Chapter Twenty-Nine

CW: Mentions of depression, anxiety, death . . . pretty much the usual at this point

The skeletons were endless, swarming and crawling over everything the moment the dome went up and the fight began between Danny and Pariah Dark. Tucker sat in the GAV with Jazz and Sam, as Valerie, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, and the ghosts charged against the onslaught. The Fentons tried to get Valerie to stay back, given her broken arm, but she insisted she could sit over the fight in her hoverboard and pick off some of the skeletons with her one functioning arm.

"I wish there was something we could do," he said, his leg bouncing as he watched Ember lay down another power chord and smash through a crowd of skeletons while Mr. Fenton fired a bazooka, sucking some ghosts up into a tiny portable portal, and idly Tucker wondered where they were going given that they were already in the Ghost Zone as far as he could tell.

"Speak for yourself. I'm tracking the suit's power levels," said Jazz, and Tucker stood up to peer at the tablet she held in her lap. He didn't really see how this would help and was about to say as much, but then he noticed the number.

"Eighty-nine percent already?! They just started."

"They shouldn't have let him go out in that thing," said Sam. "He's not going to hold back and your parents know it."

"But–but he's not happy." Jazz's voice was quiet, uncertain. "He said it himself, that he didn't want to be this way–"

"-he said what your parents wanted to hear," said Tucker bluntly. "Wasn't it obvious that he was lying? I don't think he hates being a ghost, Jazz. He's always just been terrified of how you and your parents and–well, how all of us would react."

Jazz's fingers clenched the tablet tightly, her knuckles white, and her voice was strained. "Why didn't you say that, then, if the two of you were so sure it was the wrong call?"

"Because Danny wasn't going to give us a choice. He'd lie until he was blue in the face to convince all of us, and leaning on your parents' worst prejudices and fears about ghosts?" Sam smiled bitterly. "It was smart, honestly. For him. And I didn't think we had time to argue about it when the end result was always going to be this. As soon as Val told him, there was no way he wasn't going to face Pariah Dark."

Jazz was quiet for a moment as she watched the screen, and then a blast from the football field penetrated the shield, taking out a swath of skeletons and toppling a few of the ghosts.

"Shit, what was that? Was that from Pariah Dark or Danny?" said Sam, but there was no way to know that, was there? Glancing at the tablet, Tucker saw the levels drop massively again. At this rate, he couldn't see Danny surviving the fight, not unless he was taking out Pariah Dark a lot faster than they believed possible. It would be nice if Pariah Dark wasn't half as powerful as the ghosts thought, but Tucker suspected that wasn't the case. "I shouldn't be a psychologist, should I?"

"What?"

"I can't tell when my brother's lying, I couldn't convince the ghosts to help, I–"

"-you are literally in the middle of grieving the loss of your brother, while still having to deal with him existing as a ghost, because the world makes way less sense than it should and is so incredibly unfair that it hurts," interrupted Sam. "You're also not trained yet, Jazz. You only just finished your senior year of high school. At least wait until you finish your undergrad to decide if you want to have a crisis about your career choices."

"But I've been studying and reading psychology texts since I was thirteen. I know way more than you think, Sam, but I can't even understand my own brother or help him and if I can't do that, then what–how can I possibly help anyone else?" she said, and her shoulders shook as she fought back tears.

"Jazz, that's exactly the problem, though. Danny is your brother," said Tucker, "and he's smart and knows exactly how to get under your skin and what lies he knows you'll believe because he knows you. And the ghosts . . . look, don't feel bad if you can't figure out the ghosts, okay? There's one out there flinging boxes at skeletons right now, and not even Danny can convince me that having an obsession with boxes isn't super weird."

She smiled a little, but he could tell they hadn't gotten through to her, not really. He wished he could help her a bit more, but there wasn't any time to try to help her work through this sudden, weird identity crisis. "Shit, he's below fifty percent? When did that happen?"

