A/N: Hello everyone! Happy to get this chapter up on time. Nothing particularly interesting to report, the ninth chapter should be out Saturday as usual! I hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Summary:

Danny is awoken Monday morning to ominous rumbles and terrible footfalls. After a confrontation with an enormous wiggler, with Valerie's help, some interpersonal drama ensues.

Warnings:

Chapter Specific Warnings:

Canon-typical violence, coarse language, and descriptions of physical illness (including vomiting).

Chapter Title:

Battlement: an extremely strong wall built to defend a city or castle from enemies while providing cover to defensive troops.

Truculent: Cruel or savage ... Deadly or destructive ... Eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict.

Ruination: The state of being ruined, a state of devastation or destruction. ... A loss of reputation

5:30am October 31st , 2005

The morning of All Hallow's Eve crept up on him, the march until the end of the month slowed by the pain marring his every waking moment. The ticks of time on the clock stuttered to a miserable snail's pace, as every beat of his heart left a throb of answering agony somewhere in his body. The headache, that he'd given up medicating away three days back, curled around his skull pinging from one area to another to dig its nails into his lobes, but never abating. He'd thrown up all night, head hovering over the bowl just out of splash back range, tears in his eyes as each heave intensified the pounding in his skull. His muscles felt like they'd torn, shredded by his ghost fighting activities or too much movement in human form. He regretted the couple rounds of Dance, Dance, Revival he'd done with his friends, everything below his waist a mess of knotted muscle and burning nerves.

It was Monday. He had school . The thought of doing more than wiggling his toes and breathing brought a sense of pervasive doom. Maybe I'll die the rest of the way and be freed from this suffering. He grunted, pushing away the thought, as he forced himself to roll over and look at the clock. It read ninety minutes before his usual alarm, so he had time to get it together and make it through the day. He took a deep, careful breath and let himself drift down onto the surface of the sheets, taking in what still ached where. Headache, legs are killing me, I'm freezing, and it feels like my bones are on fire. The last two caught his attention, reminding him of the last time he'd had a fever.

He forced himself out of bed, shuffling into the bathroom to grab the thermometer and shoved it under his tongue. He'd leaned against the sink in the dark, and waited for the shrill beep of the device. 99.3. He was almost normal human temperature. He was boiling. Fuck. I shouldn't go to school with a fever. Hell, maybe I should start taking this more seriously and head to Frostbite for treatment? He panted into the dark interior of the bathroom, wrestling with his options in the early morning silence. He didn't have time to sneak there before school, and if he skipped, his parents would ground him until next year. He could tell them he was feeling ill, he did even have a fever. But then, they'd want to run tests and— He worked his way through the dark to his room, and returned with some extra shower things. He was going to take a bath and soak out the pain. Then, it was breakfast and school. Then the evening's patrol. He just needed a slower start. It was fine.

The extra heat did knock some of the pain out of his muscles, but his headache remained, pressing behind his eyes and thumping at his temples. He tried the Advil again and hoped for a miracle. He was laying on his bed, trying to summon up the energy to organize his backpack before breakfast, when a shake went through the house, and dust drifted down from the ceiling. It could be mom and dad testing something in the basement. Another shake, bigger this time. Like a new bomb... He reached for his phone to check the time, when an unholy screech went through the entire house. The building jostled, cracks appeared running from the ceiling to the floor of the outer wall of his bedroom, and something huge slammed down on the street outside. Another boom, then another boom, a fourth, and finally he rushed to the window to look outside.

A metallic whirring leg skimmed over the roof of the next door neighbor's house and punched into the asphalt on their street, bricks tumbling off the roof of Fentonworks into the yard below. The metal scraping sound increased in volume, and then a shadow, hovering over the street in the pre-dawn morning, made a gruesome twist of fear spiral around his guts. The Ops Center, in all its glory, stood on six thick legs splayed over the two nearest streets, suspended over the roof of Fentonworks. The legs creaked, then flexed, then they moved. Lifting one giant clawed foot in the air, pressing down into the street with a crashing whomp, it began moving away from the building, scuttling off like a beetle towards unknown objectives. He considered rolling over and just pretending he hadn't seen it. The fantasy only lasted a moment, before his mother came rushing upstairs.

"Danny, Jazz, the Ops Center has animated! You need to get down into the basement immediately for your own safety." His mother opened his door in a rush, already heading towards the master bedroom, where they kept spare emergency weapons. "Your father and I are going to take the GAV and hunt it down. We've locked the portal for your protection, and your father is putting away all of the equipment and experiments we don't want you kids touching." She stopped by his door, a bandolier of ecto-grenades wrapped around her and the Fenton Bazooka in her right hand. "We're not going to lock you in, because that would be unsafe, but don't come out of the basement until we give the ok, or it's an emergency!" She grabbed him by the arm, pulling him away from the view of the retreating Ops center outside.

