THEN: Sam and Dean impersonate agents from the Board of Education to infiltrate Danny's school. They manage to talk to Valerie Gray, aka Huntress, and Wes Weston, aka the lunatic kid who thinks Danny Fenton leads a double life as a ghost. Meanwhile, Danny discovers the subtle art of pickpocketing, managing to steal the Winchester's fake ID's right out from under their noses or, in Dean's case, his butt. Once Principal Ishiyama finds out that Agents Abercrombie and Fitch aren't legit, she kicks them out of school. Sam and Dean immediately suspect Danny as the one who outed them, but can't figure out how he managed to get their badges from them while the only other person in the room was Valerie... an alliance with Danny Phantom, perhaps? Or maybe Wes' theory actually holds water? With Skulker attacking the school, they might find out sooner than they thought...
NOW:
Danny barely had time to transform in the hallway before the explosion of Skulker's ballistic missile sent him hurtling through three classrooms, stopping only when he slammed into the chalkboard of the third.
"Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire!" shouted Mr. Lancer, who had ducked just in time to avoid Danny's hurtling body.
"It's Danny Phantom!" screamed a sycophantic voice that Danny recognized as Paulina's. A lot of giggling and crooning accompanied Danny's attempt to peel himself out of the Phantom-sized hole in the chalkboard. Croons turned to screams as Skulker phased through the wall he had just blasted Danny through.
"Today is the day, Ghost Boy," he said, aiming a gun at Danny. Danny just managed to roll himself onto the floor when a glowing green net shot out of the barrel and impacted the spot he had just been.
Jumping into the air, he grinned at Skulker, masking his anxiety of facing this formidable ghost in a room full of cowering students. "I'm sorry, you don't appear to have scheduled an appointment," Danny said, "You want me? Come and get me!" With that, he rocketed through the ceiling, hoping that Skulker would follow him. Skulker had no reason to harm his classmates, but Danny didn't want to give him any ideas that he could hold them as hostages to lure him into a trap. Nor did Danny want them to end up as collateral damage.
Danny positioned himself above the parking lot. All he had to do was extract Skulker's little wormy self from his robot suit and wait for Sam and Tucker to get there with the Fenton Thermos. Simple.
"Hey!"
Danny looked around. Skulker hadn't made his appearance yet, so Danny figured it must be the two men in the parking lot who had called to him. He descended a little to get a better look at their faces, but recoiled quickly. It was the Winchesters. Why hadn't they left yet?
"Hey! Phantom! Danny Phantom!" Sam called, waving at him to get his attention.
Danny didn't see any weapons on them, so he tentatively yelled back. "What do you want, uh, strangers?"
Dean and Sam exchanged a look. "We just want to talk!"
"No way!" he yelled back, "You work with the Fentons and they want me dead even more than Skulker!"
Danny, distracted as he was, missed Skulker phasing through the roof of the school and taking expert aim with his wrist ray. The shot hit Danny out of nowhere, propelling him violently into the parking lot. He didn't have time to turn intangible, so he felt the full force of the blow.
"Ow," he muttered, rubbing his head. Skulker zoomed towards him and Danny's eyes widened. Quickly, he phased into the ground, just feeling the tremor as Skulker impacted the asphalt where he had just lain. He popped up twenty feet away, putting himself in between Skulker and the Winchesters. As much as he disliked the brothers, it wouldn't do for them to get hurt because of him.
"Kind of busy right now, guys," he said over his shoulder to Dean and Sam. "Please take a number and wait in line with the rest of the people who want to kill me."
Skulker stood, turning to him with another one of his sinister grins. "That's more like it, prey!"
He pressed a button on his arm and an array of missile launchers rose out of his back, poising above his head like the tail of a scorpion. Danny mentally groaned; he wouldn't be able to dodge this without the Winchesters getting the brunt of the explosion. As the missiles launched, he gritted his teeth and manifested an ectoplasmic shield in front of himself. It wouldn't do much, but it would take a portion of the blow, at least.
One after the other, the missiles impacted the shield. The first one rattled it. The second one cracked it. The third one broke through, exploding into Danny's gut and throwing him backwards with a loud "OOMPH!" The last three missiles hit him right before he reached the Winchesters, and he had the presence of mind to turn intangible and phase through the brothers before landing inside their car in a heap. The car rocked like a ship in a storm, but was otherwise undamaged.
