A/N Hello again everyone, I know a lot of you have probably been pretty eager to know what is going to happen with Danny and Ember after the way we left things last week, so I'll keep this short so we can get straight to it. Please remember to show your love after reading and leave a REVIEW!
Side note, I am considering taking a short break from the story after next week's chapter. I'm starting to feel pretty drained from keeping up with the schedule I've committed to along with the events of my personal life. My job, my wife, everyday life and the obstacles we all need to get through, it's taking it's toll. So I'm going to commit to one more week, then take a break for a bit. Could be just one week, could be a month, I'm not sure yet, but I need to take some time to regroup for a bit after next week and I hope all of you can understand. But until then please enjoy this new chapter and REVIEW!
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Ember was basically admitting defeat. She was completely trapped, unable to use her weapon, impossibly outnumbered, and her boyfriend was pinned down right beside her unable to use his powers. She was about to be hauled back to the ghost zone where she'd spend ten thousand years in prison, while Danny was going to be destroyed, most likely right in front of her. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes at the realization that the greatest thing that had ever happened to her was about to be ripped away in the most painful way she could possibly imagine. But before that happened she was determined for Danny to at least know that she loved him. He told her that he loved her, and she'd be damned if he was going to die not knowing that she felt the same way.
"Danny, Baby Pop, you are the greatest thing that's ever happened to me, and no matter what I don't regret any of this. The time we've been together has been better than my entire life and afterlife combined. I don't care what they do to me, but you have to know how much I care about you, more than I've ever cared about anyone and more than I ever thought was possible. Danny Phantom, I lo..."
Ember's speech was cut short as she heard a loud sound coming their way. Whatever it was it was quickly getting louder and sounded like some kind of engine. Danny and Ember were both pinned down so trying to move their heads to get a look was a bit difficult, but all the other ghosts could hear it too and were looking behind where they were pinned down.
"What is going on, who is that?" said the Lunch Lady loudly while gesturing towards the approaching sky. Everyone else saw that it was getting closer, and one ghost in particular suddenly realized exactly what was about to happen.
"Oh butternuts, that's not good," said Plasmius who gripped his head in surprise. As it finished it's rapid approach, the masked figure decided to announce herself.
"Surprise everyone, hope you're all ready for a big bang, cause you are going down," screamed the figure riding on a flying glider. Covered from head to toe in a red suit and mask, armed with a plasma rifle and plenty of other weapons, Valerie Gray was coming in hot and ready to do her job of vanquishing ghosts. A job she loved so much she did it for nothing.
"Everyone fire, stop the intruder," called Walker pointing at Valerie, aiming his own ecto ray at the teen ghost hunter.
Several ecto rays were fired at Valerie, but she was able to maneuver her glider around the projectiles smoothly before flying right over the roof all the ghosts were gathered on. Dropping several spheres that Danny recognized, she quickly flew away as they exploded in a big flash, blinding all the ghosts nearby. Danny was able to turn his head and close his eyes, but due to being gagged he was unable to warn Ember who now had her eyes pinched tightly shut. Desiree, being in front row of the group, also took the flash at point blank range and instinctively brought her hands to her eyes to shield them, which in turn released Danny and Ember.
Now able to move again, Danny quickly rolled to his side and helped Ember to her feet since she couldn't see. Using one of his fingers he fired a small ecto ray at his lips to burn the residue off and release his mouth, quickly leaning close to Ember's ear.
"Ember, listen to my voice, I know who that was that attacked, she's a classmate of mine that unfortunately thinks all ghosts are evil," said Danny into her ear. "But we can use this as a way to escape, just hold onto me and I'll get us out of here while she's attacking everyone else."
While all the ghosts were still blinded and rubbing their eyes, Danny picked up Ember and went intangible, sinking the two of them down into the building to let everyone else deal with the chaos above. Valerie had circled around and was firing her plasma rifle at every ghost she spotted while they were disoriented, but there were too many to fully handle the problem. As several of them were getting their sight back they started firing ecto rays at her once again, many of them narrowly missing.
"Wow, hey now, let's try to stick to the script here," said Valarie as a rocket was sprung from her glider. "As in, the good girl wins, the ghosts lose."
