The ride home from the police station was utterly silent. Danny was glad to notice his father's hand on top of his mother's on the clutch, but spent most of the time on the way back to FentonWorks staring out the window brooding darkly over the events that had transpired minutes ago.
Jazz broke the silence only once to hesitantly announce that Jasper and her had to return back to university to prepare for their final exams and would likely be leaving the next morning, a statement that went unacknowledged by the rest of the group. No one seemed ready to talk and Jazz couldn't bring herself to ask while stewing in the black mood that permeated the vehicle.
When they arrived home, Jack and Maddie immediately locked themselves in the basement in order to take stock of their inventory and separate their own inventions from those meant for Axion Laboratories. Danny remained in the living room, taking back the pullout bed in order to allow Jasper some time to pack up his belongings. Jazz retired to her room to do the same, and so Danny found himself in a house full of people, yet, watching at the white truck parked outside illuminated by an orange streetlight, completely alone.
He lay on the springy mattress that night, hands folded behind his head and staring unseeingly at the ceiling above, and let the rage he had been restraining on a leash cloud over his mind. What could he do, he wondered, to get back at the Guys in White? This went beyond simply sneaking into their van and finding out what they had on him and his family – he had to get them out of Amity Park for all their sakes. But how?
His eyes had only just begun to slide shut when with a jolt he remembered the gun that Kwan had. Or Tyrant, rather – the gun he had taken from the Fentons' in order to fight against ghosts with Danny. Surely his parents would have noticed it was missing after running through a list of inventions they kept down in the basement. He had to get it back.
Tomorrow, while Kwan was at school, he would break into his room and search for it, he decided. There was nothing to be done about it now – his parents were still downstairs and he couldn't risk them coming up and finding their son missing in the middle of the night. That meant missing half of another school day he couldn't afford to skip out on. Danny quietly groaned. The demands were growing too much – he was getting stretched too thin.
Turning over on his side, there was nothing left to do to block out the negative thoughts but to close his eyes and drift off to sleep, yet sleep did not come easily. Danny remained still while his parents thudded upstairs and switched off the light before quietly going to their bedroom.
Danny turned over on his back again and resumed gazing mindlessly up at the ceiling, watching the shadows play on its canvas.
Jazz had said that she and Jasper were leaving in the morning. It was a sudden announcement on the whole, given that the family had been rather preoccupied throughout her visit to really enjoy her presence this time around, but Danny couldn't say he wasn't glad to see her go; having Jazz around was nice and all, but he only now realized that he simply could not afford to be distracted from his mission any longer. Though she had proven useful, Jazz had always been more of a hindrance than a help.
And Jasper – Danny wasn't sorry to him go one bit. The older boy had served only to irritate Danny since the day he arrived. Danny squirmed uncomfortably on the pullout mattress. It would be nice to have his bed back once the law student left, that was for sure.
It wasn't until the greyish hue the ceiling had taken on lightened into white that he realized the sun was up and that he hadn't gotten any sleep at all.
He had barely pulled himself out of bed before he heard light footsteps approaching the stairs. Maddie emerged dressed in full attire, and looked surprised to find her son awake so early. "Oh!" she let out upon finding Danny gazing out the window. "Morning, sweetheart," she greeted. "Did you sleep at all?"
"Yeah, mom," Danny gave her a wan smile.
Maddie nodded uncertainly, then hoisted her large handbag upon her shoulder and began rummaging through it. "I don't think we have any time to fix breakfast today, dear – your father and I are on our way to work, but there's cereal in the cupboard ... I'm not sure if the milk has gone bad or not, so be sure to smell it first – if it has, there are eggs in the fridge, and bread in the freezer which you can toast – I'm putting a fifty under the flower vase for when you get back home, for lunch, or in case we're not back in time for dinner—"
"I'll be fine, mom," Danny interrupted. Maddie emerged from the depths of the bag, looking surprise to find that she even had an audience. Before anything else could be said, Jack came bounding down the stairs looking like he had gotten about as much sleep as Danny had. He, too, appeared surprised to find his son awake.
