THE PHANTOM'S REALM
CHAPTER TEN: PROBLEMS ON TOP OF PROBLEMS
"We were so close to sending them home, too." Danny moped.
He was sitting in the Royal Library with Tuck, Sam, Jazz, Danielle, Ember, Kitty and Johnny around the main table with Danny, Ember, Kitty and Johnny on one side and Tuck, Sam, Jazz and Dani on the other.
"I said I was sorry!" Sam defended, earning a drawn out sigh from the rest of them.
"Whatever. Why can't you guys use the Portal Room to send them all back?" Dani questioned.
"Don't you remember? The Portal's been acting wonky." Tucker answered. Dani gave him a strange look.
"What he means is, it's been unstable for the past two weeks or so. It opens to random locations instead of the desired ones. Like when it opened next to Sagittarius A* last week and we almost got sucked into that Supermassive Black Hole." Danny explained.
"What's a 'supermassive black hole' again?" Sam asked.
"The largest type of Black Hole out of the billions of solar masses and most galaxies are suspected to contain one at their centers." Danny and Danielle said in unison, chuckling at each other afterwards.
"She takes after her father alright." Ember said, nudging Danny.
"I'm sorry I asked." Sam replied jokingly.
"How do you guys not think that's interesting?" Dani asked exasperatedly.
"It's easy. We just… don't." Johnny responded evenly, as if that was a perfectly reasonable excuse.
"Yeah, I think Phantom's the only other one here who does." Ember said, motioning to Danny.
"I'm pretty sure Frostbite is into astronomy too but only Danny got them into it." Tucker said back.
"He does, he talks about it with me all the time!" Dani cried happily.
"Wait, wait, wait." Kitty interjected, getting everyone's attention. "Why is the Portal acting up?" Kitty asked, getting back on track.
"I'm not really sure. All I could figure out is that something was interfering with the transmissions the Portal uses." Tucker concluded, taking out his PDA to double check.
"Transmission?" Johnny asked, confused.
"Yeah. I designed the Portal in that room to work faster and more efficient that the Fenton's so rather than opening a gateway between the words in a specific area on both sides it's adjustable so as long as one end is in the Portal room and the other end is on Earth, it allows the user to jump between locations." Tucker explained.
"That doesn't answer my 'transmissions' question." Johnny pointed out, annoyed. Tucker rolled his eyes.
"I was getting to that." He said, before continuing. "I added a manual control center where you can adjust locations so we just certain transmissions to jump to certain places. Like the transmission we use to jump to Amity is different than the one we use to get to Florida. All I could figure out is something is throwing those transmissions off and opening it to new ones." Tucker went on.
"Is that why when we use the portal that squiggly thing is always in a different pattern?" Dani asked, moving her finger in an squiggly motion for emphasis.
"Yeah, that reads the level of energy the Portal is giving off so the pattern that appear when we jump to Amity is always consistent and the pattern from Amity to Florida is completely different." Tucker answered.
"Does the Portal link with your PDA?" Jazz asked suddenly, all attention now on her. Tucker shot her a funny look.
"Everything here is linked with my PDA so I can control most things from wherever. What kind of question is that?" Tucker answered, as if it were obvious. And it was.
"Can't you trace the source of the interference with that if you tap into the circuit board of the Palace to find the problem?" Jazz suggested.
"I could try but it might take a while. I'd have to find the interfering signal first and there are thousands of signals coming from the Portal alone." Tucker informed her.
"Why?" Sam asked.
"Because the Portal saves the destinations we go to and just like the transmissions, it gives off different signals depending on where we jump to." Tucker answered her.
"It's worth a shot, right?" Danny offered. Tucker nodded and began to tap away on his PDA.
"Why don't you use the Supercomputer in the missions control room?" Dani asked.
The mission control room was just that, a mission control room.
It had a supercomputer for Tucker and Jazz, who act as mission control for Danny and Danielle, and the supercomputer was able to display a holographic image of the battlefield thanks to the microchip on the Phantom's HAZMAT suits that sends out a low powered Ectoplasmic pulse to bounce off objects and return it, like sonar, however this microchip is able to detect and identify individual subatomic particles and is able to send the data across dimensional barriers to the supercomputer instantaneously, this allows Tucker and Jazz to view a perfect 3D holographic recreation of what is happening around Danny and Danielle. It also allows Tucker and Jazz to examine anything or anyone all the way down to the subatomic scale thus allowing Team Phantom to know everything that one can learn from studying what something or someone is made of and kind of energy it has and/or uses.
There are five 3D holograms, three of which are for keeping track of Danny, Danielle and Sam (when she's needed) and one for Tucker and Jazz to pay attention to the surroundings for the halfas safety.