Groaning, Danny gave himself a second to breathe and make the world stop spinning before he dove out of the roof and hurtled towards Skulker from above, charging his fists with ectoplasm. "Go back to the recycling plant, you stupid tin can!" He rammed into Skulker's chest with a satisfying rent of metal before firing. The blast sent Skulker into a somersault through the air, but he managed to land on his feet, ghostly engine oil leaking from the side of his mouth.
"You've improved!" he crowed like a proud parent, "That will make catching you all the more satisfying!" Danny didn't have time to make a comeback before he was forced to dodge a flurry of ectoplasmic nets. His reaction time was too slow, however and the last one caught him full in the chest, zapping him painfully while dragging him to the ground. He came to a rolling stop on his side, panting heavily and hopelessly entangled. Those missiles had done more of a number on him than he'd thought.
He caught motion in the corner of his eye and looked to see a highly satisfied Skulker stalking towards him. Desperately, he struggled to break free of the net, but he was only rewarded with another painful shock.
"I will invite the whole of the Ghost Zone to look upon your pelt where it will hang in front of my fireplace!" said Skulker, exchanging his right hand for a wicked looking Bowie knife.
"Hey!" A shot pinged off of Skulker's metal head and he stopped, looking for the source. Both of the Winchesters had handguns out, pointing them at Skulker. "Let the kid alone!" shouted Dean.
Skulker frowned, turning towards them. "I told you not to inter-" He was cut off as the Winchesters opened fire on the ghost. Danny took the opportunity to try and disentangle himself, but any movement sent another paralyzing electric shock through his system.
Eventually, Skulker had the presence of mind to turn intangible, allowing the bullets to pass harmlessly through him as he stalked towards the brothers.
"Sam! The Fentons' weapons!" shouted Dean. Sam immediately dropped his gun and hurried to the trunk of their car, throwing it open and rummaging inside. Dean kept firing, his hard eyes betraying not a sliver of fear as Skulker continued to walk towards him. Batting his gun out of the way, Skulker seized Dean by the throat and hoisted him into the air.
"I told you," he hissed, "not to interfere with the hunt." Dean could do nothing but choke and claw at Skulker's metal fingers. Skulker turned, tossing Dean right over Sam's head and onto the roof of their car like so much dirty laundry. Sam didn't turn around, continuing to rummage through the contents of the trunk.
"You're next, tall one!" Skulker aimed another one of his wrist rays at Sam's totally unprotected back.
Sam whipped around, holding an ectoplasmic ray of his own. "That's my line," he said, firing the gun straight through Skulker's head. Danny jumped as the shot went off, the green projectile hurtling out of the back of Skulker's head and off into the sky.
With a poof of smoke, Skulker's mohawk disappeared and his metal body crashed to the ground. Sam kept the ghost gun trained on his prone form as he called over his shoulder, "Dean? You good?"
"Yeah." The reply was more of a groan than an actual word. Dean carefully rolled off the top of the car, landing unsteadily on his feet. After checking himself over and finding no serious injuries, he turned to look at Skulker's body.
"You'd think ghosts would disappear after they got shot in the head," he mused, nudging the lifeless hunk of metal with his toe. From within the apparent corpse, a tiny angry yell startled him and he jumped back.
"I just had this thing updated!" squeaked the tiny voice. From the hole in the back of Skulker's skull squeezed the real Skulker: a tiny blob of green with a big attitude. "I told you not to interfere, you lowlife humans!" he screamed.
"Uh..." said Dean. Danny chuckled weakly at the ridiculous elephant vs mouse situation. The noise caught the Winchesters' attention. Dean pointed at him. "You hang on. We'll get to you in a minute." With that, he pulled a Fenton Thermos out of the trunk. Skulker, recognizing the device, let out another squeak and phased right into the ground before Dean had time to aim at him.
Reflexively, Danny tried to rip his way out of the net. He couldn't get caught! They'd rip him apart molecule by molecule! The net rewarded his efforts with a brutal shock, leaving him panting and exhausted, his vision flickering in and out. Between being blasted through classrooms, hit by missiles, and electrocuted by this stupid net, his consciousness was just about ready to put in its two week notice. Make that two second notice, he thought wryly. If he could just get out of this darn net... He closed his eyes, focusing on gathering his energy for one last push.
He heard the heavy footsteps of the Winchesters' booted feet as they made their way over to him. Stopping right in front of him, Dean said, "We just want to talk, kid."
"Uh-huh," grunted Danny, "Sure." He was ready.