"Hey, sport," he said carefully.
"Hi, dad," Danny responded in a falsely cheery voice.
Jack turned to Maddie. "You got the keys?"
Maddie pulled them out of her bag with a tight smile.
"Then let's go," Jack stated, striding out the door with one last glance toward Danny. His mother waved goodbye while pulling her black gloves on, and then they were gone.
There was still an hour left before Danny would typically start preparing to go to school – the same, he assumed, went for Kwan, and so, with nothing to do but wait, he decided to kill some time by going to the kitchen and checking out what was in the fridge.
The milk had gone bad. Danny wrinkled his nose and tossed the bottle into the garbage bin. He pulled out a loaf of bed from the freezer along with eggs and cheese. He also discovered that there were several slices of salmon left and decided to make the omelettes exotic.
He had only just finished cooking when Jazz strolled into the kitchen rubbing at her eyes blearily. She raised an eyebrow when she caught sight of the dishes Danny had lay on the table. "I see you've been busy," she commented dryly.
Danny shrugged carelessly, spreading butter on his toast before slobbering honey over it. "I couldn't sleep," he said. "There's coffee by the microwave."
Jazz immediately grabbed a cup and poured herself some before sitting down. Danny passed her a plate, and she accepted a piece of toast and cut out a slice of the omelettes. Danny took his usual seat across from her and the two siblings munched quietly on their breakfast for a few moments. Danny felt his sister's eyes bore into him, but kept his head down. He knew she was dying to ask about what had happened at the police station but he was simply not ready to talk about it. He didn't think he ever would be.
"Look, Jazz—" he started, intending to deflect her questions with sheer honesty, but Jazz interrupted him.
"Danny," she said slowly, stirring her coffee with her little finger, "you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." She raised her eyes to meet his, cerulean blue. "But I want you to know that if you have to keep secrets from everyone else ... you never have to keep secrets from me."
Danny was speechless. Of all the things he had expected her to say, that had not even come close. Jazz had always bore a strong presence on him; she was his older sister; she was frustrating, infuriating, she was larger than life. Throughout elementary school and straight on to high school, Danny had always found himself in the shadow of his bright and talented sister, and it had served to portray her as a mild annoyance in his eyes. He knew Jazz cared, had seen the things she had done for him once she had discovered his secret – but he had never seen such sheer honesty written on her face as he did now.
"I—" There was so much Danny wanted to say, so much he had been keeping to himself with no objective person to bear his heart to; the ever-growing distance he felt developing between his friendship with Sam and Tucker as they prepared to go to the schools of their dreams; the future he had robbed himself out of due to his sheer exhaustion in dealing with the whole matter; his involvement with Dash Baxter and the limbo they were now hanging in – and those were just the issues to start with. He was still not ready to consider, even to himself, his fears over what would happen to their parents marriage, that Vlad had finally found a way to tear Jack and Maddie apart; the claustrophobia the Guys in White had instilled in him as they drew in ever closer; the infuriating mystery surrounding the Ghost Zone that seemed to permeate all aspects of his life. Jazz leaned forwards expectantly.
"I really don't know what to tell you, Jazz," Danny said robotically. "There's nothing to talk about."
She pulled back, disappointment etched on her face for a moment before being wiped off by an accepting smile. "Okay, Danny," she said. "If you're sure."
The wound on Danny's torso throbbed.
"I'm sure."
Before awkwardness had a chance to settle in, Jasper walked through the door still yawning. "Man, what time is it?"
"Seven-ten," Jazz informed, glancing at her watch. Jasper groaned.
"Way, way too early," he muttered. "Got any coffee?"
"Over by the microwave," Jazz nodded in the aforementioned direction. "Eat up, and then we have to shower and load up our stuff in the car. Did you pack?"
"Last night," Jasper informed, pouring himself a cup. "I hope you did too, because you brought a ton of crap with you."
"I packed!" Jazz protested. "I may be bad when it comes to packing prior to the trip, but never when it's time to leave."