The room has a training area for Danny and Danielle's powers to be tested and stores Sam's battle suit. Tucker, upon request from Sam, built her armor to, occasionally, fight alongside the Phantom's but it's only used when needed, not for every Ghost attack.
Sam's ghost fighting suit is a suit of powered armor (like Iron Man) with the helmet of Valerie's upgrades suit. The helmet, torso, lower arms, lower legs, hands, feet and the trimming on the bat wings, the part that resembles a bat's "fingers", are black while the face shield, the DP logo on the chest, upper arms, upper legs and the main part of the wings, the part that resembles the membrane on a bat's wings, are purple. There is also a microchip in the armor, like the Phantom's HAZMATs, that counts toward the fifth hologram.
The suit is controlled by neuro-receptors in the helmet that picks up the user's brain waves through their skull and is programmed to respond only to Sam's brain waves to ensure that no one other than Sam can use the suit, the armor also have a holographic HUD with heads-up displays for navigation, power level, armor status, weapons systems, vital signs with and Phantom Phone connections in the helmet which also has a loudspeaker to enable the user to communicate with the outside world and also disguising her voice while a series of motors increases the wearers physical abilities to superhuman levels.
The suit is capable and is able flying at close to 1000 mph and is able to accelerate to supersonic speed in a matter of seconds while also being able to maneuver like a ghost and hover at up to 20,000 feet, it accomplishes this though an anti-gravity generator for lift, Ecto powered jet boots (firing purple jets) for thrust and G-force dampeners (1 G = the force of gravity at sea level on Earth) that enable the wearer to endure high G maneuvers (and impacts) while the bat wings work as stabilizers and help the user steer.
For close range combat the armor is equipped with a built in Specter Deflector, designed to ignore the Ecto-signatures of Danny, Danielle and their allies, so that Sam is protected from overshadowing or a ghost phasing through the suit they get a nasty electrical shock while for long range combat the wearer is able fire purple Ecto-blasts from the armor's hands much like a ghost and also has a black Jack-o-Nine Tails except none of Jack's face and the DP logo on each gauntlet which when used on an enemy ghost brings the ghost into physical contact with the wearer resulting in the ghost being zapped painfully.
The armor is made from a type of stupidly expensive rare Ectoplasmic metal found only in the Ghost Zone and the only reason it's was affordable to Team Phantom was Danny's Kingship. It's so expensive because it is not only the rarest metal known to man, and Ghost, but is also extremely resistant to most physical damage which when combined with the G-force dampeners makes anyone wearing the suit completely safe from physical damage and the Specter Deflector makes it so that any enemy ghost that attempts to phase though or overshadow ether the armor or Sam will get a nasty shock.
Team Phantom has taken to calling the armor Chaos 2.0, in reference to Sam's DOOMED character.
"Yeah, can't that connect into everything too?" Danny asked. Tucker shrugged.
"Hey, you're right! I can try and trace the disturbance with the supercomputer!" Tucker realized, shooting up out of his chair. "Come on!" He waved, running out of the library.
Everyone was going to make a move to follow but Dora came in right after Tucker left and looked at Danny.
"Sir Phantom? Felkner has been spotted in California again." Dora told him.
"Where did you hear that? Never mind, I'll take care of it." Danny said, shifting into Phantom. "Danielle you're coming with me. Ember, send us to California. Everyone else go help Tuck." Phantom ordered.
Danielle transformed into Phantom-mode and floated over to her father's side as everyone but Ember piled out of the room.
"Let's get this show on the road." Ember said, walking over to the Phantom duo.
"What are you doing?" Phantom questioned. Ember shot him a confused look.
"What do you think, Baby-pop? I'm teleporting us to Cali. Just like you asked." Ember said as if it were obvious.
"I meant us. Not you. I thought you didn't like to fight Ghosts who weren't me and Skulker." Phantom joked.
"Well it's easier than doing anything right around technology. Now can I go or not?" Ember asked, her patience wearing thin. Both Phantom's nodded. "Good." She said, before they all disappeared in a whirlwind of blue flames.
LINEBREAK
Steve's passed out body was slung over the coffee table, his body still dealing with the medicines effects. A few feet away a familiar figure hovered, his cape hanging limply over his shoulders. Vlad Plasmius had outsmarted Danny Phantom, yet again.
Plasmius floated over to the end table where Daniel had foolishly left the Infi-map and picked it up. Next step; he tucked it away in his boot, hidden carefully. His red eyes scanned the area for any beings, sighing in relief when he found none.