Launching the large rocket, the ghosts started to scatter like roaches as it exploded and sent several of them flying in every direction, including Plasmius who now looked furious.
"Curses, Daniel and Ember were right here and defeated. I had them in the palm of my hand, or at least Desiree's hand, and out of pure irony the girl I made my pawn ruined everything," said Plasmius to himself while fuming, looking around for any sign of Daniel and Ember, but not seeing them anywhere.
Valerie meanwhile had fled to regroup. She'd taken the ghosts by surprise and managed to put a pretty big dent in the army, but was now retreating to plan another tactic. She executed a perfect hit and run but wasn't about to get greedy when it was just her against an army. Unfortunately her favorite target, the ghost kid Danny Phantom, seemed to have gotten away before she could personally blast him. She hadn't been able to tell what exactly was going on with everyone and was moving too fast from too far away to get a good look at the situation. All she had been able to see was that the Phantom kid for some reason in the middle of the group, most likely taking charge and giving orders.
"Just you wait ghost, I'll find you again and when I do, you'll go down just like the rest of your minions," said Valerie as she flew behind one of the tall buildings to scope out the battlefield.
Plasmius, the one who was actually running everything, was now flying around to gather all the ghosts back together to look for Danny and Ember again.
"All of you, get back over here, if you want to find that traitor Ember and Danny Phantom, then follow me and we'll all get them together," said Plasmius, getting the attention of all the ghosts.
"And why should we all follow your lead, aren't you a half ghost just like he is?" said Walker pointing his book at Plasmius.
"Why yes I am, and yes you absolutely should follow my lead," said Plasmius confidently. "Because like you just said, unlike any of you, I am also human and know this world and city better than any of you do. I could lead you all to find young Danny and Ember faster than anyone here."
None of the ghosts were all that giddy about the idea of following another halfa, but they also all realized that he had a point. Plasmius did know this world better than all of them combined, and if that meant finding the traitor and ghost kid faster, than maybe following his lead wasn't the worse idea. Everyone started smiling maliciously as they all nodded their heads in agreement.
Elsewhere, Danny was still carrying Ember through the city, staying low to the ground since all the ghosts looking for them were currently staying high in the air. They still didn't really have a plan of attack, for now they just wanted to take cover and rest to regain their energy. Ember was also blinking the flash out of her eyes as she clung onto Danny like crazy. Tears were still lightly trailing down her eyes from what had just happened.
"Danny, stop a moment, please," said Ember while burying her head into Danny's shoulder.
Turning down an alley, Danny landed on his feet and put Ember down, but she refused to let go of her boyfriend. Moments ago she thought she was going to lose everything and it was just overwhelming. Danny felt her pain as she clung onto him and hugged her back, for he also had been terrified that he was about to lose her and everything else.
"That was way too close, I thought we were both done for," said Ember roughly while pulling Danny into a kiss, holding onto him like he could vanish in an instant. Danny pulled her tightly against his body, also refusing to let her go.
"I know, I thought we were done for as well, but more so you," said Danny as their lips separated and their foreheads rested against each other. "I didn't even care that they were going to destroy me, but the thought of you suffering in Walker's prison for basically eternity, I'd never forgive myself if that happened to you."
Their eyes were shining with concern and care for each other as they gazed into the other's eyes, their bodies shaking from coming so close to losing everything they cared about.
"Well we're still here and we're still fighting, so let's make every last one of them regret they every tried to come between us," said Ember running her hand along Danny's cheek and getting her fury back a little bit.
"You got it Baby Flame, let's rest for a few minutes then we'll get back out there and most of all take care of Plasmius," said Danny nodding his head. Ember was suddenly grinning at the name Danny just called her.
"Baby Flame? Mmmm, I like that," said Ember, giving Danny another quick peck.
"Well I thought it was about time I came up with a matching pet name for Baby Pop, glad it's a hit," said Danny smiling back and taking his girlfriend's hands in his own while smiling.
