I originally posted this on tumblr but it was long enough that I thought I'd post it here too. Danny and Tucker are seniors here.
Danny sucks in a breath as the ectoblast zips past the side of his head and into the ground behind him. He aims and fires his own blast, but the ghost hunter's hoverboard automatically positions him out of the way. He tries to take advantage of the brief distraction by going invisible, flying downwards, aiming to get underneath the hoverboard. If he can just find some kind of blind spot, maybe he can zap it.
The ghost hunter's electronic visor allow him to easily track Danny's movements using thermal technology. Colder than the surrounding air, the ghost stands out as a dark blue figure against a light blue background.
Danny looks up to see the hunter staring right at him. As soon as he realizes his mistake, an ectoblast plows into the back of his shoulder, his left side pushed towards the ground with the force.
"Gotcha."
Danny grits his teeth, gripping his shoulder, ectoplasm leaking between his fingers as he shoots upwards again.
Just who the hell is this guy?
His hoverboard is similar to Valerie's, but white and green instead of black and red. He wears white tactical cargo pants with green accents and a white hoodie that obstructs his face. His green visor obstructs it further, leaving only his jawline visible.
His technology is like nothing Danny's seen. More than that, sometimes it's like he already has Danny's responses all figured out. The arsenal of tricks and fighting techniques he's picked up over the years seem too predictable. He just can't seem to outwit him.
With both hands in front of him, Danny lets out of a volley of blasts, spraying them indiscriminately. The hunter moves like a snowboarder, weaving and bobbing between the orbs with ease. A ghost shield deflects any stray blasts.
The longer the fight continues, the more Danny feels himself growing desperate, like a cornered animal.
"That all you got?!" the hunter taunts. He pulls a weapon out of a pocket along his thigh. It's a V shaped device with blades along the outside, and a metal handle with buttons along the inside. The tip has a thick, short antennae on it.
"You ever been cut by something dipped in blood blossom extract?" his tone is conversational. "It's pretty nasty. Penetrates right through the outer layer of ectoplasm and reduces regeneration to practically zero. Would suck if that happened to you, huh?"
Danny only faintly hears the hunter over the pounding in his head and the ache in his shoulder.
He presses a button on the device and it beeps, whirring slightly in his hand. "I'll give you a head start, Danny. Just to be fair. Three..."
Danny's eyes narrow. The way he'd said his name just now. Why did that feel so familiar?
"Two..."
Danny's eyes flit to the device in the hunter's hand. He takes a deep breath. Then he's off.
"One."
The device is released and it cuts through the air. It moves like a missile locked in on a target. Danny glances behind him and sees it speeding right for him with a cruel purpose. He sets his jaw and stops short suddenly, going intangible, and the device goes through his chest and past him. He pauses, not believing that it would be that easy. When he comes back from intangibility, the device beeps and swings back around and starts heading for him again. He flies up and it follows. No matter which direction he swerves and darts and dives into, it stays at his heels. Just what is this thing, a Booo-merang?
Danny goes intangible again and he uses the split second it takes for recalibration to create as much distance as he can, charging an ectoblast in his hands.
It locks onto him again, changing course and flying at an upwards angle. When it's close enough, Danny let's the ectoblast go. The device disappears momentarily behind the flash of bright green light. Danny holds his breath. The light fades but Danny doesn't need to see it to know. He can still hear the whirring. It comes into focus, looking no worse for wear, a ghost shield flitting out from the antennae. Danny is really starting to hate this guy.
Out of ideas, he takes off again, feeling exhaustion beginning to chip away at him. He can hear the blades zipping through the air behind him. Gritting his teeth, he urges himself to reach the tree line faster.
He feels it before he sees it, stopping short as an ectoblast from below flies past his face—where his face would have been if he had been moving. Still aware of the blade at his back, he goes intangible, but not fast enough. He flits out of existence, but the blade digs into the back of his leg before he does, right above his knee. He lets out a strangled scream, and distracted by the pain, loses intangibility and stumbles downwards, like a bird shot out of the sky.
Get a hold of yourself, Fenton.
He needs cover, and the forest outside of Amity is only four, maybe five miles away now. He has to make it. He has no time to think. Despite the strain on his system, he goes intangible and takes off again. He ignores the burning in his shoulder, the hot pain in his leg and the feeling of ectoplasm bubbling and pooling in the wound. He knows he's being hunted but he can't stop now, can't spare a glance in any direction but straight ahead.