"Soon, I shall be King. Then I'll have Jack killed, Maddie's hand in marriage, Daniel as my apprentice and my rule shall start." Plasmius whispered, before phasing through the wall, leaving the living room of passed out humans alone once again.
LINEBREAK
"Can't you hurry up at all, Tucker? This is taking forever." Sam complained. Tucker shot her a look.
"I told you there's thousands of signals the portal gives off. It's going to take a while to find the specific signal that's interfering." Tucker said again.
"He did say that." Jazz said, nodding as she sat in her chair.
"Sorry but I'd like to figure this out so we can send our class back." Sam said, leaning against the giant desk. Tucker continued scanning the computer screen with his eyes moving rapidly over the moving letters while he responded.
"Nah. Let's just let 'em free roam around the Palace and find things to make them start paying attention to us. Hell, let's let them wander around the city and let the Ghosts come up to them asking if they're 'guests of King Phantom'." Tucker said sarcastically.
Kitty and Jazz giggled, Johnny busted out laughing and clapped Tucker on the back while Sam rolled her eyes.
"So, how do you think Danny, Dani and Ember are holding up against Felkner?" Kitty asked, changing the subject.
"Danielle's on the left of him." Jazz predicted.
"Ember's on his right." Sam followed.
"And Danny's exchanging witty banter with him." Tucker finished with a chuckle.
"How can you possibly know that?" Johnny asked incredulously.
"Because with Ghosts Danny doesn't know very well that's always his main strategy." Tucker replied.
"But Phantom knows Felkner." Johnny pointed out.
"But not like he knows Skulker or Technus. Danny and Felkner are on barely a first-name basis and when Skulker or Technus want to be they're closer to Danny than all of Amity Park, minus us, put together." Jazz countered.
The Ghost bikers considered this. It was true, actually. Danny was closer to some of his enemies (Skulker, Technus, Desiree etc.) than the people of his own hometown. That says a lot about the people of Amity.
LINEBREAK
"So, why are you called 'Felkner' again? I mean, really. That sounds like a name you see on a phone booth from the 1970's." Phantom jibed, floating between Felkner and San Francisco.
Felkner was definitely an older ghost. He had on a white top hat with a green stripe, matching his white and green-checkered shirt. His pants were easily whiter than the sun itself as they practically blinded everyone driving on the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
They had fought directly for a few minutes, with Felkner being the more damaged of the two. Phantom had thrown him down onto the land multiple times despite fighting over the middle of the bay. Despite that, Felkner got a couple good shots, one of which sending Phantom sailing into the Golden Bridge's side.
"Me? What about you? 'Phantom' is just another word for 'Ghost' you know." Felkner muttered back.
"Well I got an insignia out of my name. What were you going to do, put a checkered phone booth on your shirt?" Phantom mocked again.
Before Felkner could say anything back to Phantom he was hit from both sides with Dani's Ecto-blast hitting his left side and a musical fist from Ember hit his right, causing him to fall backwards out of the sky.
"Aaand he's gone." Phantom said, sucking the out-of-date ghost into the Phantom Thermos.
"Great job, daddy!" Dani cheered, practically launching into Phantom's arms. Phantom rolled his eyes and hugged his overly excited daughter back.
"Nice work there, Phantom." Ember said, floating up to him. Phantom looked away, embarrassed with the praise.
"It was nothin' guys. Besides, you're the ones who took him out. I should be congratulating you." Phantom brushed off.
"What are-" Dani started, only to be cut off by Ember.
"You're right. Better make with the praising, Baby-pop." Ember said jokingly, shouldering the elder Phantom. Phantom opened his mouth, most likely to praise Ember, but was interrupted.
"Freeze, Ectoplasmic slime!" A familiar voice said, followed by the whirl of a helicopter.
Recognizing the voice as Agent K's, Phantom floated protectively in front of Ember and Danielle, glaring at Agents O and K.
"What do you want?" Phantom asked, his voice ice cold.
"To take you and your little family in for questioning." Agent O said.
"And lots and lots of painful experiments." Agent K finished.
LINEBREAK
'Hmm. It appears I'm in Daniel's portal room. And it's empty. Wonderful.' Vlad thought evilly, phasing into the room through the right wall.
He floated over to the manual control board in front of the large device, and began pressing random things in an attempt to sabotage the Portal. Little did he know it was already broken…
'Now with his portal broken and the Infi-map in my possession, Daniel has no way of ridding himself of his class and parents. What was next on the list? Oh yes, hide out until after the meeting.' Vlad thought to himself.
Vlad phased through the wall opposite the one he came in. If he'd stayed for two seconds more he'd have heard the whirl of the Portal activating.