Both of them moved to press their backs to the wall, sitting down on a couple of random bins and turned invisible to rest, slowly getting their strength back after the last hour of fighting. Looking up they still saw plenty of random ghosts flying past the rooftops, and they could hear the sound of blasts somewhere in the difference, most likely coming from the separate groups of Valarie, Sam & Kitty, and Tucker & Johnny. Turning visible again after a bit, Danny looked back into Ember's eyes and ran his hand lightly into her hair, behind her ear where her rose used to rest.
"I'm sorry Walker took your rose and I couldn't stop him," said Danny while gently brushing her hair with his fingertips. "I know how much it meant to you even though it was basically dead already."
"Oh don't worry about that, I'll make sure he feels all kinds of pain for that one," said Ember looking into Danny's eyes with a sinister smile. "I have an idea for what I can do to make up for the rose being gone. And I've still got something else that means worlds to me he didn't take." Ember ran her hand lightly over her pocket as she spoke, thinking about the paper in it and what was written on it.
"Well you're the only thing that matters to me right now, there's no way I'm letting any force in this world or the ghost zone tear me apart from you. So what do you say we get back out there and show them we mean business," said Danny smiling proudly as he stood up, Ember matching it.
"Let's do it Dipstick," said Ember with a mocking smirk, using her other pet name for her boyfriend and letting a little chuckle out of her lips.
"Guess next I need to find a matching name for that one too," said Danny with a small chuckle.
"Mmmmm, no I think we can just stick with Baby Flame," said Ember, placing her lips against Danny's one more time before they flew off, wanting to be as close to him as possible in case things went south again.
Securing her guitar and nodding to each other, Danny and Ember flew up into the sky and rejoined the chaos, hoping to find Plasmius again and teach him a lesson. While they couldn't see him at the time, they did see plenty of random ghosts that were taking notice of them. As they charged in their direction, Danny and Ember worked together like the perfect pair in fighting them off. Their moves were completely in sync with each other despite not taking any time to plan them. It's as if they just instinctively knew what the other was going to do and reacted accordingly. One by one every ghost that flew towards them was hit or blasted away as they moved through the city.
"Ha ha, send me a postcard from South America when you eventually land," called Danny as he blasted yet another ghost into the sky while Ember strummed her guitar at a different one. While they were fighting off the low level ghosts, someone else had taken notice of the action and positioned herself perfectly to get a clear shot.
"And you can send me a postcard from the ghost morgue once you get there," called Valerie as she flew her glider into view and fired both her plasma ray and shot her missiles right at Danny, catching him by surprise.
"Huh, AHHHHHHHHH," called Danny in agony as he once again took a huge blast, what felt like his one hundredth in the last few days. He ended up getting blasted back and crashed through the window of a winter clothing store, landing hard on the ground with several shelves breaking and falling around him.
"There's more where that came from ghost, how about we play catch, don't drop it now," said Valerie, flying into the store and throwing an ecto grenade towards Danny, landing right in front of his feet. "Oops, too late."
The grenade exploded and Danny was in point blank range of the blast radius, getting knocked back yet again and hitting the wall hard, falling onto his face while Valerie aimed her wrist launcher, locking onto Danny's head. Danny looked up and realize that she was not playing around and was not going to give him any time to recover. She was here to do a job and she intended to finish it this time.
"Ugh, Valerie, please, wait," called Danny in a light whisper as he struggled to get to his feet, his words barely even loud enough for himself to hear.
"It's been real ghost, but this is the last time you'll ever torment this town," said Valerie, about to fire. But before she could she was going to have to deal with a seriously pissed off girlfriend.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM YOU BITCH," screamed Ember in pure anger, flying into the store quickly and punching Valerie right off her glider.
Valerie hadn't seen Ember coming and didn't react in time to stop her assault. Landing on the ground she used her impressive athletic ability to roll her body upon making contact and land safely in a crouched position, but her face was definitely feeling a sting.
"Argh, you'll pay for that one ghost, get out of the way so I can finish what I started," said Valerie while raising her wrist again, Ember glaring and preparing to strum her guitar in response.
