Author: loosedefense
Title: Weak
Pairing: Danny/Dash
Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is the property of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon. This story implies nothing about the characters nor does the plot of the story have any effect on the show itself. This story is pure fiction and fantasy.
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The scene at Casper High the next day was chaos. At that very moment, the entire teaching staff and support staff were busy trying to get themselves and any student they came along the way in order. Hall monitors were told to enforce every rule they knew with strict vigilance, and that they were to let no rule-breakers slip through their hands. Teachers who were usually too soft-spoken or apathetic for their students to hear properly were practically shouting in attempt to speak more clearly. The janitor was working feverishly to clean the halls while the students were in class. Everybody wanted Casper High to look good.
In his office, Mr. Lancer was involved in something far more serious. Leaning close together, he and Principal Ishiyama whispered hurriedly and urgently, trying to think of what to say to the company they were receiving. Both of them had been interrupted numerous times the past evening by media outlets around Amity Park and beyond, all requesting statements from them regarding an accident a student of the school had been involved in. They had discussed it last night and agreed to call a press conference in the school that afternoon, and were now anxiously awaiting the circus about to burst in through the doors.
As the vice principal, Mr. Lancer had been appointed the job of giving a statement to the press by Principal Ishiyama, who pointed out that as a teacher of several different subjects in the school, even while maintaining his status as the vice-principal, it would be better if the words came from him.
At 2:00 PM, the audience of reporters and cameramen began filling in the principal's office, Lancer's own office being far too small to fit in as many people.
"Thank you all for coming," Lancer addressed somberly. "As you all know, a student of Casper High School was involved in a serious incident yesterday. We understand that the police are still trying to verify the story, and that eye-witness reports have been deemed too unreliable for the time being. In this time, we at Casper High would like to extend our sympathies to the family, and our well-wishes that he will recover quickly."
Pencils scribbled furiously on pads as the reporters rushed to get his every word down. "What do you have to say about reports that Danny Phantom being involved in this event?"
Lancer shared a glance with Principal Ishiyama, who stood stiffly by his side. "We prefer to withhold comments until the police have officially determined what went on—"
"Everyone says Danny Phantom was involved," another reporter, a man this time, remarked.
"Yes, but as we understand it, there seems to be some confusion as to what role he played yesterday—"
"Danny Phantom has been involved in several incidents in the lives of students, hasn't he?" someone else interrupted. "I believe this school holds the record for the most Phantom sightings anywhere in Amity Park?"
"Yes, the school does seem to catch his attention more than most places—" Lancer tried to say gently, but was again cut off before he could get his words completely out.
"Do you have any idea why Danny Phantom would attack a boy from this school?"
"What do you have to say about safety precautions set around the school?"
"Can you comment on the constant budget cuts and frequent cancellation of extracurricular activities?"
"Those budget cuts are done for the safety of the students," Lancer flushed at the last question. He knew someone was going to bring it up; Casper High's budget cuts was a favorite topic of the local media, even though the school had explained their purpose and defended their reasons for canceling so many after-school activities over the years. "Money has to be allocated to protecting the school from ghost attacks, which is a problem hardly any other schools seem to have. In order to keep our students safe, there must be certain sacrifices, and certain after-school programs have to go."
All at once everyone started speaking. Microphones were shoved in Mr. Lancer's face as reporters subjected him to a rapid-fire round.
"What determines what stays and what goes?" one asked. "Why does the music program get cut while the football team plays on?"
"Do you consider it inhumane to subject your football players to practice year round, even when the season is over?"
"Football is an excellent way for them to get exercise," Principal Ishiyama stepped in. "As the basketball team and track team were cut some time ago, we encourage students to practice football year-round so that they may get some fresh air and—"
"Have your activities been approved by the school board?" another reporter shouted. The room burst into chatter again. The focus of the conference was no longer on Kwan, everyone present instead choosing to point out the various ways Casper High did not live up to standard,
"Invitation To A Beheading!" Lancer slammed his palms down on the wooden desk. As everyone else watched in surprise, he reached out and pulled the fire alarm. Instantly the bell began to ring, signaling everyone to evacuate the school. Grabbing the school's microphone, Lancer announced over the announcement speakers, "Everyone out of the school. Now!"