And so the three of them continued to eat the breakfast Danny prepared, the only sendoff Jazz would be receiving upon her departure. It truly was inconvenient timing; Danny knew that she would be back in a couple of weeks once her finals were over and done with, and they would be better able to enjoy their time together – and hopefully their parents would have more opportunity to appreciate Jazz's presence around the household again – but there was no way to shake off the rushed feeling of goodbye.
In the next hour, Danny meandered around the house, cleaning up after the two houseguests while they showered and packed up their final bits and articles of clothing. Eventually Jasper appeared dragging down a suitcase, and Danny went to assist him with the others.
Jazz glided out of the house while the two boys unceremoniously heaved the hefty pieces of luggage into the trunk of the car, wrapping a shawl around herself, eyes flicking to the white van across the street. Wordlessly the two siblings embraced. Jazz ran her hands up and down Danny's back, and Danny marvelled at how much taller he had grown over his sister. There were no goodbyes, no well wishes, no promises to see each other again soon. The two Fentons simply pulled back, Jazz gripping on to Danny's shoulders with a pinched look adorning her face. Danny smiled down at his sister, and she returned it. Then she slid into the passenger seat, and Jasper pulled out of the driveway.
Danny raised his arm as they drew further back. Jasper turned, and now he could see directly into Jazz's side of the car. She kept her eyes trained on him and pressed one hand to the windowpane, mirroring his gesture. Neither of them lowered their hands until Jasper crossed the street and turned the corner and they could no longer see each other.
Despite his earlier assurances that he needed Jazz out of the way, Danny's heart still broke when he stepped into an empty house.
There was little time to waste; school would be starting soon, and if Danny wanted to get the gun out of Kwan's house without missing too many of his classes, he would have to be quick about it. Soon after he bade farewell to Jazz, he grabbed his backpack and strolled out of the house in a casual fashion, throwing a dark look at the van parked across the street. Once he was certain he was out of the line of vision of the agents holed up in the vehicle, he transformed himself into his alter-ego and zoomed off in the direction of Kwan's house.
His timing, as it turned out, could not have been better; hiding in the bushes, Danny watched as Kwan leaned down to kiss his mother, a portly Asian woman with a short dark bob, on the cheek before heading off in the direction of Casper High. Kwan's mother returned to the house, and once Danny was sure Kwan was too far gone to risk suddenly coming back, he moved quickly, darting forwards and phasing through the front door.
Kwan's mother was humming to herself as she dusted various knick-knacks that decorated the surface of a shiny black piano that had been pushed against a wall. Danny stopped to watch for a moment. He didn't recall ever seeing his own mother taking such care with household chores. Sure, Maddie cleaned up around the house, though she was more likely to pander the tasks over to her children while she spent her time in the laboratory conducting various experiments and creating feats of engineering with her husband. The Fenton household contained a vacuum cleaner, but never an actual feather duster.
Silently he drifted past the unsuspecting woman upstairs to where the bedrooms were. He had been inside Kwan's bedroom once before, confronting the other boy when he had been overshadowed by a ghost, but he had been full of rage then and not paid proper attention to the details. It was only by luck that he had landed in Kwan's bedroom on the first go back then.
He stuck his head through one door and found himself looking round a large bedroom with a queen size bed. The room was rather simple, with a decent-sized television across the bed, a vanity dresser against one wall with innumerable cases of makeup and tubes of lipstick scattered across it. Danny spotted several pearls and other jewellery. There was a large closet built in to the wall adjacent to the bed, and an adjoining bathroom. This must have been the master bedroom belonging to Kwan's parents.
He pulled away. Directly behind him were two more rooms, side by side. He chose the one on the right first, and couldn't help but smile at what was inside
It was evident that this room belonged to a little girl – Kwan's sister. The walls were decorated by garish pink wallpaper; there were so many posters taped up that it looked as though the occupant had tried to drown out the girlish color. Danny noted with a raised eyebrow that a large portion of these posters included sports stars ranging from shirtless wrestlers to victorious soccer players. Clearly there was another jock in the family.
One desk situated next to the bed was almost entirely swallowed up by a large ancient desktop computer. Indeed there was so little space left that the girl had been given another desk, upon which lay strewn books and looseleaf papers, to study on.