However, before either of them could launch another attack, a loud crash came from outside the store. Several ghosts had been blasted from somewhere and went through the building from several different angles. Rubble and debris from above was starting to crumble and fall to the ground all around the teenagers inside. Ember was able to go intangible and avoid any danger altogether. Valerie was able to nicely dodge a few shelves and random debris, but she was not so lucky in the end. A mannequin ended up falling over behind her and she didn't see it in time before she stepped back and onto it, twisting her ankle as she fell to the ground. At the same time a different cluster of debris fall and landed on the tail of her glider, damaging it greatly and making it unflyable.
"OWWWWWWWW," screamed Valerie in agony, clutching her ankle as she pushed herself up to her knee. Ember walked right through all the fallen debris and made herself solid again, standing right over the teenage ghost fighter.
"I have so had enough of this shit today, now I have to deal with whoever you are too?" said Ember while raising her guitar pick. "Have a taste of this Red Riding Hood."
"EMBER," called Danny weakly from behind her, sounding like he was in pain.
Turning her head over he shoulder Ember almost dropped her guitar as she saw her boyfriend. While he was lying face down on the ground, a whole display shelf had fallen on top of him. Instantly forgetting about the scarlet ghost fighter, Ember darted over to Danny and quickly touched his shoulder. Making him intangible she pulled him out of the rubble and cupped his face. Valerie was hobbling to her feet and slowly getting back into firing position, ready to shoot at both of the ghosts. And just moments before she was ready to launch her blaster from her wrist, she got the biggest shock of her life.
Danny Phantom, while being held in Ember's arms and in pain from the shelf falling on him, was forced to transform back into his human self. Valerie saw who it was and almost had a heart attack. Her whole body started shaking as she lowered her wrist, staring at the boy that was in Ember McLain's arms and wincing. It was Danny Fenton, her classmate who had recently become more of an acquaintance and was slowly making his way towards becoming her friend. They'd been on bad terms for a while in the past, but ever since she lost her popularity status Danny and her had actually come to understand each other better and learned to get along with each other. Valerie fell to both of her knees as the shock of discovering her classmate was the ghost boy was sinking in. Tears started to fill her eyes as she realized she had been about to destroy someone she knew personally. Her whole body was shaking from shock, her breathing deepening quickly. How was this possible, Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom.
"Danny, you...you...how?" said Valerie in a stutter to the boy that was in Ember's arms, comforting him and making sure he was okay.
Ember glared at Valerie again as she held Danny close, sitting him up so his back was resting against another shelf that was flat on the ground.
"I should slash your eyes out for this, and if I hadn't let go of my evil ways I'd probably kill you right here and now," said Ember, standing back up and resisting the urge to bring so much pain to the girl.
Valerie just looked back in agony, her eyes going back and forth from Danny to Ember.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't know, please forgive me Danny," said Valerie, pleading for forgiveness.
"Oh don't worry, you're about to get what's coming to you right now," said Ember while raising her fist, ready to take all her anger of the last few days out on Valerie's face.
"Ember, stop, don't do it," called Danny, slowly moving to stand back up, his whole body feeling quite sore. "She didn't know and I get why she was angry. Just like you, life dealt her a crappy hand, and I'm partially responsible for it. And she did still save us back on that roof."
Ember looked at Danny in disbelief, amazed that after what she just did he really didn't want to hurt her. As much as she was head over heels in love with him, this whole goody goody thing was really annoying at times and not her style. But at the same time he did have a point, she had saved them both, even if she didn't know she was saving them. So with some reluctance, Ember lowered her fist and instead stared right into Valerie's eyes, making sure she heard her tone loud and clear.
"If you breathe a single word to anyone about his secret, I will go full on crazy over your face," said Ember threateningly, Valerie slowly nodding in response, too shocked from her discovery to argue.
"Not a soul, I promise I won't tell anyone, I'm so sorry for everything," said Valerie as a small tear leaked out of her eye.
Danny was slowly walking towards Valerie and leaned down to look her in the eyes while holding his sore side.
"I'm guessing this explains a lot now that you know, but I think we still need to clear the air on one or two more things when all this is over," said Danny with a small grin. Despite what he and Valerie had been through in the past as enemies, he wanted to get past all of that and find a way for them to coexist together, just like himself and Ember. Well maybe not exactly like himself and Ember, there would certainly not be any kissing with this one.