With a mighty push, he released the ectoplasmic charge, shredding the net. Wobbling, he got to his feet and staggered away from the brothers who now had guns trained on him. Where oh where were Sam and Tucker?
"Stop! Listen!" He held out the hand that wasn't clutching his gut, "I haven't done anything to you, so why don't we just go our separate ways?"
"Uh-huh," said Dean, mimicking Danny's own words right back at him. He traded his gun for the Fenton Thermos. "Sure."
Danny had just enough time to yell, "Crud!" before he was sucked into the vortex of the Fenton Thermos, disappearing into its cramped depths.
When Sam and Tucker finally made it out to the parking lot to come to Danny's aid, they found only the ruined body of Skulker, some discarded bullet casings, and the dark streaks of tire tracks heading out of the parking lot.
"What the hell was that, Dean?" Sam yelled from the passenger seat, holding the Fenton Thermos as if it were a bomb with a lit fuse. Dean focused on the road, keeping an eye out for any more ghosts.
"I don't know!" he yelled right back, "It just seemed like the right thing to do!"
"We could have talked to him right there!" Sam argued. "Had some civil conversation, but no. You decided that we needed a P.O.W. in a Tupperware container and now he thinks we're his enemies!"
"The whole school was about to come into the parking lot, Sam! We were gonna lose him again if we didn't do something! I was just gonna grab the net and chuck him in the trunk, but then he did that whole supernova thing and now -" Dean waved angrily at the thermos. "Plus, he's a ghost. We're already enemies!"
"We don't know if he's a ghost!" Sam exploded, "We don't know anything about him except what we've heard from his obsessed parents, a girl who wants to rip him to shreds, and a boy who thinks Phantom is the ghostly equivalent of Batman!" Sam's emotions got the better of him and he had to stare out the window for a moment to regain his composure.
"I don't know man," said Dean, "If it walks like a ghost and talks like a ghost, it probably is a ghost. He - it - went through walls and the friggin' parking lot like they weren't there."
"Yeah, but we don't know for sure! This isn't our regular ball game, Dean! If we get this wrong, we could be killing off a teenager."
"Whatever, we'll see who's right. Either way, we need to talk to it -"
"Him," Sam said firmly, "Assume humanity until proven otherwise."
"Whatever, Mr. Pre-law. Like I was saying, we need to talk to him and we can't do that while he's inside the thermos. As soon as we let him out, he's going to fly away."
Sam paused. He hadn't thought of that.
"Tell you what," Dean said, carefully looking both ways before pulling out into an intersection, "Why don't you call Bobby and see if anything's come up in the time since we last talked to him about these ghosts. He'll have researched more since then. We gave him an itch and he's got to have scratched it by now."
"But we don't know for sure it he's a -"
"I know!" Dean finally snapped, but reined himself in quickly. "I know," he tried again, much softer. "But like I said earlier, he's got a lot of powers that are similar to these other ghosts, so it translates that if we're able to find a way to trap one of them, we can find a way to trap him, at least long enough for us to calm him down and talk to him. Capisce?"
Sam thought it over for a second. "Fine. I'll call Bobby, but first," Sam proffered the thermos like it was a dangerous animal, "Where should I put this?"
"The cupholder," Dean said, peering as far as he could around a corner before he turned. He could feel Sam's stare on the side of his head. "What?"
"Nothing," Sam said hurriedly, placing the soup thermos in a cup holder, "This whole situation is just bizarre."
"Tell me about it..."
Sam pulled out his phone, dialing Bobby's number. "Hey Bobby, it's Sam! Do you remember that ghost we had problems with a few months back? The one you sent us to Amity Park for? Yeah, well we managed to capture a, uh, similar one and we were wondering if you had discovered how one of them could be contained." Sam paused as Bobby spoke on the other end of the line. "The Fentons gave us something to capture the ghost, but we want to talk to it - him - it's complicated. Anyway, we can't talk to him right now. Have you found out anything new?" Another pause, this one longer. "Any idea where we can get those?"
Dean urged the Impala cautiously across another intersection as Sam listened to Bobby's explanation.
"I see," Sam said a little sarcastically, "Fantastic. No, no, we really appreciate your help, Bobby. Do you think any of the more conventional methods would work? I see, okay. Thanks." He hung up.
"What'd he say?" asked Dean as he changed lanes to turn into the motel parking lot.
Sam let out a deep breath. "We need to go to the store."