"This isn't good. Maybe we can get closer, try to help somehow?" suggested Sam, and Jazz swallowed as she turned the GAV on and drove it up the path to the side of the field. Tucker expected something to try to stop them, but the skeletons didn't pursue them, and everyone else was too busy fighting to pay attention to the cowards like him sitting inside the GAV. Maybe Jazz wasn't the only one feeling guilty about their inability to help right now.

"Is that them?" asked Sam, squinting through the barrier. It was hard to see through it, especially while inside the GAV, and although it was stupid he grabbed an ecto blaster. "What are you doing?"

"I can't keep sitting here, Sam. I hate it. I want–I need to help, somehow." He swung open the side door and jumped out, only a little surprised when Sam and Jazz followed behind him. Jazz didn't bring a weapon, her hand still clutching the tablet, but at least Sam had an ecto blaster. Swallowing, he walked up to the shield surrounding Pariah Dark and Danny and put his hand against it, feeling a nasty shock run through his fingertips.

"Shit."

"I would advise against touching it again," said someone, and Tucker jumped as the Fright Knight appeared beside them. Holding up the blaster, he pointed it at the knight, his knees shaking. "You wish to fight?"

"Not really, but I will if I have to," he squeaked as Sam stood beside him, her hands impossibly steady, and he wondered when she'd suddenly become so much less afraid of ghosts. It wasn't that long ago that seeing them gave her full on panic attacks if it went on too long, and he had an uneasy sense that she was keeping secrets from him now, too. He would need to talk to her later, though. There wasn't time right now to dwell on it, though even as he thought it, Tucker gritted his teeth in frustration. He wished silently that for once, just once, they could all get a break from everything, from the strange and nightmarish world that seemed to keep getting worse and worse this year, to have the space to actually work through their issues and to help each other. But right now, as the Fright Knight waited for their answer, he didn't think that his wish would ever come true.

There was a loud, smashing sound from the field, and Tucker and the others glanced over, seeing Pariah moving a massive sword away from the destroyed leg of the ecto-skeleton. "Your friend is very bold, to challenge Pariah Dark," said the knight as he turned to face the field.

"Wait, so you're not going to attack us?"

"We support the same champion, although I will continue to serve Pariah Dark nobly if he wins, as I am duty bound to do," said the Knight as Danny vanished, and Tucker lost track of him for a minute, wondering where he disappeared to. "But he will not defeat Pariah if he does not use the ring."

"The ring? Danny doesn't have the ring, it's back in the lab." They hadn't given it to him, of course, hearing from the ghosts how dangerous it was for anyone to wield it. Most were consumed by rage if they put it on, twisted and broken beyond recognition, and even if it might have given him an advantage, they didn't want that for Danny. That, at least, was a bridge too far. Or so he thought.

"Should we go get it?" asked Sam, and Tucker stared at her, wanting to shout as the words left her mouth. Were they all so callous, then? Did Danny not matter at all?

"There's no time," said Jazz as she held up the screen. "He won't last long enough for it to matter."

"The Ring of Rage lies within Sir Phantom's hand," said the Knight. "He showed it to My Liege at the start of the contest."

"That can't be, he . . . he . . ." Tucker's voice faded, realizing that Danny must have grabbed it at some point while they weren't paying attention. Had Valerie told him about it? Let him know how dangerous it was? She talked to Danny alone in his room for a long time before she came downstairs. "It'll destroy him, if he puts that on. He won't be Danny anymore."

"Guys, he's down to 2%," said Jazz, her voice cracking, and they turned to look as Pariah towered over Danny in the sky. They could barely see them through the strange, green fuzziness of the shield.

"Then he has chosen to die nobly rather than risk being consumed by the ring." Tucker couldn't tell if the Fright Knight was disappointed or impressed. "My King shall show you no mercy, not after a challenger, and once he takes the—"

But he stopped as they heard it, then, a sound that was horrifyingly familiar and made Tucker's heart feel like it stopped.

A scream. The scream.

