you." Then he continued with his characteristic hungry smile. "And now that you've saved your world… you're a much more valuable prize."
Skulker started to fly away, but suddenly Dash screamed, "WAIT!"
The ghosts all turned towards Dash, raising eyebrows and wondering what was so important; why he was so frantic. Dash rushed forward, until he was almost level with Skulker; but he wasn't staring at the mechanical-suited ghost next to him. He was staring at Youngblood, tears welling up in his eyes.
Youngblood stared back at Dash. "Do I… know you?" he said, his mouth hanging open in wonder. "You're… so familiar…"
Youngblood's skeleton parrot jumped up on his shoulder, and Dash gasped. "P-Polly," he stammered.
"Polly?" Youngblood said, looking at the parrot. "That's… That's right, that was your name…" He opened his eyes wide. "And… what…what about me?"
"Bobby," Dash choked.
Youngblood walked forward, closer to Dash. "You're…" He seemed to be trying to come to some sort of conclusion; his face contorted as he squinted at Dash.
"Bobby," Dash said again, only able to speak in one-word sentences; he dove forward to embrace Youngblood in a hug. Youngblood stared at the back of Dash's head.
"Bobby?" Valerie asked, still not comprehending. "Isn't that the ghost who's attacked the town several times? I thought his name was Youngblood…"
"It is," Danny whispered. "I think… I think that's Dash's brother."
Sam, Tucker, and Noah seemed to have been arriving at the same conclusion, but it took Danny saying it out loud for them to fully realize it. "Holy God," Jazz breathed.
"Dash said that his brother always wanted to be a pirate, and that he had a stuffed parrot," Danny said. "I mean… I never even considered…"
Then Youngblood finally spoke. "Dash," he finally said. "Dashy."
Dash couldn't say anything; he just kept hugging Youngblood.
The young ghost finally pulled away and floated in front of him. "We haven't played dress-up in so long," he said. "Didn't we used to play dress-up together? We'd be pirates, or cowboys, or astronauts… I did it without you because I was lonely, but it wasn't the same."
Dash nodded; his tears were freezing on his face, so he wiped them away.
"Why weren't you there?" Youngblood asked, not angrily; just genuinely confused.
Dash stared at him, sniffling. "Bobby… you died."
Youngblood hadn't even realized this. He looked up at the sky for a moment, then down at his hands, and legs, and his hat. He whimpered. "I'm… dead?"
"You're a g-ghost," Dash blubbered. "What did you think was…?"
"I don't know," Bobby said, looking at his skin with great interest. "I just didn't even realize… how long have I been…?" He glanced back at Dash. "You're so old… Are you in college?"
Dash gulped. "N-no," he stuttered. "Bobby…"
Youngblood floated back over to Dash and wiped away his brother's tears. "I don't know how I got here," he said quietly. "I don't remember learning all these words and things. I didn't remember anything other than being me—Captain Youngblood! I drove my pirate ship back into the lake, and then I don't remember how I got into a big green world, but I needed my parrot back, so I took it from your room. I'm sorry. I made Polly fly back to me because I missed him."
"Polly is a girl's name," the parrot squawked. "I demand that you rename me at once, you little bilge rat!"
Youngblood suddenly grabbed his skeleton parrot around the throat and handed it to Dash; it was suddenly a normal stuffed parrot again. Dash took it and looked up at Youngblood.
"I wanted to return that to you," Youngblood said. "And to play dress-up with you one more time." He threw his hat onto Dash's head. It landed and stayed, and then Youngblood laughed. "You're a pirate," he said. "You're… a pirate… just like me." And then he faded into the air with a whisper.
Dash stared at the space where his brother had gone. The pirate hat was still on his head, but it had turned into a hat badly constructed from black paper, with a poorly drawn white skull and crossbones on it. He took it off and started to tear up again. "So th-that's where that w-went," Dash sobbed.
Danny walked up to Dash and placed a hand on his shoulder. Dash turned around and looked; several news stations had been filming his exchange with Youngblood. But after a quick glance around, he had eyes only for Danny.
"I've had some shocks in my life," Dash said to Danny, wiping his tears again. "But this takes the cake. I… I'm glad that it happened, though."
"Is that all ghosts need?" Danny wondered aloud. "To find the person with whom they need to make peace? But what if that person is long gone? And are all ghosts like that, or is it just a rare occurrence when someone leaves too soon?"
"I don't care," Dash said. "It happened, and that's all that really matters at the end of the day to me." He took Danny's hands. "As long as you don't leave me too soon."
"Not a chance," Danny said, then blinked and looked around. "Here?"