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"Vice-principal Lancer is due to an evaluation by the school board concerning his behavior exhibited this afternoon in Amity Park's local public school, Casper High, and may be facing charges that would lead to suspension or possibly permanent dismissal."
Danny clicked off the television in disgust, turning to look at Sam and Tucker who were sitting next to him on the couch.
"Never thought I'd live to see Lancer being the one facing suspension," Sam shook her head.
"It was totally unfair too," Danny groused. "He didn't do anything wrong. Those reporters totally goaded him into it."
"You were there?"
"Of course I was. They were going to talk about Kwan. I had to see what they were going to say and which direction those reporters were going to take with the story."
"My guess: another smear campaign," Tucker said. "And it looks like Lancer's going to be joining you for the ride this time."
"You would think that the local media would have gone easy on him," Sam said sympathetically. "This is just going to put the whole town in a bad light."
"So what did they say?" Sam asked Danny. The anger she had felt previously had completely dissipated when he had called her the previous night, sobbing and nearly hysterical asking her to come to Amity General. She and Tucker hadn't officially made up, but that was only because there was no real need to. They had both forgotten about their argument when they met at the hospital.
"Nothing worth hearing. The school sends its regards, the media wanted to jump on Danny Phantom's back. I guess I can it's that magical time of year when my ratings plummet."
"I don't understand how they could try to pin this on you," Tucker said. "I mean, you caught Kwan. The other guys were the ones who shot him down. It seems pretty clear who's the bad guy here."
"Yeah, except that since they were all aboard Youngblood's ship, no one could see them," Danny said miserably. "As far as everyone knows, Danny Phantom took a shot at an innocent bystander and Danny Fenton caught him as he fell." He gave Tucker a bitter smile. "And you remember what you told me about the public being fickle."
"What happened anyway?" Sam questioned. She hadn't dared ask him for too many details last night in the hospital, and still wasn't too clear on what had happened. All she had to go on were the incoherent babblings he had given her when she asked and the news reports that had broken out in the evening news and morning papers.
Danny sighed heavily again, burying his face in his hands as though he just wanted to forget everything. Sam and Tucker were waiting however, and he had no doubt that if he didn't proceed to fill them in they would poke and prod until he finally did. So he recounted the story for them in full, waiting to see how they would react.
"No one can pin this on you," Tucker said determinedly. "Why would an 'innocent bystander' just fall out of the sky for Danny Fenton to catch? It makes no sense to anyone who bothers to think about it. If Kwan was shot out of the air, clearly he was being possessed by a ghost."
"People aren't going to care about that," Sam refuted. "The media is going to just say that Danny flew him up to … I don't know, throw him back down and kill him or something." She picked up the remote control and clicked the television back on to a different channel. "It's already being reported on CNN."
"And if it's being reported on CNN—"
"Then it's a matter of national importance—"
"Which means—"
"I'm going to have the Guys in White all over me again," Danny finished mournfully.
Sam turned the television off, sharing a sympathetic look with Tucker. "Have you been to see Kwan anymore?" she asked. Someone in the crowd that had gathered around the two boys that day had had the sense to call an ambulance, for which Danny had been grateful as he could not have simply transformed back into his alter-ego and flown to the hospital. Youngblood's ship had been making its way back towards them when it suddenly ceased to turn back around again and leave. Danny suspected that either the ghosts had not wanted to start a confrontation with so many humans around or that they figured they had already done enough damage for one day.
He had been pushed to ride in the back of the ambulance, too dazed to make it on his own steam. No one had talked inside, the attendant in the back with him too focused on Kwan's vitals. In the hospital they had rushed him in, something Danny was sure they would not have done were he not in a bad condition, and he, Danny, had been left to his own devices in the reception hall.
Too scared to wait on his own, it had occurred to him that he ought to call Kwan's parents and inform them of what had happened to their son before realizing he had never met his parents before and had no idea how to contact them. So he had done the next best thing.