Last time, at least, Tucker and Sam benefited by being some distance from the factory, but this time they were right outside the blast zone and the shield around the battlefield mitigated none of it. The scream built upon itself and echoed, shattering the windows on the GAV, smashing the tablet in Jazz's hands, and Tucker felt himself screaming as he fell to his knees and covered his ears, trying to stop the noise, trying to stop the awful agony and horror and rage that it flooded him with.

It wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. Danny shouldn't have to do this, he shouldn't have to fight, shouldn't have been pressured by everyone and everything. He deserved to live, to be able to have fun with them, to go to school and worry about nothing more than failing classes. He didn't deserve to be murdered by some ghost for a second time, to have what little was left of him destroyed.

It wasn't fair that Tucker had to listen to the sound of him being murdered, or to watch as what tiny shred of Danny's humanity remained was consumed by the Ring of Rage.

And then the dome around the field shattered like glass around them, but as it fell there were no shards, nothing broken that could actually harm him, the ectoplasmic barrier dissolving into mist, and then suddenly the scream stopped and there was the sound of something massive smashing into the ground. The world felt as if it snapped, and the sky returned to its normal earthly state as Amity Park shifted back into the real world and out of the Ghost Zone. It was later than he realized, too, since Tucker could see the first rays from the sunrise peeking through the trees.

The Fright Knight vanished from beside them, reappearing at the center of the field behind Danny, and as Tucker looked he realized that the massive thing was Pariah Dark, crumpled. Defeated. And standing over him was Danny. The ecto-skeleton was gone, and he was dressed in little more than a simple t-shirt and jeans, the same thing he wore under his Hazmat suit when he died, his white hair floating around his head as if caught in a breeze. And then he reached down and Tucker saw the ring on his finger as Danny's hands went for the crown on Pariah's head.

"Danny, stop!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet, and he charged across the field but either Danny didn't hear him or didn't care as put the crown on his head, and the moment he did the black void and stars were back, the strange white and green flames dancing along Danny's skin.

"Danny!" He heard Sam and Jazz behind him, running now, too, knowing as he did that this outcome was almost certainly worse than him dying, way worse. They couldn't let him lose himself, not like this. Tucker knew Danny didn't hate being a ghost, but this–this wasn't what he wanted, it would never be what he wanted, to be consumed and transformed into someone unrecognizable by the crown and the ring.

"Danny?" His friend looked at him, his green eyes glowing brilliantly. "Hey, buddy, are you in there?"

"I–I need help," he whispered, his voice cracking like ice, and there was frost forming beneath his feet. "Please."

"Anything." He probably shouldn't promise him that, not without knowing, but he didn't care. He would do anything to save him. "What can I do?"

"I can't grab it. But it's there, like the last time. I just–I need help. Before this kills me."

In that moment, Tucker felt his world drop out from underneath him, remembering the moment in his room, when Danny sat on his bed and pleaded with them and said he needed help reaching it. When he couldn't transform, become human again, or at least not without them to guide him back. The words tumbled out of Tucker, a half-whisper. "You're not dead?"

"I'm not dead-dead."

"Then you–"

"Tucker. Please." Sam and Jazz finally caught up to him just as the other ghosts came to the field, and Tucker thought he spotted Danny's parents arguing with Valerie as they slowly made their way over. It didn't matter. They didn't matter, not right now, not when Danny needed him to save him.

"Uh, uh, right, um . . . " He reached into his pocket, trying to pull out his phone as his hands shook, and then he handed it over to Sam. "You have to do it, I'm too–can you, like, pull up the album?"

Jazz and Val and others used to joke that Tucker, Sam, and Danny shared a nearly psychic connection, and in that moment he was glad for it, whatever it was, since Sam needed no explanation as she started going through his playlist. It only took her a second, and then the Humpty Dumpty song began to play.

"What's going on?" asked Jazz, staring.

"We need to help him, can you, um–anything. Remind him about anything about, like, being human," said Tucker as he walked over, and somehow, impossibly, he still did not find Danny terrifying, even as he could see Sam swallow uneasily while the music continued.