"Yeah, we do have a lot to talk about it seems, but unfortunately for me my gear has been damaged and I can't use it anymore," said Valerie looking over to her glider. Danny took a look and sure enough, there was a huge crush mark on the tail of the glider from where the heavy debris had fallen on it.
"Well this is all well and good, but we still have an army of ghosts in the city that want to find and blast us to smithereens," said Ember crossing he arms, not exactly liking how the ghost hunter is looking at her boyfriend right now. "And I don't have enough energy right now to teleport to the other side of that ghost shield."
Danny stood up and took his girlfriend's hand, which earned a bit of a surprise look from Valerie. While she did notice that the two of them were fighting together from outside, seeing that there is actually a relationship between the two is quite the stunner, especially now that she knows that Danny is the ghost kid.
"I know, but I'm staying here with you no matter what, we'll find a way out of this together," said Danny smiling at Ember. Ember smiled back, so appreciative that Danny was willing to stand by her side through all this. "We'll make Plasmius pay for all of this." Valerie was still pretty shocked.
'Danny is in a relationship with Ember McLain, how and when did that happen? I thought he was into the goth girl after I saw them kissing,' thought Valerie in her head, trying to process the mountain load of information she had gotten in the last few minutes.
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Meanwhile, the army of ghosts was moving together through the city and were all on the lookout for the two teens that had managed to give them the slip. Thanks to the chaos caused by the ghost hunter they were currently nowhere to be found, but that wasn't stopping them from sweeping every nook and alley they crossed. Plasmius was still fuming over the irony that his pawn was the one that ruined his victory. But they were all about to have a new problem as married couple of Jack and Maddie were closing in on the swarm of ghosts, ready to put their plan into action.
"Alright Maddie, we've coming up on the ghosts, let's do this," shouted Jack as he slammed on the brakes to the Fenton RV.
"Yes Jack honey, we're not going to let another ghost invasion threaten this city and our children. I won't let Jazz and Danny be haunted by these things," said Maddie, momentarily remembering that Danny is not currently here. For the first time since he got his letter she was actually relieved that he wasn't here and not in any danger.
"I'm setting the timer to launch the device now," said Jack flipping a switch that started a timer of five minutes. "We just need to get out there and keep them contained within the blast radius until it launches. The preprogrammed announcement will be broadcast over the city PA system when there's one minute left.
Maddie and Jack both opened their doors and hopped out of the RV, glaring at the army of ghosts just outside the ghost shield that were starting to notice them there.
"Specter deflectors?" asked Jack.
"Check, plasma rifles?" asked Maddie.
"Check, jump suits operational?" asked Jack.
"Check, your Jack o nine tails and my baton?" asked Maddie.
"Check, Fenton jerky?" asked Jack with a big smile as he pulled out some jerky from his jump suit and took a big bite. Maddie narrowed her eyes a bit at her husband for that. "Um, nevermind, let's do it Maddie baby."
Moving together as one, the married ghost hunters charged through the ghost shield and engaged the army of ghosts head on. One in particular was very intrigued by the sudden arrival of the pair.
"Well well well, isn't this a fun turn of events," said Plasmius with a sinister grin. "In addition to putting an end to Danny Phantom, I can also rid myself of the biggest obstacle in the way of my true love."
Eying his nemesis Jack, Plasmius started charging right at him as he and Maddie engaged in combat on the army of ghosts back to back, their weapons and skills making quick work of every ghost that got close. Approaching low and from the side, Plasmius was heading straight for Jack while he was turned to the other side and launching his Jack o nine tails towards two random ghosts. Grinning like his birthday had come early, Plasmius extended his hands and prepared to blast him from point blank range. But he was so locked in on Jack he was completely oblivious to the woman he hoped to steal from him, and she very much noticed him coming.
"YOU, THE WISCONSIN GHOST THAT OVERSHADOWED MY HUSBAND," screamed Maddie as she jumped in front of Jack and drew her baton, extending the ecto beams from both sides and spinning it a few times.
"Ah, Maddie, I never get tired of that dreamy voice of yours or your pure passion for everything," Plasmius whispered quietly to himself so only he heard. "I'll just simply faze through her and get to Jack."