Whatever tension had been between Dash and Danny the past few days seemed to have dissipated yet grown stronger at the same time. When he had arrived, pale with wide eyes, after Danny's call, the atmosphere between them told Danny that now was not the time for either of them to talk about their problems, but it was omnipresent in his mind the entire time.
Kwan's parents – Christ, he didn't even know the guy's family name – arrived soon after; Dash must have called them as soon as Danny had hung up. They did not spare him much attention, only nodded politely when the doctor pointed him out, but then again they had far more important matters to attend to. Dash had pulled him aside and demanded to know what happened, but there was hardly anything Danny could tell him without giving too much away. He hadn't been able to come up with a proper alibi in him, his mind feeling too worn out to think so far ahead.
Kwan was in a coma. Danny almost screamed with relief, but had managed to catch himself in time. It was bad, but comas could be overcome; true that many people never managed to come out of it – he couldn't fault Kwan's parents for grieving at that moment – but he was just so relieved that he wasn't dead that he couldn't help but see this as a good thing.
"What about Tyrant?" Tucker sat down next to him.
"I don't know," Danny mumbled through the hands still cupped over his face. The doctors hadn't mentioned finding anything suspicious inside Kwan. Danny didn't know if they would have been able to detect ectoplasmic energy inside one's body or anything – he had always been sure to steer clear of such situations before – and since Kwan wasn't conscious to exhibit any behavioral symptoms, there was no way of knowing what had become of the ghost that inhabited him. It had occurred to Danny while he waited in the hospital that Tyrant was dead. Could the weapon that he'd been hit with have disintegrated the ghost within the body? Danny wasn't sure.
All in all, it looked like everything was going to be up in the air for a while.
The phone rang. Sam beat him to it. "Hello? Oh, hi, Mister Fenton. Yeah, he's right here – hold on." She passed the phone over to Danny.
"Dad?" he greeted when he pressed the phone to his ear.
"Danny, how's everything?"
"Fine," Danny replied, nonplussed. "Why? What's up?"
"There's going to be a meeting in city hall tonight," his father informed. "Just making sure that you're alright. Your mother and I will probably be late. They want to discuss what's to be done about that ghost-kid. Have the police been by to see you yet?"
"No," Danny said solemnly. The police had arrived in the hospital to question him regarding his involvement in the issue, but had seen that he was in no condition to answer such lengthy questions at the moment, and had, after ensuring with his doctors that the victim was stable, informed Danny that they would be informing his parents that they would need to bring him in for questioning another day.
"Don't say anything without a lawyer present," Jack warned. "Vlad might be coming down; he called when he heard the news, he might be bringing his own lawyers into this. Such a good friend."
"Such a good friend," Danny replied monotonously. "Listen, dad, I've got to go now."
"Yeah, alright son," his father said. "See you tonight."
"Vlad's coming," Danny said as soon as he put the phone back on its cradle. "My dad said he might be bringing his lawyers with him."
"Excellent," Sam said eagerly. "Now you can give him back the Plasmius soul and tell him to find someone else to guard it."
"I thought you wanted me to keep the Plasmius soul?" Danny raised his eyebrows.
"I didn't think you'd still want to, not with everything that's happened," Sam said with some surprise. "You were ready to give it back to him a few days ago."
"Well, I'm not anymore," Danny said. "Walker's been lying to me this whole time. There's obviously more to this story than we thought, and I want to know what they want with it. Tyrant told me to ask them to bring me to the Rock—"
"The Rock?" Tucker asked. "When did he say that?"
"Right after they hit him," Danny said. He hadn't told them this part yet. "He was really scared – I could see it in his eyes. He told me that I had to find them and make them bring me to the Rock. I don't know what he was talking about, but I bet Walker does."
"You're going to see him now?" Sam gasped. "After he nearly killed you yesterday? Danny, that's suicide!"
"No, it's not," Danny said firmly. "I'll be in the Ghost Zone, and if I get in any trouble, I'll just turn human. I have to get to the bottom of this. Then we can all move on. Besides, they wouldn't want to kill me until I reveal where I hid the Plasmius soul, and I'm leaving it here."
There was no way to stop him when he got like this, so Sam and Tucker eventually agreed to man the controls. "How long do you need?" Tucker asked as the doors slid open.