He passes intangibly through the tree tops before losing it, crash landing on the forest floor with a thud. He lays there for a moment, dazed, until the sense of urgency sets back in and he tries to sit up. Back down on the ground, everything feels way worse. The wound in his leg continues to freely bleed ectoplasm instead of closing up like it normally would. With one hand planted on a tree trunk to support him, Danny lifts himself on shaky, wobbly legs, hissing as the laceration burns with the movement. He leans against the trunk for a moment, breathing, then he pushes himself off and further into the bowels of the forest. One leg drags as he limps, displacing dirt and detritus, leaving in their place a trail of glowing ectoplasm. He concentrates on deciphering the sounds of the forest from signs of the hunter—chatter of animals, rustling of dead leaves being strewn about by the wind, branches swaying and mingling in the canopies above him. He registers a faint humming, whirring, buzzing, in the distance, steadily growing louder and closer.
The only thing he hasn't tried yet is his ghostly wail. He didn't want it to come to it, didn't want to actually hurt the hunter. He's human, after all. He could be someone Danny knows or someone he sees around town. Someone with a mother. A father. But what choice does he have? He hasn't been afforded an inch, not a moment of rest. Danny can hardly recall a time he's been pursued so relentlessly and viciously. There's something else, though. A sense of being toyed with. Like the hunter could have ended this long ago if he wanted, and is now only gloating, playing with his prey.
He isn't sure if he has it in him for the kind of output that a ghostly wail would require anyway. He's already straining with the effort of putting one foot in front of the other, his head pounding, his leg leaking, leaking, leaking...
Danny pauses and leans against a thick, sturdy trunk. He tilts his head back, watching grey clouds moving in. He closes his eyelids as the lightest drizzle of rain splashes against his face. He holds out his tongue, letting the parched surface soak up the water. He's done running. He takes a deep breath with the shuddering realization that these might be his final moments.
The rain begins to come down harder, splashing all around him. The cool rain drops feel amazing against his skin. He lowers his head, tucking his chin closer to his chest. The rain trails down his hair, over his eyes and down the back of his neck. He listens to the crisp sound of the droplets crashing against dead leaves, the plopping as they trickle off branches and into puddles below. At least he gets this moment.
It doesn't last long, broken when he hears a soft thud behind him. Danny doesn't move, doesn't even look. His eyebrows crease in concentration as he tries to imagine Sam in as much detail as possible. The smell of her lavender shampoo. The curve of her cupid's bow. The twinkle he'd see in her eyes when she was fighting for a cause she was passionate about. The way she looked in that dress for the dance—
"That's it then? All spent?" Boots squelch in the mud as the hunter makes his way around the tree. "Gotta say, I'm a little disappointed. I've had fights harder than that in Doomed."
Danny lifts his head to lock eyes with the hunter, or where his eyes would be, if the visor wasn't in the way.
"You'd be useless without that tech," Danny's voice is low and steady.
The hunter's lips curl into a snarl.
"And you would be a nobody without those ghost powers."
Danny's eyes widen. What did he just say? A silence stretches on into what feels like infinity. The hunter, waiting patiently for those words to make impact. Danny, brows furrowed in confusion. Surely, he meant ghost powers in general, and not half-ghost powers?
"At least I had to work for my crutch," he continues. "You, what? Turned on a portal?"
Danny sucks in an inhale and stops short, his lungs suddenly not feeling functional. Dozens of different scenarios and explanations flit through his head, but none make sense. There are only two people who know how Danny became half-ghost. Only one of them could be standing in front of him right now. Yet it doesn't make any sense.
I've had fights harder than that in Doomed.
"Take off your goggles," mumbles Danny.
Seeing the realization dawn on Danny's face causes a satisfied smile to spread across the hunter's lips. "I thought you'd never ask."
His hood falls back revealing dark, box-braided hair. The visor lands in the mud with a dull splash, revealing Danny's best friend. The friend who had just been trying to kill him. A new pain twists through Danny, like a skewer right through his heart.
Danny can handle physical pain. He can bite the inside of his cheek and clench his fists and put mind over matter, knowing that with time, it will heal. This is different. This is the loss of a limb. This is a tearing and stripping away of a part of him, of what he believed to be the truth, of what kept him grounded and steady, even when the world felt tilted on its side.
Ever since the start of junior year, he and Tucker had become distant. They talked less, but Danny figured that people grow up, they get busy. Tucker had started going to the gym more and had filled out his frame. That's when he'd started hanging out with...Valerie. Of course. Their similar fighting styles. Their similar technology. How great of them to bond over their shared hatred of him.
Hatred. He never suspected that his friend hated him. Where had he gone wrong? How had he pushed Tucker to this?