Mud caked the floor, leading from the door all the way to the foot of the bed where a soccer ball had been placed, fouling up an already filthy-looking rug in the process. No doubt the girl's mother would be coming soon to clean up, and would likely proceed to Kwan's room in the process – which meant that Danny was on a time limit.
He pulled his head out of the door and without hesitation walked through the last remaining room. Immediately he recognized it for the room he had once barged into.
Kwan's room was far more serene that the one that had preceded it. The walls were painted a baby blue, which made Danny think of Dash's eyes. His heart tightened, but he shook his head and focused on his mission.
The bed was unmade, with the comforter hanging halfway on the mattress and lying on the floor. There were clothes tossed haphazardly all over the room. A football was balanced precariously on a shelf that held numerous gold and silver trophies. Danny's eyebrows shot up as he caught sight of a tuba hiding away in a nook directly underneath a large picture window. Who knew Kwan was a band geek? Perhaps the only area of the room that remained immaculate was the study desk which held a column of books at one corner and a black laptop stained with fingerprints at the very center.
Where would Kwan hide an ecto-gun, Danny wondered. But then, he considered as he took a step forward, it wasn't really Kwan who had acquired the gun, was it? He had been possessed by Tyrant at the time.
The closet was the most obvious location to begin his search. Danny reached out for it but drew back suddenly when a sharp pain shot up his foot. He clamped his lips together to keep from howling in pain, and bounced around on one foot, gripping his injured leg with both hands. Aggressively, he kicked away at the offending matter that had caused him such pain and rolled his eyes when he found that he had stubbed his toe on a pair of barbells that were hidden under a mountain of clothes. Typical.
Stepping gingerly over the set of weights, Danny approached the closet and threw the doors open.
Items of clothing arranged in no apparent accordance greeted him. Danny was quick to shuffle through drawers, finding rolls of socks, bundles of underwear, handheld game consoles, a spare cellphone, novels that looked like they had hardly ever been touched ... but no sign of an ectoplasmic gun.
Danny shut the closet disappointed. It was alright, he told himself; Tyrant would likely have taken more care than to hide such an incriminating object in such an obvious place. He pursed his lips. Where else could he have hidden it?
Danny spun around in a complete circle trying to spot a plausible area that could effectively keep a small ray gun out of sight from prying eyes. His gaze landed on top of the closet, and with a strike of inspiration, lifted himself off the ground, floating just high enough to peer over the top of the closet.
Nothing. Danny set himself down with a sinking heart. Just for good measure, he palmed his way around the study desk just in case the gun happened to be buried somewhere between the books, but came up empty.
Sighing, Danny threw himself down on to Kwan's surprisingly lumpy bed. All this effort for nothing. He had missed the final bell for sure, and all for what Just to learn that Kwan was the proud owner of a bunch of trophies and that at some point he had acquired a tuba.
The tuba.
Danny shot upright and turned to stare at the instrument tucked away between the wooden desk and the wall. With trembling fingers, he reached out and pulled the tuba close to his chest and gave it a careful shake. Something rattled within.
Hardly daring to breathe, Danny slowly overturned the tuba, listening to the clatter of whatever had been buried inside fall as the instrument's equilibrium changed. Then he once again rotated the angle of the tuba, and out of the rim fell the ecto-gun.
Danny jumped to his feet. He had almost expected it to be something else, but there it was staring up at him. He almost tossed away the tuba in his hands in excitement but remembered himself long enough to gently place it back where it belonged. Then he snatched up the weapon and, hearing the telltale signs of Kwan's mother coming up the stairs carrying what sounded like a mop and bucket from the effort she put in, turned intangible once more and flew out the closed window.
He was almost halfway back to FentonWorks when he paused and looked down contemplatively at the gun in his hands. His parents had spent the previous night itemizing all the inventions they had created in the basement – surely it would seem suspicious if they were to simply find it conveniently located on a shelf somewhere when they had failed to find it the previous night.
Danny shut his eyes tightly. This meant there was only one thing to do. He had to deliver this personally to Axion Laboratories.