"I don't know," Danny replied. "I have no idea what I'm getting myself into."
"Maybe we shouldn't do this," Sam said worriedly. "Who knows what could happen to you in there?"
"I'll be fine, guys," Danny said. "Just make sure to open the door every few minutes and check if I'm there."
The vortex was swirling in front of him now, waiting to devour him. Let out a soft 'whoosh' of breath, Danny floated into its depths and began the familiar path to Walker's prison.
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The prison seemed totally deserted. Danny had peeked into Walker's office to find that the ghost wasn't in there, and had started roaming around, trying to pick up any sign of a ghost lurking around. But so far, everywhere he looked appeared to be dark and empty. Even the cells had been abandoned.
Finally, as he turned another corner, he heard a vague sound that resembled an audience cheering. Picking up speed, he held his breath and pushed his head through the metal barriers to see what was happening on the other side.
The audience wasn't cheering. They were bickering. All around the large expanse of the prison's field, various ghosts were gathered, some whom Danny had encountered before, many of whom he had not; some of whom were still clothed in prison uniform, some who were not, some who weren't clothed in any way at all. All of them had heavy frowns and fiery eyes on their faces.
"Silence. Silence!" Danny craned his neck upwards to find Walker descending to the ground of the ledge whose door he was hidden behind. He made to pull away, but paused when Walker stopped right in front of him – the ghost would have to turn a full 180 degrees in order to see him, so Danny couldn't have chosen a better hiding spot: Walker's frame covered him from the crowd nicely, and the warden and all his goons were fixed forward and couldn't see him.
The crowd wasn't listening. Danny watched as Walker raised one hand that was starting to glow with enormous energy. The next thing Danny heard, there was a loud sound, followed by some squeals, an awful crushing sound, and finally silence.
"I know the results of the previous evening were undesirable," Walker continued. "Due to unforeseen circumstances, the plan had to be deviated from, and we did not manage to recover the Plasmius soul."
"Unforeseen circumstances!" someone in the crowd scoffed angrily. "We could have had him, Walker! We were almost there until you made us all nearly break our arms again turning that blasted ship back around. Why did we not kill the child when we had the chance?"
"Patience," Walker said. He rested his arms behind his back. "The boy had a defender that we did not anticipate. Skulker – why is it that in your reports, there was absolutely no mention of any peripheral threats aside from his two mortal companions?"
"I didn't meet one," Skulker growled. "All this time that I had been watching the boy, not once did that gnat of his prove to be anything worth challenging."
"What does that have to do with anything?" rang out a familiar voice. Ember.
"The idea is simple," Walker said loudly. "To get to the boy, we apprehend and contain any reserve co-operatives he has. We already stationed a group to stalk and kill his two friends, but there was no contingent plan on taking out another ally. I will not have such deviations in my plan."
"Oh, fuck you!" someone called out. "You're such a control freak you would risk all our afterlives just so you can stick to that script inside your demented head?" He broke off with a scream, and Danny guessed that one of the guards roaming the crowds had just stunned him.
"Let's get one thing straight here, people – you work for me." Walker began pacing now. "If I so wanted, I could have all of you entombed in these walls until Chaos comes, but as a personal rule, when such threats arise I like to give my prisoners a fighting chance to save themselves, primarily so that I may have another chance and tossing them back into this jail to rot. But the fact that I have freed you does not mean that I do not still rule you. You will do as I say, and you will follow my reign lest I have you all hung on hooks otherwise.
"Skulker shall scout out the boy for any weaknesses once more. This time, he will keep a closer guard than ever before so that we may learn of any other allies that we shall have to keep an eye on. Once this phase is done—"
"We don't have time for this!" one ghost grunted in frustration. "Let's just nab the little brat right now and make him tell us where it is!"
Walker's reply was cut off by an unexpected blast to the rear. Danny stepped through to reveal himself, brow in a concentrated frown. "You don't have to," he announced.
His entrance was met with a chorus of jeers and roars from the innumerable amount of ghosts who wanted to tear him limb from limb. Danny, however, couldn't care less, perched safely above them with only Walker and his guards and Skulker standing off to the side serving as any sort of immediate threat.