"Tuck?" his voice sounds childish to his ears, his bravado as Phantom from a moment earlier slipping away out of habit in the presence of his friend. This is Danny now. "Wh-Why?"
"Why do you think?" Tucker spits out, his eyes ablaze with unrestrained hatred. "I got tired of you taking all the credit while treating me like some sidekick."
"You didn't have to help me. I would never ask you to-"
Tucker snorts in laughter, throwing his hands up in the air and then dropping them. "There you go again. Acting like I'm a scared kid that's too afraid to get his hands dirty. You just don't get it, do you?" He takes off, stalking right for him, heels digging into the damp earth. His hands ball up the fabric at the collar of Danny's jump suit, slamming him back up against the tree trunk. The force knocks the wind out of him.
I never hate myself more than when I'm around you, Tucker thinks.
He doesn't have the courage to say it, though, so he clenches his fist and socks Danny in the jaw instead. Danny's head whips to the side when his knuckles make contact.
Tucker releases his hold on Danny's jumpsuit and backs up a bit. "Fight me, Danny. No tech. No ghost powers. Just you and me."
Danny doesn't look at him, still staring off to the side, eyes cast downwards. "I'm not fighting you, Tucker."
"It wasn't a request."
"You're my best friend."
Tucker's hands tighten and uncurl by his sides. "I was your friend. Before you became this."
Danny sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing at the soreness in his jaw. "I'm not the one who changed."
His relaxed posture, his closed eyes, these things grate on Tucker. How dare he act like Tucker isn't a threat? Where's the fear and respect he'd had when he hadn't known his identity?
"I don't give a fuck," Tucker whispers, more to himself than Danny.
Danny's eyes flutter open when he's grabbed by the back of the neck and roughly thrown into the mud. He finds himself numb, not really caring what happens. All bets of using his ghostly wail are off. He can't, not against Tucker. The ball is in his court. He can do with it what he wants.
"Fight me."
Tucker kicks Danny in the ribs with the toe of his boot. The smaller boy curls up on his side, his arms wrapped around his abdomen and his knees against his chest.
No fun. Not satisfying when Danny was acting so pathetic. Why couldn't he just let him have this? He'd dreamed of this day for so long. It was what fueled him. Every injury, every bruise, all of the sore and pulled muscles. All of the sleepless nights spent programming, planning, designing, working, tweaking, testing, recalibrating... they were all worth it because they demonstrated his dedication to this. To becoming better than a boy who had become extraordinary through no fault of his own. Coincidence. Chance. An accident. He didn't deserve any of it. Not like Tucker did.
"You win, Tuck," says Danny, his voice sounding hoarse, his eyes squeezed tight. "Kill me if you're gonna. Do whatever."
"Oh, real noble-like. Why would I expect anything less from hero Danny Fenton," Tucker mocks. He kneels in front of him, resting his forearms against his propped knee. He speaks low. "I saw it in your eyes, you know, back there. Before you knew it was me. Multiple times, you wanted to hurt me. Wanted to kill me, even. You're not really the hero you try to act like you are, are you?"
A part of him wants to fight back against the cruel words coming from his friend, but he's just so tired. And another part knows that Tucker's right—he had thought about using his ghostly wail. Against a human.
"If you think this shit warms my heart, you're dead wrong...pun not intended," continues Tucker as he stands up from his crouch. He pulls something out of a pocket in his cargo pants, tossing it in front of Danny. "It'll stop the bleeding," referring to Danny's leg.
Tucker whirls around and stalks off, then pauses. "This changes nothing. I'll win fair and square when you're looking less pathetic."
Danny doesn't watch him. He hears a beep and the whirring of machinery, followed by the sound of branches being pushed aside. The hum of the hovercraft gets quieter and farther away until it's gone.
The rain ceases and the dusk becomes night, and for all that time, Danny stays where he is. He isn't ready to go home. He won't be able to act like everything is the same as it was. His family and Sam will notice, start asking questions, and of course he can't tell them. He wouldn't throw Tucker under the bus like that.
No one can know.
Danny watches two moths fluttering around each other, the luminescent full moon acting as an ethereal backdrop for their tango. He traces their movements with his eyes. On the outside, Danny looks stoic, almost calm. On the inside, questions churn and crash around the confines of his head, threatening to split it open.
How many nights had Tucker spent simmering and stewing in these feelings? And why hadn't Danny noticed sooner? Why hadn't he asked? How could he have been so blind to what was happening to his friend?
You're not really the hero you try to act like you are, are you?
If he could really let Tucker slip so far away from him, not recognizing the depth of the chasm that had formed between them, maybe he was right.
What kind of hero can't save a friend from themselves?