Tightening his grip on the ecto-gun, Danny turned tail and headed in the opposite direction, sparing a glance for Casper High as he flew above it.
Axion Laboratories were located on the other side of town, and Danny had no doubt whatsoever that the Guys in White were staking it out just as heavily as they were the Fenton residence, and so he landed on the grassy knoll overlooking the emporium. Two rings of light enveloped him and once again Danny Fenton stood with his hair blowing in the wind.
Keeping an eye out for any agents that may be lurking in the vicinity, Danny attemtped to stroll up to the entrance nonchalantly, as though he spent every day walking by a highly-classified scientific factory that churned out weaponry on how to destroy ghosts.
The laboratory was firmly locked down. Danny wondered how he could get in. He usually tried staying as far away from Axion Labs as possible, and so was clueless as to the upgrades in security it may have received.
"Please key in access code," a neutral female voice resounded.
Danny blinked, taking notice of a small scanner in which one could type in a sequence of numbers as provided by a row of numbers. "Er..." Surely Vlad wouldn't have made it too difficult for a half-ghost to enter the building? He recalled spying on the older man conducting secret deals with ghosts within the bowels of the company on more than one occassion.
"If you are not an employee of Axion Laboratories or have not been granted an access code, please scan your guest pass," the voice instructed.
No help there. Danny took a quick glance of the area and, deciding that there was no immediate threat, pressed his body up against the steel door, willing his shoulder intangible, trying to slip in unnoticed, then quickly forced the rest of him through the barrier.
Danny dusted himself off with pride. If those Harry Potter kids could do it in the train station, so could he.
He wasn't entirely sure what to expect when he arrived in Axion Labs. The last time he had been in here was when he was fourteen years old, and back then, the laboratory had seemed frightening, intimidating.
Now, he found himself looking blankly at a white corridor with brown doors that somewhat reminded him of the narrow halls of Casper High. Sticking out above each door was a large bulb emitting a green glow and an electronic sign underneath that read in narrow red letters, 'CONDITION STERILE'.
He reached out for the knob to the first door on his left, but paused. What were the chances that laser guns would emerge out of the walls and fire at him the second he touched the door? Danny decided the safest course of action when in Axion Labs was to maintain a low profile at all times, which meant going intangible whenever possible.
He lifted his foot and pressed it through the wooden door.
Immediately a shrill alarm resounded throughout the corridor. Danny pulled his foot out, jumping in surprise at the sudden sound. The bulb overhead had changed from green to an angry red, and the sign below switched to declare 'CONDITION CONTAMINATED'.
He held his breath as the door was flung open and a man perhaps in his mid-thirties with auburn hair peered out. Apparently finding nothing of note, he rolled his eyes and yelled over his shoulder, "Eugene! The system's acting up again!"
Another man, bearded and significantly older than the first one, appeared, grumbling, "That's the third time this month! When are they gonna fix up this dump?"
"Don't ask me," the first man said in a condescending nasal voice. "I just work here."
"Yeah well," the other man, Eugene, threw a white lab coat over his shoulders, "you'd think that now that old man Masters is dead, they'd throw a little bit of that green our way."
The door hit the wall, piercing Danny's body in the process. Eugene shuffled out, still speaking to the other man loudly in order to be heard over the sqwacking alarm system. "After all, it is his company!"
The first man shook his head in response, grabbing hold of the doorknob and slamming the door shut behind him. Danny slipped quietly past.
Danny had wondered why none of the other employees had come rushing out during the disturbance, and found his answer when the door shut behind him. The rooms were completely soundproof. The only sign Danny could find that alerted the two men that the alarm had been set off was a slight buzzing noise, more of an irritation, like a mosquito that drifted too close to one's ear.
The first man crossed the room to take a seat on one side of a large grey table not unlike the ones installed in the science labs of Casper High. There were even sinks built in to them for easy access. The scientist hunched over a large while gun with instruments held delicately between his fingers and his tongue between his teeth while a frown of concentration marred his otherwise smooth face. While he fiddled with the weapon that lay before him, Danny took the time to notice his new surroundings.