Walker didn't bother to fire back, knowing there was hardly any point when Danny was still human. "What are you doing here, Ghost-kid?"
"You think you can come after me," Danny said coldly, "shoot down a civilian, and I won't come after you?"
"That was no civilian," Walker snapped. "He was flying right by your side – you've been keeping a ghost hidden from me, after I ordered you to bring them here."
"So that you could amass your army, no doubt," Danny retorted. "I don't take order from anyone, especially not double-crossing dictator-wannabes like you." He raised a hand threateningly. "You are all going to tell me the truth this time, or I'll blast every single one of you until you become shapeless blobs. I see Walker was thoughtful enough to round you all up for me, like pigs in a pen."
The dull roar picked up again as the crowd began to mutter angrily amongst themselves. "Tell him!" one ghost from the crowd yelled out.
"Yes, Walker," Danny heard a nasally voice that could only belong to Poindexter. "If you want him to cooperate, you cannot possibly leave him in the dark like this."
"It is not his place to know!" Ember said angrily.
"Why don't you put it to a vote?" someone else suggested over the others. Danny turned to Walker to see what he thought of this.
"Democracy doesn't rule here, I do," he boomed. "There will be no votes."
"Alright," Danny conceded, "then how about a fight to the death? And when I'm done with you, then they can tell me what I want to know."
Grumbling, Walker gave in. "We shall elect five ghosts each," he decreed. "And they shall decide. I will pick first."
"Ember!" he roared. Danny watched as two guards gripped her by the elbows and unceremoniously raised her and tossed her to land at the ledge Danny and Walker were situated. "Bullet! Skulker! Bertrand! Technus!"
'Oh, great,' Danny thought hopelessly. All of these ghosts had at one point or another tried to get the Plasmius soul away from him. Technus hadn't tried to do so directly, but Danny had no doubt that he was the one who had constructed that nightmarish weapon from the previous day. Walker strode back under the shadow of the arches. "Make your choice, ghost-kid."
"Poindexter!" Danny said immediately, knowing he had at least one person in the crowd in favor of sparing him another battle. His eyes scanned for another friendly face in the crowd as Poindexter landed by his side with an grunt. "Dorathea!"
He was running low on choices. He hadn't made very many friends in all his years of kicking ghosts' asses back into their world. Danny could feel Walker's smirk burning into the back of his head, and he clenched his fist. "Klemper!"
"Will you be my friend?" the ghost sang dizzily as two guards raised him up and threw him before Danny's feet.
"Yes, yes, but only if you vote to show me the Rock," Danny helped him to his feet and directed him to stand beside Poindexter and Dora.
"Is this it?" Walker didn't bother hiding his laugh. "A fine threesome they make."
"Shut up," Danny replied. Out of desperation, he called out for Johnny and Kitty to join the others that he had called out, remembering too late that they had both been present the previous day to hunt him down. He would have to hope that there wasn't too much bad blood between them to stop them from being fair – or rather, that Kitty would force Johnny to vote for him.
"Now," Walker turned to the group of ten he and Danny had assembled, "what say you?"
"Rip his head off!" Ember pumped her fists.
"Mount him on a pole," Bullet agreed with a bloodthirsty look in his eye.
"Like you'd even have the chance," Poindexter said. "You know you can't touch him here. He's clearly out of all our leagues."
"Yes," Dorothea said. "You're so desperate for a weapon, Walker, why not this one? The boy has proven his worth many times over."
Klemper drooled. Dora nudged him with her elbow. "Er … I think we should take him to the Rock?" Klemper said uncertainly. "Will you be my friend now?"
"Yeah, well, I think we should hog-tie him down and—"
"Oh for God's sake, Johnny, don't you ever listen?" Kitty broke through angrily. "Two-tone just said we can't touch him here. Just tell him what he wants to know and deal with it."
"All in favor of bringing the halfa to the Rock—" Poindexter raised his hand. Dora, Klemper and Kitty followed suit, while the rest, grumbling, did the same half-heartedly.
