Chapter 29: It Gets To Everybody

"And I'm afraid," The boy pulled out a pair of glowing blue handcuffs, "You don't have any choice." The boy forced the cuffs onto Danny's hands. The binding dug into his skin and caused him to bruise.

Danny screamed and he changed back to Danny Fenton right before he passed out.

The blond boy dragged Danny until they were both outside of Axion labs. Then, three vultures came out of the shadows. One vulture carried the blond boy and another vulture picked up Danny. Together, they flew off into someplace Danny had never been.

The next morning—December 30—when Damon checked into the lab, he found that Danny was gone, and so were the master keys. "Where…?" Damon searched around his office in panic. "Did he steal the keys? Where is he?" Damon went over to the secretary's office and asked for Danny Phantom to report to Damon immediately. But it appeared that there was no Danny Phantom in the building. This left Damon bewildered.

Sam and Tucker were sitting at the Nasty Burger waiting for Danny to have lunch with them.

"Where is he?" Sam asked impatiently.

Tucker tried calling Danny's cell phone for the seventh time. "No answer. Maybe he just overslept." Tucker tried to shrug it off like it was nothing.

"Or maybe he forgot about us." Sam said, a bitter memory forming in her mind.

"Of course he didn't, Sam. Well, even if we don't see Danny today, we know we'll see him tomorrow." Tucker always tried to think positively, but he knew he couldn't hide that he was worried a bit.

"Oh December 31st is tomorrow already?" asked Sam who was caught off-guard. She snapped herself back to reality, remembering Garth's big day of pressure and knowing he needed comfort.

"Yeah."

"Maybe tonight I'll talk to Garth on the phone just to see how he's doing." Sam theorized.

"I'll warn you that he's pretty busy. Tomorrow, all the pressure will be on him. If he fails—"

"I know, I know, Lyon will win." Sam sighed deeply, brushing the bangs out of her eyes. "But even if Garth wins, won't he have to stay in the kingdom?"

"Gee, Sam, I never thought of that." Tucker said. He and Sam placed their food orders. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared about tomorrow. What do you think it'll be like?"

"Oh, ya know, dragons and stuff. And everything will look medieval. It'll be like a renaissance festival." Sam imagined it in her mind.

Garth had been training for this moment for months. Even know, he was doing some form of heavy exercise up in his bedroom. He didn't even have time to train Cecelia anymore but she was okay with that. He had taught her enough so that she could now train herself.

Garth was so beefed up now that he wondered if anyone would recognize him. Garth wasn't as nervous as he thought he'd be. But he was still worried. However, spending time with his friends helped him to learn how to cope with the troubles in his life. He was slowly figuring out how to trust people and to learn from them. Garth had truly matured more in the last few months than ever before in his lifetime.

So tomorrow wouldn't bring a lot of change, Garth thought.

Valerie was doing her job as the Nasty Burger mascot. She hated that suit and the smell that it had. It was the smell of her own sweat. The sweat dripped from her back and her long thick hair only made it worse. She despised this job.

The job required her to be silent and just stand around and wave. It left her to the silence of her own mind. While on the outside, she waved and pretended to be happy, on the inside she was feeling like she let Danny down.

After her job was over, she went over to Danny Fenton's home. Danny's sister, Jazz answered the door. "Is Danny home?" Valerie asked.

"No. He's spending a few nights at his uncle's house." Jazz informed Valerie.

"Oh. He didn't tell me about that."

"Well, ya know, apparently we have an uncle who's never met Danny and he just called a few minutes ago to say that Danny would be staying with him."

"When will he be back?" Valerie asked.

Jazz shrugged and then she closed the door.

Valerie went home, feeling down that she couldn't make it up to Danny. Yet. But once he was back, she was going to tell him first thing. There would be nothing stopping her.

It was early in the morning on December 31st. The sun shined through the opaque clouds and all appeared as though it would turn out to be a good day. Tucker decided to begin the day with an optimistic mood. He drove Sam over to the Fentons' house and Danielle answered the door.

