Danny Phantom Post Planet Chapter four
Danny immediately got back up off the floor and rushed to the doorway of the basement.
"MOM!"
His mother and father ran up the stairs as quickly as they possibly could. They were still dressed in their lab equipment. His dad was still holding a very large wrench. His mom pulled her goggles off her face.
"Danny what is it?"
"I just got a call from Valerie. Vlad is back and he's on Main Street! I'm heading out there now!"
His father threw the wrench he was holding down the stairs and pulled off his work gloves. Ever since Vlad had betrayed Jack, Jack was just as determined to make him pay for his crimes as Danny and Maddy were. "Get down there." Maddy put her hands on Danny's shoulders. "Be careful Danny. And don't do anything reckless."
Danny nodded and rushed towards the front door. He was about to transform and leave when he noticed Sam standing next to the coffee table and holding her phone. He rushed over to her.
"You better get over there. I've already called Tucker and let him know. He's calling the police now." She said.
"Thanks. Sorry our date got interrupted again."
Sam waved her hand like she was saying it wasn't a big deal. "It's ok. We both knew that there were going to be nights like this when we started dating. Just beat Vlad."
Danny smiled. "You got it. Goin' Ghost!" He transformed again into the superhero Danny Phantom and flew out of the house as fast as he could go. The house wasn't too far from Main Street and Danny was able to get there pretty quickly. The last time he faced Vlad, his top speed had been 112 MPH. But that was six months ago, since then Danny hadn't just spent time building up his biceps. His mom and Sam had been helping build up his ghost powers as well. One of the things they focused on was his speed. He had been gradually getting faster and after 6 months of training, his top speed was close to 150 MPH.
Within a few minutes he was there and it was clear that there had been a fight going on. Several smoking craters were on the street and he knew that they definitely weren't there before. He followed the craters until he caught up with Valerie and Vlad. Valerie was firing blast after blast at Vlad and not really making any progress at bringing him down. The police weren't on the scene yet either. Danny turned invisible and placed a communicator from his pocket in his ear.
"Talk to me Valerie. What's going on?"
"He showed up out of nowhere Danny." She said. To her credit, she was great at multitasking. She kept her focus on Vlad while only giving Danny the info that he needed. "I found him near City Hall. He just phased out but didn't have anything."
"Ok, keep firing on him. I'm gonna stay invisible and circle around his back. Maybe we can trap him."
"Roger."
Danny flew forward past Valerie and changed direction once he was a good 20 yards behind Vlad. He angled himself to make sure he was directly behind him. Next, he stopped his momentum completely and waited until Vlad was within arm's reach. He reached out and grabbed each of Vlad's arms with each of his own. He put pressure on the ghost's arms and forced each one behind the back. Danny smiled. After six months, he had his archenemy in a tight hand lock. Vlad wasn't going anywhere.
"What the hell?!" Vlad exclaimed.
Danny turned visible again and kept his grip on Vlad's arms. "How's it going Uncle Vlad?"
"Ahh Daniel." Vlad smiled, "I was hoping to see you again."
Danny threw a kick into Vlad's chest and he groaned in pain. "Feeling's mutual."
"Now, now, is this treatment really necessary?"
Danny responded by shoving him face first into a nearby building. Vlad groaned with more pain and a drip of a dark red substance began sliding down out of the corner of his mouth. By now Valerie had caught up with them and immediately pointed her gun at Vlad. Danny may have had locked his hands but they didn't want to take any chances.
"Time for you to answer some questions Masters." Valerie said, moving around on her hoverboard to make sure she wasn't going to hit Danny by mistake.
"Exactly." Danny said. "You've been gone six months, everyone on Earth knows the monster that you are. Why show your face now?"
Vlad just laughed. "Oh Daniel, Valerie. It wouldn't be very sporting of me to reveal my plan to you. Afterall, you've both proven yourselves to be smart and capable ghost fighters. Well at least, one of you has." He said indictating Valerie.
Even though Valerie was wearing her hood and visor, Danny could tell that the comment got under her skin. She pumped her gun. "Say that again Masters. I dare you!"
"Don't lose your cool Valerie." Danny said turning his attention back to Vlad. He was afraid of this. Once it was revealed that Vlad had just been using Valerie as a pawn to distract Danny from his ghost fighting duties, she had moments of extremist behavior. Like she had to prove that she was just as good at fighting ghosts as Danny, Sam and everyone else was. Danny and Sam had helped her through it, but Vlad was still a sore subject for her, just like the rest of them.
Valerie still held her gun towards Riker but she seemed to calm down. "You're right Danny."
"Let's do things this way Uncle Vlad." He said, turning his attention back to Vlad and tossing his knee into the guy's back for good measure. "You tell us what you were doing at City Hall and we let you decide who we turn you over to; The FBI or Interpol. Both have been looking for you since you left."