"It's unanimous!" Danny whooped. They were finally getting somewhere. Walker didn't look happy, but he returned to the edge overlooking the crowd and held his hands up for silence anyway.
"A decision has been reached," he announced. "We will bring the ghost-kid to the Rock." Immediately, chatter broke up again, but Walker continued on as though they were still focused on him, "What we do to the boy afterwards is still up for suggestion."
Danny rolled his eyes. Always with the theatrics, that one.
The guards drifted over to the gates and unlocked it, pulling them open to allow all present to file through. Once outside the prison, the ghosts took to the air, circling around the towers of the prison waiting for him to join them. Danny stood by the edge of the rock tentatively. If he were to join them, he would have to go ghost, meaning he would no longer have the invulnerability his human state provided him in the Ghost Zone. Hesitating just a moment, he decided that it was worth the risk and transformed into Danny Phantom, then rose up to join them.
The ghosts shared looks with each other.
And before he knew it, Danny was letting out a yell and raising his arms to protect his face from the onset of ghosts leaping towards him. Pulling away, he blindly raised his hand to charge up an ectoplasmic ball. He took the opportunity to open his eyes and clear his vision only after he had flung out his arm to heave it at the assailants.
He realized that he was in the middle of a full-scale whoop-ass. Ghosts were leaping on top of the ones that had tried to leap on him; Poindexter, Kitty, Johnny and Shadow were floating before him, backs turned, fending off the oncoming wave as best they could.
Bullet was atop someone's shoulders, landing blows to the ghost's head. His eyes locked together with Danny's, and he let out a wicked grin, tensing his legs to spring forward and devour him—
—when he, along with everybody else, was tossed away to the side like marbles. Danny only had time to let in a breath when a gigantic claw wrapped around him and squeezed.
"I want to go to the Roooooooock!" Dora the Dragon roared. Her mighty wings flapped and she shot off with Danny in her clutches.
The ghosts followed close behind. Some tried blasting the dragon's tough skin in fruitless attempts to get her to let go of him, but most of them had the sense to know that the game was lost and were content to follow.
Dora began to drift lower, lower, to the depths of Ghost Zone. Despite the seemingly never-ending swill, the Ghost Zone did have solid ground, lost so deep below that Danny had only ever touched it once. When she released him, he found various ghosts surrounding them staring in awe at something behind him. He turned around to see that the Rock they regaled so much really was just that – a jagged grey stone protruding through the smooth expanse of eerie green that made the base of the Ghost Zone.
"Okay, so what's the big deal about this …" Danny's jaw dropped open. Carved on to the other side into the stone was an inscription:
It will come to pass that this world shall be cleansed
And all who drift here shall linger nevermore
The ghosts stood behind him anxiously. Danny raised his eyes back up to meet them.
"It's amateurish at best," he blurted.
The ghosts were unimpressed. "Is that all you're going to say?" Ember demanded.
"Alright, what's the story behind this then?"
"Nobody knows for sure," Technus answered.
"Johnny was the one who discovered it," Kitty placed a hand on her boyfriend's shoulder. "He likes coming down here and riding his bike. When he found this, he told me, and we spread the word."
"It's a prophecy," Danny mused.
"More like a promise," Walker said.
"I don't get it," Danny said blankly, feeling slow.
"That's the problem, isn't it?" Ember said. "No one does! No one knows how long this thing has been here before Johnny found it, no one knows who wrote it, no one knows what's going to happen, or when – all we know is someone's threatening to take us down."
"And when you can dig up a rock in this place," Bertrand said, taking in the barren green floor that stretched into the horizon, "you know they mean business."
But none of the ghosts were laughing. Danny felt goosebumps form on his skin with absolutely no prompting from chilliness. For the first time, he saw hopelessness and fear on the face of each and every ghost present, too many for him to count. He had never seen such looks before, not even when Pariah Dark had awaken from his slumber and terrorized from their homes. At least back then, they knew who the enemy was and what he was capable of.
"When word got around that Plasmius had given up his ghost-half, everyone interested knew that there was only one person he would trust it with: you," Walker told Danny. "I myself had not been aware of this situation until later, when you brought Bullet back to me. He told me everything about the Rock, and of Plasmius's ghost-half being in your care. All of those who tried to take it from you failed; I knew that if we were to procure it, we would have to work together.