"We're ready to go." Tucker said.

"I'll drive the Specter Speeder." Sam said.

"Whoa, whoa, wait, slow down. You guys are the first one here. We still have to wait for my brother, Cecelia and the Guest of Honor." Danielle informed them.

The three of them sat down on the couch. "Where are your parents?" Tucker asked Danielle.

There was a loud BANG from downstairs.

"Do you really have to ask?" Danielle said flatly.

"Ghooooossst!" The three friends could hear Jack and Maddie's muffled voices.

"Right." Tucker felt a little dumb.

Cecelia and Garth were the next to arrive.

"Whoa! You look…strong!" Sam said when she saw Garth.

"That's totally awesome, dude!" Tucker put his hand in the air and waited for a high-five from Garth.

Garth rolled his eyes.

"So where's Danny?" Cecelia asked.

They all came over with the somber realization that Danny was most definitely not present. "Uncle called and said that Danny would be staying with him." Danielle said. "I heard the phone call myself. It's still on the answering machine. But I thought for sure Danny would be back today."

"Which uncle?" Sam asked.

Danielle shrugged an "I don't know".

"Hmm." Cecelia approached the phone. "This isn't right. Play that call back."

Danielle obeyed.

"Hello. I'm a cousin third-removed of Danny's, but he calls me Uncle. I've never gotten to meet Danny, and we just kinda ran into each other when he was walking home from work. So, uh, Danny will be spending the next few nights with me and we'll be catching up and doing all sorts of manly activities."

"Something's wrong." Sam insisted. "Danny never walks anywhere in the winter. He always flies."

"Yeah. He told me about that. And this is all kind of weird…" Cecelia pulled all of her long brown hair to one side and thought really hard about the situation. "This guy doesn't sound very confident. You can tell by the way he's speaking."

"Yeah." Tucker said thoughtfully.

"And isn't it suspicious that he didn't leave his name?" Danielle pointed out.

"Wait a minute, I know that voice!" Tucker exclaimed.

"Me too!" Cecelia said.

"It's that blond kid who attacked Axion labs that night when Cecelia and I were on duty!" Garth put the pieces together.

"That's his voice." Tucker agreed.

"And Danny was at Axion labs last night." Danielle said.

"Oh no." Sam said worriedly.

"Sam, I'm sure Danny can handle himself. Right?" Cecelia hoped to get reassurance from the rest of her friends, but none of them seemed to agree. Tucker made a face. "Okay then, I guess it's time to worry."

"You know what this means—we'll have to split up." Danielle announced. Sam, you and Garth go watch to the medieval realm and Cecelia, Tucker and I will go look for Danny."

"Wait a second. Who gets the Specter Speeder?" Sam asked.

"Rock paper scissors?" Cecelia suggested.

Danielle and Sam held out their hands. "Rock! Paper! Scissors!" the first time, Sam won, and the last two times Danielle won.

"You guys aren't going anywhere until you distract mom and dad." Jazz shouted from where she was sitting in the living room.

"Are you eavesdropping?" Danielle asked with surprise.

Jazz smiled slightly. "No. I'm being a good sister." Jazz said proudly. "But don't worry: I'll distract them." Jazz stood up and went into the kitchen and started throwing metal pans up the staircase at just the angle they would fall down at. "Mom! Dad! You better come quick! There's a ghost upstairs!" Jazz wailed in a dramatic tone.

"Ghost? Where?" Jack and Maddie jotted up both staircases.

Immediately, Danielle, Cecelia, Tucker, Sam, and Garth hopped down to the basement. Danielle, Tucker and Cecelia got into the Specter Speeder and Garth turned into a dragon and he carried Sam through the ghost portal.

Danielle phased the Speeder through the house and kept it invisible until they were far away from their street.

Cecelia was holding onto the cushions of the Speeder's seat.

"Welcome to the Specter Speeder, Cecelia!" Tucker said jokingly. With ease, he turned on the machine, hoping the girls would be impressed at the skill.