"Sounds tempting but…" Danny realized what Vlad was going to do a split second before he did it. Vlad's hands began to glow with purple energy and he was able to barely dodge the blast. If he hadn't, the energy blast would've hit him directly in the chest. Unfortunately this meant he had to let go of Vlad's arms. "I prefer freedom Daniel."
He phased himself into the building Danny was just holding him up against. He turned to Valerie. "I'm going in after him. Stay out here in case he comes out."
Valerie nodded and Danny phased through the building. Vlad could have stayed invisible, in which case tracking him would've proven close to impossible. But just close to it. Danny noticed something on the floor, glittering against the moonlight coming in from the window. He knelt down to see what it was. It was a drop of his blood from when Danny had slammed him against the building. It wasn't the only drop of blood there either, there was a trail of it leading upstairs to the roof.
"Danny, you need to come back out here!" Valerie said through his comm. "He's outside and heading back to City Hall."
Danny cursed and phased out of the building again. He saw Valerie shooting at Vlad and missing over and over again. Vlad was either really fast or something was wrong. Danny sped forward charging his hands with blue energy as he went.
"Val get back!"
Valerie hit the brakes on her board and Danny flew right past her. He splayed his hands forward and released all the energy he had been storing in his hands for a single blast. The energy blast hit Vlad square on freezing him in place in a large and very solid block of ice. He landed next to Vlad and caught his breath. Using a large ice blast like that really took it out of him.
"Nice shooting tex." Valerie said landing next to him and dismounting from her board. "Why didn't you use that earlier?"
"I thought I had him." Danny replied
"You still don't Daniel." Said a voice and the Vlad that Danny froze popped and disappeared in a puff of smoke leaving a large block of ice in the middle of Main Street.
"Damn it!" Danny cursed and he punched the block of ice as hard as he could shattering it into a million pieces. "He must have made a duplicate and slipped away from the building while we followed that thing."
"Sorry Danny. I saw him coming out the front of the building and thought it was him."
"It's ok." Danny said. There was no point in staying angry about this. If there was thing Vlad was good at, it was making duplicates and blaming Valerie or himself wasn't going to get anything done. Danny was about to double back and check the building with the trail of blood but he heard sirens getting closer. The police Tucker called were coming to the scene.
"I think that's your cue to leave." Danny said turning to Valerie. "I'll talk to the cops and give Tucker an update."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Besides I owe you for taking the patrol tonight."
Valerie got back on her board and waved good bye. She disappeared and a couple of squad cars pulled up next to Danny. The police were getting out of their cars when a third car bearing the mayor's logo pulled up. Tucker got out of the car, dressed in jeans and a dress shirt. Danny gave his statement to Tucker and the Police.
"Any idea what he may have wanted at city hall?" The police sergeant asked.
Danny shook his head. "No idea." He actually had no clue. After Tucker had taken office, Danny and his parents, along with the FBI did a VERY thourough sweep of the Mayor's office in city hall and the mayor's mansion outside of town. They had cleaned both out completely and confiscated anything remotely resembling ghost technology and all his personal items. Everything was taken to the FBI for study and his parents were still wading through the red tape to try and get a look at whatever it was Vlad was holding.
A second officer came to join Danny, Tucker and his colleague a moment later. "I found that trail of blood you mentioned Danny. CSI is coming to get a sample but the trail leads to the roof. He could be anywhere by now."
Danny felt his molars grinding against each other. This left too many unanswered questions for his liking. The biggest being why now? It had been 6 months. Why had Vlad made the decision to come back to Earth now when he must have known everyone would be on the lookout for him? He felt a sudden touch on his shoulder.
"You alright man?" Tucker asked him.
"Yeah just frustrated with this whole thing."
"Well I don't think there's much more you can do tonight. Why don't you head home? I'll call you if anything comes up."
"Sure." In reality, Danny didn't want to leave. This was the first solid hit he had on Vlad in months. He didn't want to let it go but it looked like he would have to. He said good night to Tucker and flew home.
20 minutes later, Danny had landed on his front steps and transformed back to Danny Fenton and walked through the front door. Jazz and Sam were sitting on the couch with cold pizza in front of them. His mom was there with them and his dad was pacing the room munching the last of Danny's Pizza. Sam was the first one to notice Danny and she rushed over to him and grabbed him in a hug.
"Danny you're ok!"
"Yea Sam I'm ok." He said hugging her back. She grabbed his face and looked him over. He grabbed her hands. "Sam I swear I'm ok."
"Just making sure."
Danny disentangled himself to hug his mother and sister. His father then came and trapped him in a bone crushing hug. "Dad, I thought we agreed on handshakes when I came home."
"Sorry Danny. Just glad you're ok."
"What happened out there Danny?" Jazz asked.