LINEBREAK
"I recognize this frequency!" Tucker shouted, pointing at his Supercomputer screen that displayed the interfering signal.
"You do? From where?" Jazz asked, looking at it with Tucker.
"That's the signal Vlad's spy-bugs give off. It's blocked my PDA so many time's I programed her to avoid it. Maybe I should've done that with everything else too." Tucker said, hesitantly.
"Of course you should have!" Sam said, whacking his head and ignoring his yelp.
"I'm sorry but it hadn't happened in a while so it didn't occur to me. Besides- wait, what's going on?" Tucker started, before the machine beeped again.
Everyone looked at it to see another signal appear on top of the one already shown. They all turned to Tucker, waiting for an explanation.
"What does that mean?" Kitty asked, pointing at the duel signals.
"Well this is going to sound weird but it's the truth." Tucker started, after studying the screen for a few minutes. They all nodded. "While I was trying to find the disrupting signal in the palace, I had a scan of the Fenton Specter Speeder 2.0 running in the background to see what happened with that." Tucker explained.
"That doesn't sound weird." Johnny deadpanned.
"I'm not done yet." Tucker said. "The one on the top is the signal that screwed with the Speeder's systems on the 'field trip' and the one on the bottom is the one disrupting the portal." He continued. "What do you notice about these two signals?"
They all stared intently at moving lines, trying to see what the Techno-geek was getting at. No connections were made until Jazz gasped.
"They give off the same pattern except for the strength of the signals." Jazz guessed. Tucker nodded.
"If the top one were to be weakened or the bottom one strengthened, they'd be almost identical. There is one aspect that makes the strength of the signals different, though." Tucker said.
"And that would be?" Sam asked.
"Purpose. The one on top is much stronger, showing that it giving off this signal and messing the Speeder up was intentional. But the second one is very weak compared to the other one, and did nothing wrong. Intentionally anyway." Tucker explained further.
"So Vlad's spy-bugs caused both of our technical malfunctions?" Sam asked again. Tucker nodded gravely.
"He intentionally crashed us all but he doesn't know he messed with the Portal." Tucker told her.
The room was silent for a few moments, everyone deep in thought. Tucker was thinking hardest.
'Why would he intentionally mess with the Speeder? He knows Danny, Danielle, Sam, Jazz and I don't use it. I don't think he would crash it with Mr. and Mrs. Fenton as passengers. Too risky. So, why now and why in general?' He thought to himself. Why couldn't he piece this together?
LINEBREAK
"You'll go nowhere near them!" Phantom ordered, floating back further and pushing the rocker and little Phantom back with him.
"Em, take us back to the Palace." Phantom said, looking back at Ember. She nodded.
Just as the blue flames started to appear around the trio Agent K fired a net at them, making the flames disappear into nothing. Phantom had excellent reflexes by now and avoided the net with ease, simultaneously shouting 'move' the girls. They didn't get the memo. The net was now on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, holding the ghosts down as Phantom floated defiantly behind it and the copter in front of it.
Phantom looked on, watching as Ember and Danielle were electrocuted from inside the net after trying to phase out.
"Let them go! Now!" Phantom said, turning to the Agents.
"Not a chance in hell, Phantom." Agent K said, pressing a button and electrocuting the captured ghosts again.
Over their cries Phantom missed the gathering of other white helicopters around them. Now surrounded Phantom glared harder and said one thing,
"Even humans should know never to make Phantom mad."
WOW what a chapter, huh? Still don't own Danny Phantom if you're wondering.
So, we found out the source of some of Team Phantom's problems, we saw a little of Vlad's plan in action and a new problem for Danny arise. Who guessed correctly for Vlad to be overshadowing Steve?
If you're happy with the update, thank DanPhan1234 for guilt tripping me into updating sooner. And also, DanPhan, I am aware this is not as fluffy as you 'requested' (by requested I mean ORDERED) but the next chapter will have more. I would have updated sooner, but I recently broke my arm and spent a few days in the hospital unable to write. (Incase you're curious I fell down two flights of stairs)
Also, leave in the reviews or PM me if you have suggestions for where the Portal should open to and I'll probably use one of your ideas because I have absolutely none -_-
Since I learned some of you actually like hearing which of my stories, The Phantom's Realm and Wizards in Phantom City, will be updated next that will now be a regular thing in my Author's Notice. Wizards in Phantom City will be updated next, hopefully soon.
Next chapter of The Phantom's Realm; Danny's class wakes up, Skulker and Technus make their first appearances, more of Vlad sneaking around, Tucker working on theories and the meeting that dragged Danny and everyone here. Exciting next chapter for both my stories!
Don't forget to review!