But Plasmius got a big surprise before he could turn intangible to go through Maddie in the form of an electric shock. Maddie had thrown a claw like device at him and once it hit him, gripped itself to his body.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH," cried Plasmius in pain, not knowing what was happening. Falling to his knees and momentarily stunned, he looked up to see a very scary smirk on Maddie's face.
"Thanks to all of our little accessories, none of you can touch us, but we can touch you," said Maddie, reaching forward to roughly grab Plasmius by the collar and pull him close to her face, shocking him even more just by touching him with the specter deflector.
"Ahhhh, oh that hurts...but it still...is nice coming from you," said Plasmius trying to keep his composure through the shocking feeling and the fact that the woman he loved was the one causing it.
"Well in that case allow me to pay you back for what you did to my husband back at our college reunion," said Maddie as she dropped Plasmius to the ground, swinging her ecto baton with all her might and slapping Plasmius hard into the air like hockey puck. Jack looked over his shoulder and saw what Maddie had just done and smiled proudly, Plasmius doing the same as he was flying away.
"Wow, I love that woman so much," they both said in unison together while looking at the woman they were both crazy about.
While Plasmius was crashing into the side of a building, Jack and Maddie were continuing to engage with all the ghosts that were trying to either attack or flee, wanting to keep all of them in place as much as possible. Plasmius slowly drifted back to the action but deciding to stay on the sidelines like the coward that he truly is, letting all his pawns do the dirty work for him. He was very much enjoying watching Maddie in action, not so much enjoying that Jack got to be the one beside her.
"Jack, the timer should be getting close, keep it up," said Maddie as she swatted another ghost to the ground.
Looking towards the RV, Jack saw a loudspeaker emerge from the roof, and also an image of the two of them appearing on the jumbo screen of several rooftops to play a prerecorded message to the city.
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While Danny, Ember, and Valerie were still gathering their thoughts and resting in the winter clothing store, they heard a loud announcement beginning from somewhere outside. Valerie was sitting on a fallen shelf to rest her twisted ankle while Danny and Ember hurried outside to see what was going on.
"Citizens of Amity Park, we are Jack and Maddie Fenton, ghost fighters for this great city. We are here to announce to you that we have a plan in place to eradicate our town of all these ghosts that have come to it. While we engage all the ghosts in combat, our Fenton RV is preparing to launch what we call the Fenton ecto eraser. It is a bomb that will completely erase any ghost within its blast radius when it detonates. But worry not, it is completely harmless to humans so there is no need to panic. In one minute the ecto eraser will be launched and the Fentons will have saved this town and all the ghosts that thought they could attack us will be gone forever. Any people still out and about continue to make your way to the safety inside the ghost shield. Take care."
Both Danny and Ember were looking straight at the screen on the rooftop that was now blank, their mouths open wide and both of them on the verge of a complete panic.
"We have to stop this," said Danny grabbing his hair tightly, almost falling to his knees.
""I don't really care about all the ghosts that came after us, but Kitty is still out there somewhere, and Johnny, and myself," said Ember looking at Danny. Since Danny was only half ghost it seemed he'd be perfectly safe, assuming this eraser bomb really did only affect ghosts. But she herself was not so lucky and had no such luxury since they didn't know how large of a blast that thing would have.
"I know, we can't let this happen, but how do we stop it without getting ourselves erased?" said Danny rhetorically. "We have less than a minute, what do we do?"
Danny and Ember were both frantically looking in all directions trying to come up with an idea, time very much against them but they couldn't just give up. What would they do?
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All the ghosts that were around Jack and Maddie right now, and there were a lot of them, also heard the announcement and were now very infuriated with Vlad Plasmius. Everyone was glaring in his direction while he was still in the background not actually fighting.
"You've lead us to our destruction, we never should have listened to you," shouted several of the ghosts together, everyone ready to completely abandon their search for Danny and Ember and now attack Plasmius instead. Plasmius meanwhile was now wearing a very different look on his face, one of complete disbelief which he tried to hide with a fake smile.
