I'm not going to lie- it's taken me quite a bit to get back into Danny Phantom. I went on a Miami thing for a while- if you didn't notice- and I still am on a Miami fling. But slowly, I'm coming back to this place. BAD SHINY... Let's finish this fic in another ten chapters, shall we?

Thanks for the reviews Bored2Deth, Me-agaisnt-the-world, Hordak's Pupil, FernClaw, Miriam1, cabot007, princess moon shadow, CSI Junkie Aly, Le Pecore Nere

16. Internal and External

"Getting them upset was not one of your better ideas!" Natalia yelped, skidding to a stop and racing around the corner with Sam at her heels.

Sam gave a short laugh. "It keeps them distracted off of the real reason they might be here! At least, for us it does. You guys might have more of a challenge." She looked around and bolted into the DNA Lab, panting and ducking down so the Fright Knight would not spot them. "Do you have any good idea of why they're here for Horatio?"

Natalia shook her head. "Your guess is as good as mine. Although judging by the fact they could be goons working for Plasmius, they could be here to get H instead of Ryan. The way the two men see each other is almost as if they're more of archenemies than himself and Stetler." She shuddered. "Although how that can be even remotely possible is beyond me."

The Goth sighed as she heard the Fright Knight seemingly pass the door. "I think it's okay to go back out."

"Do you deal with this often?"

Sam laughed bitterly. "Oh, you have no idea..."

Phantom panted as he set Eric down on the hard metal floor. "That was not fun."

"For you," Eric retorted. "I don't think I've seen someone fly so fast or change from a ghost into a human."

He sighed and morphed again. Danny shook his head and looked around the lab, crossing his arms and shivering. "Since when did Mom and Dad turn down the thermostat down here? I thought I told them to turn it up." He scanned the room quickly and spotted a box of weapon in the corner of the room near the portal. "There. C'mon, let's grab some of these and go."

The CSI looked confused and walked over, his jaw dropping in the progress. There were countless amount of weapons inside the box, each looking stranger than the next. He gave Danny a look, who was gazing at the weapons in the drawers and picking some out. Danny cast a glance over at Eric and smiled at his reaction. "My parents are ghost hunters. Sure, they might not always catch them, but they really try their hardest."

Eric dug through the box. "Where did they get these?"

"Made 'em," the teen replied with a shrug. "They have their own line of ghost products, actually. They wonder half the time on why stuff does all wonky on me, but I can't tell them I'm half ghost. No idea what they'd do to me, and I don't want to take the chance of being sliced into nice pieces." He looked around. "You have some stuff?"

The CSI held up some of the guns. "Will these work?"

Danny furrowed his brow for a minute before his eyes lit up. "I've got it. We have a weapons vault upstairs. I'm sure they'll let me borrow some of their things!"

He took Eric's wrist and turned intangible, running up the stairs and phasing through the door into the weapons vault. He flicked on a light and looked around. "I'm pretty sure we can use some of these against the ghosts," he told Eric, plucking some guns off their shelving space. "If they work on them, I know they'll work on Vlad for sure."

The CSI raised an eyebrow. "So what you do have against him besides the fact he took your friends and our CSI?"

Danny turned in Eric's direction and sighed. "He's done a lot. He's my archenemy, to say the least."

"So, kind of like Stetler and H?"

The teen snorted and picked out more weapons. "It's deeper than that." He didn't want to go into details at that moment, and Eric seemed to notice.

The man turned to Danny. "You think this is enough?"

The teenager looked between the two of them and nodded. "I think we'll be fine." Another idea struck him, and his face unfurled into a wide grin. "And we won't have to fly using manual labor this time around. Come on. There's something I want to show you."

Eric blinked. As if this place wasn't weird enough already...

Tucker typed something into his PDA. "This bites," he complained. "How is it that you guys can get service with your phones, but I get nothing on my PDA?"

Alexx shrugged her shoulders, looking down at her phone. "I wouldn't know," she admitted, looking around and sighing in exasperation. "Shoot."

"What?"

"That weird tornado ghost is coming this way," she replied bitterly. "And chances are he's going to see us in here with the glass and desks and things." She snapped her phone shut and it her lip. "So how often have you faced ghosts?"

Tucker winced, the PDA slipping slightly. "Once, maybe twice a day." He glanced down and shook his head. "How come it's always this hot here?"

Alexx ducked down and put her finger to her lip. Vortex looked around and narrowed his eyes. "I know you're in here," he hissed, floating slowly around the room and beginning to make his way around the desk. "You can't hide from me forever! I can make you appear with a mere change in the weather!"

"I don't think you want to do that!"

The Specter Speeder flew down from above, and Phantom stood on the edge, holding a Fenton Bazooka. His eyes blazed as he threw two weapons at Tucker and Alexx. "No one's harming any of my friends today!"

He shot the weapon at Vortex, and he went flying backwards, slamming into the glass in the crime lab. He nodded to Eric, who revved the engine. Phantom jumped off and looked around warily. "So, you got anyone else in here being chased?"

"Hey! A little help over here!" a female voice hollered, sounding suspiciously like Calleigh.

Phantom raised an eyebrow and nodded to Alexx and Tucker. "Be right back." With this, he flew over to the ballistics expert and gave her a short nod. "I think you might want to use this."

Calleigh gave him a suspicious look before taking the weapon from his hand. "This isn't illegal, is this?"

He gritted his teeth. "No. And if you want live against these guys, I suggest you use it against the ugly, flamed hair ghost that was chasing you." He turned around and flared his hands. "We can do it together!"

She bit her lip and looked down at her weapon. Skulker suddenly appeared in front of them again and grinned, his weapons out and aimed at them. Calleigh's gaze hardened. "Together? You've got a deal... um..." She lost the look for a moment. "What's your name?"

"Just call me Phantom," he told her hurriedly.

Skulker grinned. "Today is the day your pelt will adorn my wall, ghost child! I promise you that!"

Calleigh winced. "Oh, that sounded pleasant."

The ghost hunter fired his rockets. In a fit of near panic, the CSI fired her own weapon and the beams collided in midair. This give Phantom the opportunity to fly through the midst of the smoke and land a punch right into Skulker. The ghost flew back slightly and stopped himself right before he hit the wall. He made a low growl in his throat. "You asked for..."

"For this!"

Natalia panted and made a half-effort at throwing Phantom a thermos, Sam in tow and holding a weapon. The two women looked weary, and Phantom could tell that much. He pointed to where Alexx and Tucker battled with Vortex. "Go see what you can do with him, and I'll get rid of Skulker!" he ordered.

Both females nodded, groaning and making their way to where beams of energy shot around the room and hit glass on the ground. Phantom turned to Skulker, Calleigh aiming the gun at him. He opened the cap and sucked in the ghost, who screamed and felt the pull of the blue energy. A second later, Phantom snapped back on the top and felt a rattle, followed by what appeared to be a muffled swear. He smirked. "Two ghosts in one thermos. Nice."

Calleigh gave him a strange look as they made their way to the ongoing battle between the ME, the techno-whiz, and the weather ghost. "You helped me. You're not evil like the other ghosts in here."

"I'm not. And I also think you need to find your boss." He gave her a look. "You're close to him as a friend, right?"

She gawked at this for a moment before shaking her head and snapping back to reality. "Yeah."

Phantom nodded. "I can handle Vortex. Find Horatio!"

Calleigh nodded, and the two split off to fight a similar battle.

Hey, look! I updated! I wish to finish this soon, so expect an update on Friday or something. Hope you enjoyed it.

I have a sequel in the works already. It will be a heck of a lot better than this one. PROMISE.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to review.