Finally, near ten o'clock that evening, almost seven hours after the incident at the school, Dean and Sam had found an abandoned warehouse and set up what was undoubtedly the most complicated containment circle either of them had ever seen. Bobby had told Sam that the most effective way to contain ghosts like the one they'd caught was to use a rare type of flower called a blood blossom. He'd found an account from the 1600s that detailed the use of the flowers to contain a ghost for the purposes of killing it. There were two downsides to this method, however, as the ghost was always in unbelievable amounts of pain while contained in the circle and the flowers hadn't been seen since the time of the account.
In lieu of blood blossoms, Bobby had suggested the tried and true "process of elimination" by drawing every other known containment circle concentrically on the floor, then releasing Danny Phantom and seeing what level of containment he stopped at when he tried to escape, using that for future. There was a devil's trap in the very middle, a ring of salt around that, a ring of words in a language and writing neither of the Winchesters had ever heard of, and about five more circles on top of that. The outermost circle was a line of pure ectoplasm. Not the black stuff routinely secreted by evil spirits, but the green variety found in the Fentons' Ghost Zone.
There were, of course, flaws to this method. As far as they knew, the containment circles didn't interact with each other, but there was always the possibility that the new creature they were trying to contain would cause an unknown reaction. They might accidentally do away with Danny Phantom right here. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, none of the circles could work and they would never get another chance to get this close to the Ghost Boy. But, Dean noted, it was either let him out and see if it worked, or keep him in the soup container until he actually turned to soup.
Now all that was left to be decided was which of them would press the button to reverse the polarity of the thermos and let the Ghost Boy out. Dean slumped as he lost the rock paper scissors match, but Sam said it was only fair since he had put Phantom in there in the first place.
Gingerly, Dean made his way to the center of the circles. Once he pressed the button, he'd have to high tail it across about twelve feet of delicately assembled containment circles. If he broke any of them, Phantom could escape. Dean wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and counted himself down. 3... 2... 1... Go!
Dean pressed the button and sprang back, ballerina-like to where Sam was standing at the edge of the circles. Behind him, a towering beam of blue light ejected Danny Phantom straight up into the air. Phantom barely managed to catch himself before he hit the ground, hovering weakly in place.
The two parties surveyed each other for a moment, suspicious. It was obvious Phantom was trying to conceal some sort of wound, because he had his hand pressed to his stomach and was wheezing heavily. Then, like a shot out of a gun, Phantom took off in the opposite direction, his legs morphing into a tail as he flew. He didn't make it very far.
A few feet away from where he'd started, Danny slammed into a wall. He reeled back. "Ow..." There was nothing there, but there was definitely something there. Reaching out with a hand, he found that he could not pass beyond a certain point in the air. The Winchesters whooped in triumph behind him as he followed the invisible wall up until it intersected with the roof of the warehouse. He couldn't phase through the roof.
"What the heck?" he muttered, pushing his hand against the barrier. Looking down, he noticed the concentric circles of apparent gibberish on the ground. He flew closer, partially by choice and partially because the adrenaline of being let out of the thermos was wearing off and his wounds were making themselves known again. Landing, he bent down to investigate the line of white granules that coincided with the edge of his invisible prison. It looked like sugar or maybe salt. He tried to touch it, but the barrier got in his way.
Dean and Sam stepped up to the salt circle and watched as Phantom investigated his enclosure. Just like in the video, his hair floated unnaturally, like flames, and his eyes were brightest green. In the dim light of the warehouse, he let off a soft, ambient glow, and the brothers noticed for the first time that his skin was covered with very faint, green scars that looked like lightning. Even at this distance, they could barely make them out, but they were definitely there.
"Hey, Phantom!" Dean called after a minute.
Danny turned, seeing the Winchesters standing on the opposite side of the circle. He didn't respond initially, giving them a good once over. Neither of them were carrying any weapons that he could see, but that didn't mean they were unarmed.
"Why can't I leave?" he asked.
Dean pointed to the circle of white granules. "Salt circle. We weren't sure that it would work on you, but I guess some things have to be consistent between different types of ghosts."
Danny could feel his energy fading with every second, his vision slowly darkening around the edges as the wounds he'd sustained from his fight with Skulker sapped his energy. He needed to get out of here. If he passed out from his wounds, he'd turn back into Danny Fenton and his secret would be out with perhaps two of the most dangerous ghost hunters he had ever faced.
