A/N: Enough with the fluff!
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
8. Innocence
Slowly, Danny made his way through the carnage, stepping over bodies and debris, trying to avoid looking into the dead eyes that were staring up into the deceptively blue sky. It was a beautiful day, birds were singing, a slight breeze scattering the smoke of the burnt out buildings, bringing the scent of pine trees from the park. He felt out of place, strangely alive in this place of death, like he was the intruder here.
The quiet of the place was disconcerting, the only sound coming from his feet on what was left of the street, while he was making his way towards the middle of the disaster area, a place no one had been able to get close to for the past two days. In the distance, he could hear the soft thud-thud-thud of yet another helicopter that was trying to fly over the area.
He had been here only for ten minutes, and already he wanted out of here, just run back to where he had sneaked through the corridor that had been placed around the area by the police, the army and the GIW in an unusual collaboration. The cooperation of the three services, however, was strained at best, and they were still bickering about how to approach the matter when Danny had decided, despite the protests of his friends and sister, to take matters into his own hands.
Getting in had been easy, with Sam and Tucker creating a small diversion to allow him to sneak past the guards, and then forcing his half-human body through the strong ghost shield that had been erected by his parents. That had hurt, and it was also the reason he was still human now, he had needed to recover from the sharp shocks that had raked his body when he went through, forcing him to crawl the last few feet to get away from it. But he'd made it, and he was nearing what seemed to be ground zero from the absolute devastation, the total annihilation of everything standing.
He stumbled and fell to his knees with a groan, then turned to see what he had tripped over. He almost choked when he saw what it was: an arm. It's hand was curled into a claw, as if desperately trying to get away from something, and Danny thought he saw a thin wedding band gleaming in the sunlight. But what really unnerved him was that the arm wasn't attached to anyone.
It had been a bad idea. He closed his eyes for a moment, knowing he would never get the images out of his mind, the debris, the dead eyes, the clawing hand. On the other hand, who else was going to defeat the ghost that had caused all this? Clenching his jaw, willing his eyes open, he stared purposefully at the arm again, directing his emotions away from the terror and the repulsion, converting them to anger. He would get her for this.
Scrambling to his feet again, he decided that he had recovered enough, that it was time to end it all. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, looking at the flat area in front of him, completely clear of debris, he reached for his ghost form. It came swiftly, as always, sweeping over him like a cold fire, giving him a sense of endless power crackling at his fingertips. He hovered for a moment, then moved forward, aware of the helicopter that was still approaching. He'd better hurry, or this one would go the way the others had gone, exploding in a huge ball of fire and crashing on the ground, with no hope for survivors.
She was sitting in the middle of the blackened area, which was perfectly circular, about a hundred yards across. There was nothing there but black dust, yet her white dress was clean, untouched, spotless. She was playing with her doll, singing softly to it, cradling it in her arms, looking like the perfect little girl Sam's mother yearned to have. Her brown curls framed her pretty four year old face, and she looked up at Danny, smiling.
"Hello," she said, "Wanna play with me?"
Danny steeled himself, knowing, telling himself that this wasn't really an innocent little girl, this was a very dangerous ghost, who had committed mass murder in a matter of minutes after her arrival two days ago. He'd let her go then, deceived by her looks, convinced that she was harmless. She wasn't. He pushed away the thought that he was, in a way, responsible for all of this. He'd deal with that later.
"No," he said hoarsely, "You have to go."
She looked at him and her eyes started to water. Danny felt his determination falter, and he knew that this was the small ghost's most effective weapon. She could wrap you around her little finger with those big green eyes and her quivering lips. He couldn't do it. Not this little girl. But then her spell lessened, as her attention was drawn to the approaching helicopter.
She turned her head to look up, her eyes suddenly glowing a menacing red. She didn't move, she just looked at the helicopter, which had APNN painted on it in huge capitals. Amity Park News Network, Danny thought, just what he needed, a couple of morons trying to get themselves killed for a good story.
The little girls eyes started to glow even brighter and Danny knew he had to act quickly, before she could send that devastatingly red hot beam from her eyes at them. He brought his fists together, making them glow bright green, and launched a powerful ectoblast at her, sending her flying.
She hadn't expected that, she had thought she still had him under her spell. He could see it in her eyes, as she looked at him in surprise and anger, trying to get up from the edge of the clearing. He blasted her again and this time she screamed in rage, but he had her now.
Quickly, he flew over to where she had disappeared behind a large boulder, part of a building that had been standing there, before her destructive whims had brought it down and turned it into a collection of stones and ashes. She was trying to get up, struggling, her head hanging and her hair obscuring her eyes. He could hear the helicopter follow them and, fearing that they would get in range of her eyes again, he took out his thermos and sucked her in.
Warily he looked around. This had been a little too easy. True, he had caught her by surprise, she would have given him a hard time if she hadn't been distracted by that stupid helicopter, but somehow it seemed wrong. Something was missing.
The helicopter was now hovering above him, it's noise thundering in his ears and blowing away the dust from the ground. He looked up, straight into the frightened face of the camera man, who was staring at him with his mouth open. Then he said something, Danny could see his mouth move, and it looked suspiciously like 'Oh, shit'.
The helicopter took off in a hurry, flying away from him in a straight line, and Danny thought that seemed stupid, if he had wanted to blow them out of the sky they couldn't be an easier target this way. What bothered him though was that they took off like that, while before they had always wanted to talk to him, interview him, get him to say something, anything.
He looked around again, suddenly tired, trying to block out the destruction and the loss of human life. He needed to inform the people back at the corridor that the ghost was caught, that they could now safely enter the area and clean it up. Then, after they let down the ghost shield, he could sneak back to his friends, turn human again and pretend he had been with them the whole time. Piece of cake.
The ghost shield was still up, he saw, and it surprised him. Surely, the news network people had informed the collective armed forces here that the ghost had been caught? He floated closer, nearing the shield, getting as close as he dared. Touching it in his ghost form was painful at best, and it could revert him to his human form in front of all these people at worst. The ghost shield, however, seemed to be the least of his problems. He stopped about ten feet away from it, unnerved by the number of cannons directed at him.
One of the GIW, having obviously appointed himself as spokesman, stepped forward, approaching the ghost shield on the other side, until he was almost touching it. He glared at Danny, who was taken aback by the anger on the man's face.
"What are your demands," the white-clad government man said through gritted teeth.
"W-what?" Danny asked, uncomprehending.
"Your demands! I assume you have hostages?"
The GIW could hardly contain his anger. Danny looked at the people standing behind the man, policemen at their cars, doors opened, ready to fire their, admittedly useless, guns at him. Heavily armed soldiers, equally useless. GIW... not so useless.
"Hostages?"
He needed to buy time, needed to figure out what was going on here, why they seemed to be blaming him for all of this. The GIW got impatient.
"You killed that little girl in front of the cameras as an example! Everybody, the whole world saw what you did! Now what are your demands, Phantom!"
The man was shouting now, his face red from anger. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Danny realized that that was indeed what it must have looked like.
"N-no," Danny stuttered, trying to salvage the situation, "No, no hostages. Look, I..."
The GIW was no longer listening. He turned around at the collected fire power behind him.
"FIRE!"