And then Jazz walked over, and without any hesitation, threw her arms around Danny, tightly embracing him, and Tucker saw the flames dancing on his skin diminish. He was getting ready to talk to him and walk him through it again, but Jazz, little miss identity crisis who claimed she didn't understand people enough to be a psychologist, who thought she would never be able to help people after failing to help Danny or understand the ghosts, had the right of it then and he knew it. Shaking his head, Tucker walked over and threw his arms around Danny, too, and felt Sam a moment later, the three of them hugging Danny tightly in the center of the field as if desperately trying to root him to their reality, and eventually Tucker whispered, "Please stay."

It didn't feel like it should be enough, but he could see the void and stars begin to retreat as Tucker suddenly felt another set of arms around them, and then another. It felt so stupid and so weird and so corny but also so right, and then he heard a quiet whisper from Danny that made his heart flip.

"Got it."

And two bright rings passed over Danny, causing everyone to stumble backward, as his friend transformed. His hair was black, his eyes blue and his skin pale, and he looked thin, like he could probably stand to eat a half-dozen meals at the Nasty Burger, but he was undeniably and impossibly human.

"How?" It was Mrs. Fenton, staring at him in shock as she gripped Mr. Fenton's hand.

"It turns out the rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated, although I didn't know it until pretty recently," he said with a shrug as he shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, and then he looked at the ghosts nearby. "Can you, um, give me a minute, though?"

"I–sure," stuttered Mr. Fenton. "Do what you gotta do, kiddo."

Danny smiled as he walked over to the ghosts. "Thank you for your help today and in the Ghost Zone before all this. I won't forget it."

"Normally I'd say don't sweat it, baby pop, but I'm not gonna miss out on a possible favor from the new Ghost King," said Ember, and then her expression softened. "But I'm glad you ain't actually dead, kid. You weren't ready for it."

Danny's eyes seemed to sparkle with unnatural energy for a second, then, and he frowned. "Neither were you."

"No one really is, whelp," said Skulker. "But we shall all seek a favor from you in the coming days."

"Great. Just . . . great. Can you all please at least give me like a week, though? I owe my family an explanation, first," he said, rubbing his head, "and I could use, like, a few days of sleep. Maybe a month, even."

"My liege," said the Fright Knight, bowing. "There are–"

"The Ghost Zone went without a king for centuries, and it's not going to fall apart in a week," he said, making the temperature drop, and Tucker could swear he heard static as Danny spoke. "Do I have to make it an order?"

"No, my liege. We shall give you a week's time."

"Great." Danny waved a hand, then, and a portal opened behind them. It was a terrifying yet simple display of the power he held now, the power he no doubt wanted no part of given who he was. "So go, and we can talk in a week."

The ghosts departed, although a few of them stopped to say a few quick words to Danny and give him quick embraces or hand shakes while the rest of them watched in silence and waited, and once they were finally gone he let out a long breath and sat down, exhausted, as the portal closed. "Sorry," he said, letting his head drop down on his knees for a second before looking up again. "I feel awful. These things are–" He shook his head as he gestured to a crown and ring that were not there. "They're not, like, what I expected, but it's still weird and I feel like my head's gonna explode. Anybody want to research a way to get me out of this mess? My being ghost king is like the worst idea ever."

"I'm game," said Sam, sitting down beside him, and then Tucker and the others joined her on the field. "But as much as I want to let you get some rest, you're going to have to explain yourself. You know we spent over two months mourning you, right? You let us think you were dead."

Tucker expected an apology, but none came. "I thought I was. This wasn't some attempt to run away, Sam. I didn't set out to hurt you or anyone else. I thought I was murdered, and it was weeks before I found out I might not have been."

"So why not tell us then? Why wait until now?" asked Jazz.

"Because if I told you the second Valerie summoned me, you wouldn't have let me get in that ecto skeleton," he said, and Tucker swore he saw undercurrents of green swimming around in his blue eyes. "You wouldn't have let me try to fight Pariah Dark. It was only acceptable when it was going to destroy a ghost, not when it could kill a person." The bitterness of it didn't surprise Tucker, not really, so much as hearing Danny openly express it did.