He surveyed the Winchesters with new eyes. They had been the first hunters to ever successfully capture him and, as he looked at the work they had done to contain him, remembered how easily they had taken down Skulker, and how cold Dean's eyes had been when he'd sucked Danny into the thermos, he realized just how much trouble he was in. The brothers stank of ruthless efficiency, lacking the obsession of his parents, the rage of Valerie, and the stupidity of the Guys in White. Observing him with eyes made of stone, Danny knew that, to them, he must just be another job. Another ghost to kill before moving on.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"We told you," said Sam, "we just want to talk."
"We've got a few questions," Dean chimed in.
"And then you'll let me go?" Danny asked hopefully.
The brothers exchanged a brief glance. "Depends on your answers," Dean said, finally.
Danny's shoulders drooped. He trained his eyes on the ground, apparently unwilling to make eye contact, but actually studying the salt line for anything he could use to escape. "Well, it's not like I can go anywhere before then. Shoot." He immediately backpedaled. "No, don't actually shoot. Just, you know, ask your questions."
Dean chuckled, crossing his arms. "You sure are strange for a ghost." Danny glared at him. "Fine fine, first question: are you a ghost?"
Danny quit studying the salt line for a moment to stare, gobsmacked, at Dean. "What? You just said I was strange for a ghost! Did you not see me fighting Skulker?" he asked. How could they not know he was a ghost? He was so confused.
"Yeah, we saw you," said Sam, "But we assumed that you were just a kid that had gotten his hands on some weird magic, so we just want to check before jumping to conclusions." That last part seemed to be directed at Dean more than Danny.
Danny was stumped. Should he tell them? He was certainly in danger if they thought of him as a ghost. He was trapped, after all, and probably wouldn't be able to escape without turning into his human form anyway. But was he in more danger if they found out he was a boy and a ghost at the same time? Would they experiment on him like they'd done today with all their containment circles? Would they assume he was just a kid possessed by a ghost or a ghost that could take a human form at will? There were so many ways they could jump to the wrong conclusion. And what if they told his parents? He shivered, deciding against telling them. That way, if they decided he was their enemy, his secret identity would at least be safe. If he managed to live to use it again, that is.
He couldn't just tell them he was a ghost either, though. They would shoot him on the spot. He recalled a word that some of his ghostly enemies had used to describe him and settled on it as the middle ground that might keep them distracted long enough for him to find a way out of this blasted circle.
"I'm a halfa," Danny said. The Winchesters looked confused.
"What's a halfa?" asked Sam, "I've never heard of a halfa before. Dean?"
Dean shook his head. "I got nothing. Maybe Bobby would know."
They moved a little bit away before calling whoever this Bobby was, trying to keep him from listening in on the conversation.
He took a deep breath, staving off the darkness that was eating up his visual field. His gut ached painfully, making him nauseous and his head felt lighter than normal. He needed to get out before he passed out and gave himself away despite his best efforts. Resolutely, he put his hand against the salt barrier, pressing against it. He noticed that it did give a little bit this time. Maybe if he pressed hard enough, he could break through.
He glanced at the Winchesters. Dean had put his phone on speaker and Danny could hear the sound of a gravelly voice on the other end even if he couldn't make out the words. Moving to the opposite side of the circle, Danny put both of his hands against the salt barrier and pushed with what little strength he had left. The wall gave a little, but not much. Danny pushed harder, summoning some ectoplasmic charge to his palms to amplify his efforts. The wall bulged outwards, but a strange pins-and-needles sensation started creeping up his arms. Danny panicked and jumped back, looking at his hands. They were more translucent than usual, flickering like white noise. Beneath the white gloves of his jumpsuit, he could see the pink of his normal, human skin, completely free of the Lichtenberg figures that covered his ghost form. What?
The light from his palms must have been too obvious, because from behind him Dean called, "Hey! No funny business!"
Danny staggered back from the salt barrier, still staring at his hands. The farther he got away from it, the more his hands stabilized and solidified back into his ghost form's white gloves. "What the heck?" he muttered under his breath.
In the meantime, Dean hung up with this Bobby person and the brothers approached the circle array again.
"Bobby's never heard of a halfa before," Dean said accusatoryly.
"That's not surprising," Danny said, still examining his hands, "There are only two of us in existence that I know of." He looked up when the brothers stayed quiet.
"So," Sam started after a second, "You're not a ghost?"
It was more of a question than a statement. "I'm..." Danny's own confusion didn't allow him to come up with a suitable lie in the moment. "It's complicated."