"Here," Dash said, and then kissed him passionately.
The crowd spared no time; there was no moment of shock. There was just thunderous applause. Each boy felt the other laugh and smile, and returned with greater enthusiasm to their kiss. Dash lifted Danny up with brute strength, and then Danny lifted Dash into the air with his ghost powers. They spun in the air for a few seconds before returning to the ground and then boarding the helicopters back; they didn't let each other go the entire trip.
Noah was leaving to visit back home the next day. But he would be back soon, because he loved living in Amity Park. His parents were coming with him; they were moving in to Vlad's old mansion, where the amazing technology would be perfect for them to continue their work.
The world was much different now that Danny's identity was revealed. But the most amazing part of the whole experience was when Dash's parents apologized. Having experienced nearly the end of the world, they'd had more than enough time to reflect on how they'd treated their son—and watching Dash meet Youngblood on the news was the most profoundly impacting of it all. It was about time for them to, as Dash had put it, "suck it up" and embrace their son for who he was. And it didn't hurt that Dash was now revealed to be dating the superhero savior of the globe.
Tucker was elected the youngest mayor in Amity Park history. In fact, they had changed the age requirement just for him during the election campaign, because of his key role in saving the planet. He revealed the Amity Park statue of Danny Phantom—an exact copy of which stood in every capital of every nation. ("Capital!" Noah had exclaimed in his British accent, resulting in a good amount of laughter.) "And each will stand for as long as we have our world," Tucker had stated, "because thanks to Danny Phantom… we still have one."
Noah was sifting through Vlad's inventions in his mansion right before he left; he wanted to get a sense of what he could be working with. He didn't know that Vlad was floating behind him invisibly.
Vlad stroked his chin; he would definitely have to leave and become a nomad, but that was a life he could handle. Perhaps he could overshadow some dictator somewhere and rule that way. But for now… he had been defeated, fair and square. It was time to give the winner his reward.
Vlad flew down to his vault, and pulled out one invention he had just completed, but never had a chance to use. He placed it on a shelf facing outwards so that Noah would see it when he floated by; and then Noah would show it to Danny.
With his last act done, Vlad kissed his mansion goodbye, deactivated the Maddie hologram program, and flew out.
Noah floated by the device that Vlad had just planted there, and when he read the description, his jaw dropped. This was something he had to show Danny before he left.
Dash and Danny sat on a hilltop, overlooking Danny's celebratory ceremony from far away. They held hands and sighed together. "I can't believe you didn't want to attend your own commemoration," Dash said, tousling Danny's hair.
"Eh," Danny said. "Sometimes, I like to just sit on the sidelines… but I'd never give up my ghost powers for it."
"Good," Dash said. "Because I love you just the way you are." He and Danny started to kiss more intensely than ever, their hands migrating to different parts of each others' bodies; the passion mounted.
It was suddenly broken as Noah popped up over the crest of the hill. "Oh, sorry," he exclaimed. "Sorry for interrupting. But this is something you have to see right now!" He held up a strange device the looked roughly like a phonograph inside a blender.
"What is it?" Danny asked.
"What is it?" Noah blurted. "It's something that'll change your life with Dash forever, that's what it is!"
"What?" Dash asked, curiously.
Noah held the device closer to Danny. "There was a little note with a description on it," he said. "This thing can take the chromosomes of two people and combine them in a process like reproduction, and then form a gamete that can be implanted in a female and grown like a fetus, into a child! But the difference between this and sex is… it can be from any two people. Vlad was going to use it and steal some of your mother's DNA to make his child with her—yeah, I know, I'm sorry," he said as Danny grimaced. "But, Danny, you and Dash could have a kid!"
Danny looked over to his boyfriend with a wide smile. "Dash," he breathed. "Do you…?"
"Maybe in a little while," Dash laughed. "I don't want to end up on a new show called '14, Gay, and Pregnant.'"
"Oh, of course we'll wait," Danny said, smiling. "But… this is so great."
"It is," Dash said. "I can't wait to see what our kid looks like."
"Kid?" Danny asked, laughing. "Why singular?"
"You're right," Dash said, and leaned in close again, staring into Danny's sky-blue eyes.
"I'll leave you two alone," Noah said, grinning. "Danny… thanks for everything."
"Thank you for everything, too," Danny replied, breathing softly against Dash's cheek and feeling Dash's breath against his. "Have a good trip to England."
"Thanks!" Noah turned and flew away, leaving Danny alone with Dash again.
Without saying a word, they each knew; they both went back to the heated passion of their kiss. The world below was still intact, and the law below would allow them to be together not just now, but always.
What an amazing world it would be.
THE END