Sunlight streamed in through the blinds that covered a large window. Fluorescent lights hummed pleasantly overhead. Danny spared a moment for the chalkboard filled with complicated mathematical equations that took up the space of one wall.
It was inexplicable, how different Axion seemed to him now. At fourteen, the lab had seemed to be a monstrous abomination of technology designed to rip him apart, leaving such a terrifying impression that he had tried to keep away at all costs. Either the laboratory had suffered some severe cutbacks in financial assistance, or Danny had merely grown up and found that the monsters under the bed were merely the shadows cast by the curtains billowing in the moonlight.
The door opened once again and the other man, Eugene, stalked in. "Next one is your turn," he warned the first man. "Brent was laying it in to me bad when I went in there."
The redhead snorted. "What does that son of a bitch do all day, anyway? So sorry we interrupted your soap operas, Brent," he mocked.
Eugene shook his head. "I don't know; I don't care; all I'm saying is, you're getting the next one."
The two men worked in silence for a few moments.
"I was talking with Hank over at Genetics the other day," the first man said. "He reckons they're close to replicating some ghost DNA."
"And what do they want to do with something like that?' Eugene didn't lift his eyes off the project. For that matter, neither did the other man.
"Got me," he replied. "Hank reckons they can use it to better understand what the heck these things are. Says they can get some kind of a vessel and fuse them together to make some sort of half-breed. You know, half-human, half-ghost."
Eugene snorted. "Yeah, and I bet they'd give it some stupid name like ... avatar or some bullshit like that." The two men let out a round of derisive laughter.
"So what did you say when he told you that?" Eugene questioned after they had calmed down.
The first man smirked. "What makes you think I said anything?"
"I've known you three years now – long enough to know that you never can keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you," the older man said with a note of fondness in his voice. His younger counterpart chuckled.
"I told the asshole he'd better hurry up before I blow all the damn things out of the sky," he said honestly. "He said it was no problem, he'd just catch Danny Phantom."
Danny's ears pricked up at this.
Eugene snorted. "Danny Phantom. I'll be first in line to test out these new babies on him."
"Hey, the kid's alright," the first man protested. "Been doing a good enough job on this town for the past few years now, hasn't he? First name I heard of when I got off the bus back in the day."
"One minute he's protecting the town, next he's trying to toss some poor kid off a bridge," Eugene countered. "I'm not buying it. I say let's take him down, and the rest will follow. Get things back to normal, for better or worse."
"Good luck with that," the first man muttered. "I've been here three years now, and for what? To see these ghosts get tossed back where they came from, only to come back and terrorize us all again a few days later. Now they got us working on these Gen 2 guns and I gotta say, I'm not seeing the difference."
"Got me there," Eugene agreed. "I took the job because I figured, what the hell. It was new, it was exciting – I knew I wasn't gonna get much further in my own field. But now," he leaned back and stretched out his limbs, "now it's a different story. Or the same story, I don't know. All I know is, I'm tired of it. So I figure, I'll give it a couple more years – getting close to that time when they put guys like me out to pasture anyway. Once I've killed enough time, me and Angie are gonna head back to Georgia."
"Must be nice," the other man mused wistfully. "Something to work for, I guess. They pulled me out of nuclear power, got me with all these promises about how I'd be the one of the first in the field. Thought I'd be making a name for myself, you know? Said that they were getting the most promising minds – they had to because, really, who goes to college to study ghosts? Nobody – except for Jack Fenton."
"Fenton," Eugene sneered. "Biggest jackass if I ever saw one – thinks up amazing inventions, and carries them out, too – but still, a jackass. You heard those government tools are gonna be interrogating him tomorrow?"
"Oh man, don't tell me they're coming here," his compatriot groaned. "Those guys are such jerkwads. I'd put up with Fenton over them any day of the week."
"Not me," Eugene rebuffed. "Jack's a boob. At least with Masters, we had someone who knew the score. I'd sooner shoot myself in the head than trust him to keep me safe from a ghost attack."