Sure Plasmius could always just turn himself back into a human and he'd be perfectly safe, assuming the device really was harmful to only ghosts and not humans. Also it's not like he had any actual concern for what happened to all the ghosts here. By the look of how everything was now going, letting them all be destroyed might actually be in his best interest, then they couldn't come after him. With one more quick look around, it seemed his time had come to get out of sight and transform back. As he turned around to fly away behind a building, he got a new shock that prevented him from getting away.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH," screamed Plasmius in agony again as he felt something tight wrap around his whole midsection. Looking down he realized he'd been wrapped up by Jack Fenton and his Jack o nine tails. Looking over his shoulder he saw the fat oaf staring at him with a triumphant smirk.
"Gotcha Wisconsin ghost, consider this payback for what you did at my college reunion," said Jack as he yanked Plasmius towards him. He landed hard on the ground in front of both Jack and Maddie, who put her ecto baton right in front of his face.
"You'll be staying put like a good spirit so we can make sure you won't be causing any more trouble for anyone again," said Maddie with a serious glare through her goggles.
Suddenly Plasmius was starting to panic, he was tied up and unable to move, and a bomb was about to be launched in mere seconds that would destroy him and all the other ghosts around. He could still change back to a human, but it would reveal his identity to both Jack and Maddie, which would surely ruin any chances he had to get rid of Jack and steal Maddie from him.
"15 seconds until launch," came the voice of an AI from the Fenton RV.
"Time to say your prayers ghosts, it's all over as soon as that ecto eraser hits the ground," said Maddie as both her and Jack stopped trying to keep the ghosts round up. Several were trying to flee the scene but the married couple wasn't concerned due to the huge blast radius they'd given the device when inventing it. It would cover up to a thousand feet in every direction, almost half a mile, and there wasn't enough time for all the ghosts to clear the blast zone before that happened.
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All at once, everyone stopped what they were doing to look in the direction of the Fenton RV, whether they were right on the opposite side of the ghost shield, or had managed to get a few hundred feet away. The device started to vibrate slightly as a flame erupted from the tail, slowly propelling it into the air and towards the ghost shield. All the ghosts had looks of horror on their face while Jack and Maddie both looked really satisfied with themselves. And Plasmius was rapidly fighting an internal battle on whether to take his chances by fleeing, or changing back to Vlad Masters and revealing his identity, but surviving the blast.
The bomb now passed through the ghost shield and was flying over everyone's head into the distance, it's destination a couple hundred feet away to cover maximum range from the ghost shield.
"We did it Maddie baby, we saved our town from all the ghosts," said Jack proudly, putting his arm around his wife's shoulder.
"We sure did Jack, and the best part, there should be plenty of residue from the aftermath to study and learn even more about...WHAT IS THAT?" shouted Maddie in midsentence and now sounding furious, pointing at what appeared to be two figures riding some kind of device in the direction of the ecto eraser before it could start to descend towards the ground. If she didn't know any better, she'd say it looked like some kind of guitar.
And she was right, Danny and Ember had reappeared on the scene out of seemingly nowhere, and were heading straight for the ecto eraser as fast as they could.
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*Moments ago
"Hurry hurry hurry, we have to go if we're going to make this work," said Ember as she hopped on her guitar and urged her boyfriend to do the same.
Danny was quickly putting on a big jacket and ski mask that he had picked up moments ago from one of the fallen shelves. If this plan of theirs that they'd somehow thrown together in a span of about 30 seconds was going to work, they had to go now. But since Danny Fenton wasn't supposed to be in Amity Park right now, he'd have to make sure nobody realized it was him.
"Okay, let's go, right now," said Danny as he hopped onto the guitar in front of Ember who grabbed hold of him to keep him from falling off.
"This is going to be very awkward since you can't do this in your ghost form, I hope your balance is really good," said Ember as she took off into the sky on the guitar, holding Danny securely as the guitar picked up speed.
"Just keep me from falling off and I'll do the rest," said Danny as they both started to scan the sky, looking for the ecto eraser but not seeing it yet. "It should be launching any second now since we only had a minute to throw this crazy idea together."
"There, I see it," said Ember pointing to their right. Sure enough, the ecto eraser was launching into the air and had passed through the ghost shield, now heading out into the open for it's blast point.