"The trouble, you see, is that the spirit is only effective for one ghost. Since Masters had removed it, it had no host and would inhabit the nearest vessel available; to us, that meant an increase in power – and thus a better chance of protecting ourselves from this threat. I knew that the ghosts I worked with could only be the ones who had tried to obtain the soul from you on their own, which meant that it would be easier for them to agree to a truce. Any others wouldn't want to work together because they'd want the power for themselves."
"But you didn't come after me on your own," Danny turned to Johnny 13 and Kitty.
"We decided that since only one person can use the soul, we'd rather die together," Kitty sighed romantically. Johnny looked slightly uncomfortable as he nodded along.
"Johnny and Kitty are part of a select few gracious enough to help us take the soul from you without wanting to use it themselves," Walker smirked. "They just want someone else to handle the burden of protecting the Ghost Zone.
"And the rest of them volunteered. Did you not, gentlemen?"
There was a faint murmur of assent, from gentlemen, ladies, and those who exceeded gender altogether. Danny suspected that Walker had relied on more than sign-up sheets to build his army but held his tongue.
"What if the soul hadn't been enough?" he questioned. "What if it had been too much, and you lost control of it? You don't know what could have happened."
"We don't know what's going to happen if we don't protect ourselves either," Walker reminded. "I had set Skulker to follow you; he was to report on any information he could find on your fellow ghost-catchers, where you stored the weapon, and the like – he wasn't very effective, as you can tell."
"So there's the truth," Technus said plainly. "Something's coming, and we don't know what. We're all groping in the dark finding some way to stop it."
"So for months you spent all your energies trying to get the Plasmius soul?" Danny sputtered. "What, didn't getting your asses kicked at every turn tell you that maybe you should have gone with some different ideas?"
"Of course it did, ghost-kid," Walker said. "Why do you think I had Technus build that gun from parts he found from your laboratory?"
"We are not the only ghosts trying to do something about this," Poindexter added. "We simply make up the small percentage who decided that this was the best way to go."
Danny caught Bertrand's eye. "Spectra?"
"In hiding," he sighed. "She has the idea that if she just waits it out, whatever comes to wipe us out will miss her, and then she can come out again and feast on the waves of misery that accompany devastation."
"What other ideas did you guys come up with?" Danny inquired.
"What else can be done?" Ember retorted. "It's not like we can have Ghost Writer change what's about to happen, not after he wrote himself out of existance. And it's not as if Desiree can just wish it all away."
Danny remembered when, almost an entire year ago, Desiree had grown mad with power and had sought to destroy him. She had almost managed it, but Danny had been able to steal her lamp away and destroyed it, causing her powers to dissolve almost instantly. He hadn't seen her since, and asked Ember where she had been this entire time. She snorted disdainfully.
"She's been holed up in my place like a goddamn vegetable for months now. It's driving me crazy. She refuses to do anything. All she ever does is lay around my couch whining about how her powers are so diminished she might as well become a fairy."
"Alright," Bullet said insistently, "we've done our part. Now, are you going to give up the ghost or do we have to beat it out of you?"
Danny narrowed his eyes, and before anyone could react, sprung into the air and took off. There was a moment of stunned silence, then with angry roars, the ghosts began to follow him. Not breaking his pace for a moment, Danny willed himself intangible so that any ecto-blasts would shoot right through him.
The door to the Fenton Ghost Portal was open. Danny could already see Sam and Tucker peeking inside anxiously, but did not dare turn himself visible again for fear of any stray shots hitting him at the last moment. The door was closing now – intangibility wouldn't be able to help him get through it if he missed his chance.
He closed his eyes and pushed himself forward. He could feel the bright strip of light permeating through his eyelids, growing slimmer.
He made it. As the doors closed, Danny felt the last few wisps of his ghostly tail die away, and he tumbled to the ground with Tucker underneath him.
"So what happened?" Sam asked when he reformed.
"I found out everything," Danny got to his feet and stuck out his hand to help Tucker up as well. "I'll tell you everything after my meeting with Vlad."