Dean crossed his arms. "Well, uncomplicate it for us."
Danny felt his breathing speed up. "What? How can I uncomplicate it for you if I don't even know?"
"Let's put it this way," Dean said, drawing a familiar Fenton pistol from his waistband, "This is one of those times where your answer determines if we let you go." He didn't aim the gun at Danny so much as hold it in front of him in a way that accentuated both its lethality and Dean's peace of mind with shooting Danny through the head and going to have lunch directly afterwards.
Danny started hovering again in agitation, drawing his legs up in an unconscious effort to minimize the target area should Dean decide to shoot no matter what he said. While he was limited in the amount of room he could use to dodge, he could still make it difficult for them to hit him. "Listen, I don't know what I am exactly. All I can tell you for certain is that it's somewhere in between ghost and human."
"Fine," Dean said, not moving the gun, "Where's the other halfa?"
The brothers noted the disgusted look that crossed Danny's face as he responded, "Wisconsin."
"Hey now," Dean chuckled, "Wisconsin isn't that bad."
"No. Just the fruit loops that live in it," Danny muttered.
Sam had been thinking while Dean talked with Danny. "So you're not a ghost and you're not completely human, but can you look like a human if you wanted to?"
Seriously? Dean thought, scowling in distaste. Going with that little nutball's theory?
Danny tried to hide his expression of surprise and horror, but Sam caught some of it. "Uh, no?" Danny resisted the urge to facepalm when it came out as a question. The brother's perked up, sensing they were onto something.
Dean took up the line of questioning again. "Do you happen to know a Danny Fenton?"
Fortunately, Danny was saved from answering this question by a large explosion at the other end of the warehouse. Green smoke flooded the room as Sam and Dean both aimed real guns where the noise had come from.
Working like a well-oiled machine, Dean made some hand gestures and they split up, Dean going left and Sam going right, both disappearing into the thick, spreading smoke. Left alone, Danny instinctively moved into his fighting stance.
"Psst! Danny!"
Danny whipped around. Sam - his Sam - was crouched at the edge of the containment circles.
"Sam!" he whispered back, floating down to her level. She beckoned for him to follow her. "I can't!" He pushed against the invisible barrier and pointed down at the line of salt. Sam looked confused for a second before moving swiftly over to investigate the salt circle. Danny crouched down too.
"Is this salt?" Sam asked in disbelief.
"Apparently," Danny said.
"So what, should I just break it? Will it hurt you if I mess with it?"
"I don't -" They both jerked their heads around as the sound of a door being opened violently echoed across from where the Winchesters had gone.
Sam's eyes widened. "Tucker's smoke is going to dissipate faster with the door open!" She stared hard at the salt line for a second before saying, "Get back!"
Danny flew hastily backwards. Sam took a deep breath and swiped her hand through the salt line. Nothing happened.
"Try again!" she whispered, looking past him at the slowly thinning cloud of smoke.
Danny floated hesitantly forward, extending his hand. It passed through the air without a problem. Gleefully, he zipped out of the broken salt circle.
"Quick!" Sam said, holding up her hands like a child wanting to be picked up, "Fly us out of here!"
Danny obliged, taking the extra measure of turning them both invisible. As he picked her up, though, his abdomen throbbed painfully and he almost dropped her. Sam gasped and clutched his arms.
"Danny what's wrong?"
"Skulker has new missiles," he groaned, tightening his hold and flying for the far wall.
"If we can make it to Tucker, we can get you some first aid and get you home," Sam said, feeling irrational guilt for having mass that was affected by gravity.
Behind them, they heard a sudden shout. "Dean! He's gone!"
"How?" came the exasperated reply.
"The salt line's broken!"
Dean let out a string of creative curses that were cut off as Danny phased himself and Sam through the wall of the warehouse.
"Where's Tucker?" Danny asked, already breathless.
"He should be at the rendezvous spot by now."
"Where?" Danny grunted, fighting off the encroaching darkness.
"Left, left," Sam said hurriedly, pointing. Danny executed a wavering turn and flew in the indicated direction. He was trying his utmost to keep them both in the air, but he could feel Sam's grip tighten every time he took an unexpected dip.
"I'm not gonna make it," he finally said through gritted teeth, turning abruptly into an alleyway. He tried to adjust his body to shield Sam's as he crashed to the ground, but he was unconscious before he hit and couldn't tell if he'd succeeded.