"GO GO GO GO GO," urged Danny as he crouched down to one of his knees while the guitar sped towards the eraser as fast as Ember could make it move.
Ember put one hand on top of Danny's shoulder while she leaned forward slightly, dialed in on the bomb flying through the sky and quickly trying to catch up to it. It was about twenty feet in front of them and had just reached the height of it's flight pattern, starting to slowly angle back towards the ground.
"Okay, once I grab it, fly us as high as you possibly can," said Danny, preparing his arms to grab the device.
"Yeah, and while I do that, you just make sure it doesn't touch anything but you, dying for the second time wasn't on my agenda when I woke up today," said Ember with some hesitation. If any part of this went south then she would instantly lose everything. Her afterlife, her guitar, her music, and more important than everything combined, Danny. She was not ready to lose the happiness that she had waited so long to get, so this crazy plan just had better work.
They were closing in on the bomb, Danny nervously shaking a little bit, hoping to everything that the bomb really was harmless to humans and wouldn't detonate once he touched it. Ember took a very slight step back on the guitar to the edge, even standing a bit on the neck. She also crouched down now but kept her hand on Danny's shoulder to keep him steady as he reached for the bomb, mere feet in front of him.
"Please don't blow please don't blow," said Danny to himself nervously and hopefully. Putting all his faith in Ember, Danny fully extended his arms and grabbed the bomb in midflight, careful to avoid the flame coming from the edge. Once he grabbed it the bomb suddenly stopped flying itself, the flame extinguishing due to the disruption of it's flight path. But unfortunately this only created a new problem, as Danny noticed a new timer appear on it's surface and begin a new countdown.
"AH, CRAP, IT'S GOT A NEW TIMER OF THIRTY SECONDS," screamed Danny as he showed the device to Ember, carefully so it wouldn't touch her.
Ember's eyes shot open upon seeing the new timer, but she kept ascending into the air as high as she could take them, not knowing what else to do.
20 seconds
"Ember, you have to do something for me and please don't argue," said Danny as he looked back to his girlfriend with pleading eyes.
Ember didn't like the look on his face and was afraid of what he was about to suggest.
"What?" said Ember, hoping he'd speak quickly.
"Throw me as far as you can into the distance," said Danny, which Ember responded by opening her eyes even wider, stunned by his request. There was no way she was about to completely launch the boy she loved into the air as far as she could.
15 seconds
"Danny I can't do that, I won't do that," said Ember as she felt a tear fall from her eye at his suggestion. She was mere seconds away from being in the center of a ghost destroying blast, but she was refusing to separate herself from Danny.
10 seconds
"I'm sorry, please forgive me," said Danny as he quickly leaned forward and captured Ember's lips with his own, savoring what they felt like in case this was indeed the end and she wasn't able to save him afterwards. Ember got caught up in the kiss since she wasn't expecting it, suddenly panicking once Danny pulled himself away and smiled lightly into her eyes one more time. "I love you Baby Flame."
5 seconds
What Danny did next made Ember almost pass out on the spot. He jumped off of her guitar and started plummeting towards the ground so far below.
"DANNY," screamed Ember at the top of her lungs as she saw her boyfriend suddenly falling back towards Earth.
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A/N Well things sure did get pretty intense again with this chapter. So much stuff to go over but I don't even know where to start. This was another tricky chapter that I had to carefully go over a few times with a few different versions until I decided to finalize it. Originally I didn't even have Valerie in it and didn't decide to change that until I was about halfway through the chapter with a completely different idea on how Danny and Ember would slip the other ghosts. I decided to have Valerie discover Danny's identity because I felt it would be an interesting twist on what actually happened in the show. My thought was how in most stories with secret identities, at some point others do tend to find out one way or another, whether it be a friend, an enemy, someone random, or what not. Other than Jazz that never really happened in Dany Phantom and I thought it would be a nice twist to have someone else discover it, which also opens the door for Valerie to be more involved in the future. But for now I know I'm leaving you with possibly the biggest cliffhanger yet and some of you probably hate me for that, but sorry not sorry, lol. I'm excited for what happens next so I hope all of you will be okay waiting until next week. Until then, love you all, and please send me a VALENTINE gift by leaving a REVIEW!