Danny recounted the story of how he had corned Vlad with Valerie's help and managed to pin him against the building before the bastard had tried to blast him and then phase through the building. He told them about how he found the trail of blood and he managed to just freeze a duplicate.
"What would he possibly want at City Hall?" His mother asked. "We cleaned that place out."
Danny shook his head. "I have no idea. All I know is that it can't be good."
"On that we can agree." His father said. "This settles it. Tomorrow I'm calling the FBI and we are getting to the equipment they confiscated! I don't care what kind of color tape they have."
"I agree with your father for once." Said his mother. "Maybe this confrontation with Vlad will expedite the process."
Danny yawned and looked at Sam. "Either way, we aren't getting anything done tonight. I'm gonna take Sam home and get to bed."
"Ok Good Night Danny." Jazz said hugging him good night.
Sam and Danny walked out through the front door a couple minutes later hand in hand, Sam wearing one of Danny's hoodies that he had grabbed for her. They had walked for a few minutes before Sam tightened her grip on his hand to get his attention. He turned to look her in the face.
"You sure you're ok?" She asked.
"Yeah, I'm just frustrated with the whole thing. After 2 years of fighting him, I have no idea what he's thinking or could be planning. Someone like Box Ghost or Skulker, I can read like a book but with Vlad, I draw a complete blank. On top of that, he's still out there and I hate it."
"I know you do. But he showed his head once, he's gonna have to do it again."
Danny nodded. In a sense, Sam was right. The only problem with that was it took Vlad 6 months to show his ugly face the first time. How long would it take for him for him to show his ugly mug again?
"You know. I think you're wrong about Vlad." Sam said.
Danny raised an eyebrow. "How do you figure?"
"Well Jazz and I were talking about this while you were fighting him and we've talked about him before. We don't think he's as complex as you think he is."
"What do you mean?"
"Well he's always wanted a couple things. 1 is world domination and that plan completely failed. The second is, and please don't get too stressed over this, but he's always wanted your mom."
Danny shivered. "Thanks for reminding me of that. What are you getting at Sam?"
"What I'm getting at is that, he likely came back for one of those two reasons. And I doubt it would be to get close to your mom. Otherwise he would've made a straight line for your house the second he got back."
Danny thought about what she had said for a minute. What she was saying made a lot of sense. Vlad had tons of plans and back up plans for taking over the world. With the resources he once had, he could have easily done it. Maybe he still thought he had something hidden away that could help him in city hall somewhere and once he realized it wasn't there fled and then bumped into Valerie. Sam probably thought the same thing and led him the conclusion. This was another reason he liked dating her. She was so much smarter than he was and was never in his face about it like Jazz had sometimes been.
"Why do you date me?" He asked. "You are way too smart for me."
She stopped walking next to him and threw her arms around his neck. "Because I like you dummy, that's why." He smiled and wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss. Sam's kisses had always had a unique effect on Danny. He had kissed other girls before, Paulina kissed him once as Kitty and Valerie kissed him once when they were dating and he liked those kisses but with Sam it was a completely different story. Every time they kissed, it felt like the world around him had disappeared leaving only him and Sam. It felt like nothing else mattered and whatever problems he had didn't feel big. Nobody else had that effect on him.
After a couple minutes they broke apart but it was only really because they needed to breathe. "Thanks. Looks like we're at your house."
Sam looked around where they were. "Looks like we are. Good Night Danny."
"Good Night Sam."
He watched her walk through her front door and saw her turning on the lights and waving good bye at him through the window. He waved good bye and transformed back to Danny Phantom for the flight home.
Once home, he walked into the living room to find Jazz cleaning up the pizza and putting things away. She looked up as he walked in. Once he realized what she was doing, he felt guilty.
"Sorry Jazz." He said. "I should have cleaned that up before taking Sam home."
"It's alright. Dad ate all the pepperoni by the way. There's only the veggie pizza left if you want any."
Danny waved his hand. "No thanks. I'm gonna put it away and go to bed." He grabbed the pizza box and walked to the kitchen.
"Any idea on what to do with Vlad?" She asked him as he opened the fridge and put the pizza away.
"Sort of. Sam gave me an idea on what he may have been after. I know he still has some contacts in the Ghost Zone. I may spend some time there tomorrow and try to get a better idea on what he's after."
Jazz nodded. "Just remember to stay in contact. You may have more experience with it than them but Mom and Dad don't like you going in there alone."
"I know. This isn't the first time I've been in there you know."
"Yeah I know. And one more thing Danny."
"What is it?"
"Don't obsess too much over this. You have a lot of good things going on. It's not worth sacrificing them for Vlad."
Danny nodded. "I know. I just want him put away so he can answer for what he's done and I won't have to worry about him coming after Mom or Dad or you or anyone else."
"Ok Danny, as long as you know what you're doing. Good Night Danny."
"Good Night Jazz."