Danny felt the back of his neck burn. Gritting his teeth, he managed to refrain himself from whacking the two men on the back of their heads. He'd had just about enough of this conversation, and blindly made his way back to the door.
His smirk was only slightly malicious when the alarm was set off once again. "Oh, for—" he heard Eugene exclaim as he passed through the door. "Marcus, it's your turn!"
Further into the recesses of Axion Danny went, and the more he saw of a crumbling empire. He had always thought of Vlad as a meticulous man; true, he did not excise more effort into maintaining a charade than he had to, only doing enough to provide a thin veneer to satisfy those who only cared to look no further beyond the surface, but a meticulous man nonetheless.
But now that he was gone, the tarnishes that stained his polished mantle began to grow ever more evident. In a way, his expedition through Axion Laboratories was almost as revealing to the character of a man Danny was only just beginning to realize he hardly ever knew, an enigma wrapped in a mystery, as his tour through his palatial mansion.
He watched with a mildly horrific fascination as rats scurried upon large pipes that ran overhead, cobwebs stringing through darkened corners that he would have never found in the welcoming atmosphere of Kwan's house, but appeared in abundance in Vlad's home and place of business.
Danny felt his earlier anger ebb away and give in to a sorrow that was all too familiar every time he thought of Vlad. It was clear the former half-ghost had never truly cared about this place, had used it simply as a way of maintaining his facade as one of the good guys – certainly invested less time once his tenure as mayor of Amity Park took over as his most important role – and while that was good news for Danny, he couldn't help but feel sad for all the people he had amassed here, under the false dreams of contribution, of making this world a better place, a dream never meant to pass. None of them had the prodigious skill of Jack and Maddie Fenton, none of the foresight his parents had been graced with enough to know where the war against ghostkind would lead.
They were just normal men led on by a sham.
Danny finally found Jack in one of the laboratories, not as primitive as many of the other rooms he had ventured into – it seemed that the Fenton couple held a high enough position within the organization to be granted less Spartan working spaces overall.
Maddie was nowhere to be found, but that was alright. Danny watched his father from a distance, punching figures into a calculator, frowning, shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes before entering new digits in, factoring and returning to some new design mapped out on a blueprint, and felt a swell of something in his chest that he so rarely reserved for his father.
Pride.
Bumbling, oafish, and a downright pain he may be at times, there was no one quite as amazing, as dedicated to his passions as Jack Fenton. It was Maddie who caused Danny Phantom the greatest grief, with her unfailing aim and fierce determination to protect what she held dear from those whom she thought threatened it the most, but without Jack's initiative, without Jack's obsessions, Maddie Fenton would have gotten nowhere in the field.
Quietly, Danny deposited the small gun, tracing its curves and angles with one finger, thinking of the effort his father must have gone through in order to make this thing, this thing that another ghost had used in order to protect him, Danny, as though his own powers simply couldn't match up to it. With one last lingering look at Jack, Danny passed through the reinforced walls, and into cool air.
Though he had already missed at least three of his classes, Danny found he wasn't all too concerned anymore. Soaring through the air on the way back to Casper High, he knew that there was no morning wasted if you spent it learning, and he had just learned something no classroom could ever teach.
Author's Note: My exams are finally over, so I reckon I'll be able to update more often, at least until the new semester begins. This chapter had actually been written out a few weeks ago, soon after I published the previous chapter, but I refrained from posting it until after the exams because I wanted to give you guys adequate time to read the past three chapters which I posted one after the other in a short space of time. Then, unfortunately, my hard drive crashed and I was forced to rewrite it over the weekend.
This chapter originally contained an encounter with a certain ghost, which explains the chosen title, but I decided to leave it for the next instalment because I really enjoy the way this one ended. The original did not have the same contemplative tone Danny felt for Jack as the rewrite does, and I like the way it came about. Phantasmagoria is defined as a shifting of illusions, which I think really reflects Danny lifting Vlad's veil from his eyes and seeing his father for what he truly is, so I think it's appropriate enough. The encounter with the ghost, which I planned to happen in the previous chapter, will better serve to pad the next one I think.