"Honey . . . we thought–"

"-we're sorry, son," said Jack, interrupting her. "You're right. There isn't an excuse. We shouldn't have put that on you, not like that. We're not–we're trying, son. It's going to take time. But you don't have to keep holding back on us, even if it makes us uncomfortable, okay? That's on your mom and I to manage, not you."

Mrs. Fenton reached out, gently placing a hand on his knee. "Your father's right. I'm sorry, hon. It's not your fault that you felt like you couldn't be honest with us. We–we'll keep trying harder to do better, okay? I promise."

It was, apparently, the right thing to say, and Tucker saw Danny's rage soften. "I–thanks. And . . . I am sorry, you know. That you had to live with thinking I was gone even if it wasn't my fault," he said. "I really didn't know until . . . I actually don't know. Time was weird, there, but once I found out I wasn't really dead I knew I would come back. I just had to get some surgery first."

"Surgery?" repeated Jazz. "There are surgeons in the ghost zone?"

"Why not?" It was a challenge, daring her to push it, but she didn't and instead bit her lip, considering it. "My core was damaged. It was messing up my ability to heal from what Vlad did to me, and because of how much it wrecked my heart, I couldn't turn back. So Frostbite and his people helped. They fixed my core and then I had to spend some time in this weird tank recovering. I don't really remember it, though - Valerie summoned me while I was still in there, and that was the first time I really had confirmation that the surgery worked and that I wasn't dead. But, y'know . . ." He gestured vaguely at the smashed up football field. "There wasn't a chance and there wasn't time, not really, to tell you first. And if I died here, I didn't want to get your hopes up for nothing."

"Well, I'm glad you're not dead, at least," said Tucker as he slapped him on the back. "Sam still sucks at co-op play on Doomed. What did you even do there? Do they have video games? I bet I could work with Technus to get something setup if they don't."

"I mostly explored," he said. "Looked for a lair that didn't exist. Played with Cujo." He looked at his parents, rubbing the back of his neck. "Which, um, by the way, I've kind of sort of adopted him, but in my defense I didn't realize I wasn't going to be spending basically an eternity in the Ghost Zone. He's probably going to insist on moving in."

"The ghost dog, right?" asked Mrs. Fenton, and she and Jack exchanged a look. "It's . . . probably fine, Danny. We can figure it out."

"Wait, ghost dog? As in the one that caused my Dad to lose his job?!" said Valerie. "You adopted it? Oh, that's it, ghost boy. Being a ghost, you being dead and then not dead, getting a hug from Skulker–"

"-what–"

"-all of that I get, but adopting that terror?" she said, her voice rising, and then she smiled. "You better keep it under control."

"You could take him being dead but not adopting a ghost puppy? Seriously?" said Sam. "Seriously?"

"It's fine, Sam," he said. "She's just kidding. Mostly."

"Even as a joke, Danny–"

"-it's fine," he insisted. "Although I really did get a hug from Skulker. It was weird." He smiled for a second, but then it faded. "Guess we still have to figure out what to do with Vlad, don't we? And how to explain that I'm not actually dead?"

"Well, technically, you're still only missing," said Jazz, and he stared at her. "We–I think for the first few weeks, we all hoped that somehow you might still be alive, and it wasn't until we went to the Ghost Zone that we knew for sure. And then we didn't want to let Vlad on to what we knew, so . . . yeah. Still missing."

"Paulina's been going around telling everyone about how you're besties, y'know. You might be able to get that date with her," said Sam. "If you're still interested."

"Not really." He put a hand to his head, then, wincing. "Sorry. I really do think I need to get some rest."

Mrs. Fenton smiled at him as they stood up and helped Danny to his feet. His legs shook a bit, but he remained steady as they walked towards the GAV. "It's fine, hon. We've got time."

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, faves, follows, etc! It means a lot.

The only thing left at this point is the Epilogue, which I'm planning to post next Friday. Weird to think that we're already there since it's been a little less than a year since I first posted, but so it goes.