Cecelia smiled. "This is so cool."

Tucker laughed.

"Yeah, the feeling wears off after you've been in this junk heap as many times as I have." Danielle said jokingly. She adjusted the seat to a more comfortable position.

"How exactly are we going to find Danny?" Tucker asked Danielle.

"You know more about how to operate this thing than I do, Tucker! And the Speeder has so many effects and buttons that have yet to be discovered." Danielle started flipping switches and pressing buttons.

"What are you doing? Are you installing some high-speed instantaneous ghost-tracker thingy?" Tucker asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm just pressing buttons. Yeesh…"

"This'll be…fun." Cecelia said with a stifled giggle.

It's not every day that you see a ghost dragon carrying a goth girl to a mysterious medieval realm of ghosts.

"Maybe we'll get lucky and the place won't have so many ghosts surrounding it." Sam said. She was being optimistic, which was so unlike her, but she could see that Garth was worried and she wanted very much to calm him down. She'd been trying the whole way to make him smile, but he stubbornly wore that frown. "This place is usually hopping with bad guys."

Not too far ahead was the medieval realm. And oh boy, was it packed with ghosts! Garth set Sam down on her feet, right at the outskirts of the floating island that held Aragon's castle. Sam stayed close to Garth and she cautiously scanned the area. They filed into the castle and blended in with the surrounding population, which consisted of dragons, ghosts, and the occasional human.

The main foyer was set up sort of like a banquet hall. At the other side of this room, there were two large pairs of doors. Garth noted that these doors were just the perfect size for a dragon to fit through easily. Garth twisted the knob. The door opened with a soft creak. Sam and Garth peeked through.

These doors led to an outside arena whose boundaries were composed of some kind of shield. This was probably where the battle was going to take place.

"Garth, you're here!" Aragon was standing in the center of the arena when he noticed Garth spying.

Sam gasped as she heard the thudding footsteps of Prince Aragon in dragon form. Garth pushed Sam away from the door as he slipped through and locked it from the side of the arena. Garth couldn't risk Aragon knowing that Sam was here. There was no telling what he would do if he found out.

Garth folded his arms and looked sternly at his enemy.

Aragon studied Garth with flaming, heartless, judging eyes. "I'll have to admit you look stronger than I expected." Aragon said finally. "But come to think of it, I didn't really expect much anyways."

Garth growled.

"Save that energy for your competitor." Aragon pointed to the center of the arena where Lyon was standing and waving. Aragon turned back to Garth. "And save your control for when you lose."

Garth growled louder.

Aragon chuckled and then went back into the foyer to tell his guests to come into the arena because the battle was about to begin.

Garth faced his opponent, Lyon, an orange dragon ghost with a disgustingly evil demeanor. Lyon's fire was blue, which meant it was hotter than Garth's and it was more powerful too. Garth wasn't worried. Garth had never planned to physically outmatch Lyon, but to win with wits.

All the ghost guests filed into the arena neatly but not quietly. "As you all may or may not know, my heir, Prince Lyon, is going to fight a challenger named Garth. If Garth wins, he will become our next ruler." Aragon said over a loudspeaker. The crowd cheered. "But if Lyon wins, not only does he get to rule my kingdom, but Garth will go to prison because of the illegality regarding challengers." The crowd roared all the more louder.

Garth decided that this audience was far more interested in action than justice.

"Let the battle begin!" Aragon announced.

Garth was hoping that his opponent would give him a few moments to think through his plan, but no, Lyon just attacked Garth right out of the blue. With blue fire. Lyon jumped on Garth and knocked him to the ground. Garth tried to breathe fire onto Lyon, but Lyon's tail was already wrapped around Garth's neck and choking off his breathing. "Hey I invented that!" Garth managed to choke out.

The audience laughed.

Garth remembered the day that he told Aragon he wanted to fight Lyon. That's when Garth had used this move on Aragon. And if big strong Aragon couldn't get out of it, there was absolutely no way Garth would be able to get out of it.