He shared a look with Jazz as they were hustled downstairs and told to stay in one half of the lab as his parents finished child-proofing it enough to leave them in there. They must have been in the middle of a dangerous experiment if they're doing this much prep. He thought as the two scientists slid a few things off one table into a box and made for the stairs. "Now you kids stay on that side of the room unless you need to flee the basement. Your father and I will have this handled in a jiffy!" His mother's tone was bright, peppy in the face of fighting the entire Ops Center come to life, and the sentiment was clearly shared by her husband from the grin on his lips.

"Don't worry about a thing. We're going to go medieval on that ghost possessed tech and be back in time for breakfast!" He shouted, already heading for the front door.

"Be good kids. Don't. Touch. Anything!" With that, his mother took the stairs two at a time, and closed the door, heading after their dad.

The basement was much quieter with the portal sealed, but even behind more than a foot of ecto-steel, he could hear the high-pitched hum of the electronics and the low moaning rumble of the portal itself. He sighed, leaning back in the most comfortable chair they had in the lab, and closed his eyes. Maybe he would just let his parents handle it.

"With the Ops Center gone, there's not a ghost shield, right?"

"Right…" he trailed off, keeping his eyes closed.

"You should be able to go after them."

"Waiting for—" He heard the crash of his father's abrupt exit all the way through the building walls and the basement's concrete. "That's the thing. You've got a pair of Fenton phones, right?" He looked over at his sister, to find her already wearing them. "Awesome. I'm going ghost." He sounded tired, even considering it was 6:15 am on a school day. He breathed through the pulse of pain from his core at the transformation and smiled down at his sister. "I'll be back before long. I'll keep you updated." He pulled out his own pair of phones and phased through the ceiling, angling for the front of the building. He arrived in short order, hovering over the deep crevasses in the street and taking in the cars pushed to the sides of the road as the giant metal dome scraped forward.

He jumped when he realized how far it had gotten. How in the world is something made of 25 tons of metal moving that fast? He questioned as he clicked his phones to pick up a call. "Hello, World's Tiredest Teen speaking."

"Your roof is on the news."

"Hey Tucker." He was getting closer, and from a hundred meters back, he could already hear the stomping again. "Yeah, kinda hard to miss it waking up and stomping away from the house."

"You sound horrible." His sister must have been patched in a few seconds ago. "Did you not sleep?"

"I...might have been up playing the Doom marketplace and watching the forums?" He stopped a dozen meters away, assessing the monstrosity with deliberate care. The flush of guilt about his answer disappeared under the seriousness of the situation, and the paltry levels of his energy reserves. "I only got a few hours of sleep." That part was probably true. The pain kept waking him.

"I thought I heard you in the middle of the night…" He could imagine the disapproving look to match her tone, eyebrows drawn down and eyes squinted.

She had definitely heard him in the middle of the night. "It's headed for Parkland Point." Tucker commented, having traced the likely paths of the giant mech. "Is that where your house is, Sam?"

"And every rich family in Amity. Oh, hey! Maybe it's going to visit Vlad? Maybe it wants to give him a giant robotic hug?" Her light tone and bubbly giggle came through the line, and his mood lifted instantly. That, and the thought of the Ops Center smashing Vlad's Amity residence like a Kaiju really took the bone-crushing ache out of the morning. He watched it stomp forward, a little farther towards Parkland, before making a decision.

"I'm calling Val. There's no way I'm taking this thing out before it does a new special tax level of damage."

"If we get another new one this year, my dad swears we're gonna move to Elmerton." Tucker said, clacking on the keyboard on his end of the call.

"Dude, Elmerton sucks."

" Elmerton has much lower taxes and better parks. My parents say so."

"Your parents aren't gonna move, Tuck. They're gonna grumble and pay up like everyone else." Danny pulled out his cell, having snatched it off the bed when his mom grabbed him to head to the basement.

"Let's not test their patience or budget."

He agreed, and fired off a text to Valerie in the admin back channels of the website.

"Hey, the Fenton's Ops Center Mecha'd out on us. Gonna need your assistance with this one."

"On it." Came the reply, in seconds.

He hadn't expected her to agree so fast, but if it was already on the news, she was probably expecting the tag-in. It would've been a hard fight even if the rest of town hadn't been suffering from constant attacks, and he was half dead from the worst ghost flu in history.

"I've got eyes on it. Sources tell me it's heading towards Parkland Point. Where can we meet up?"

"Right where you're floating. I'll be there in thirty seconds."

Ok, that was fast, even if she'd been expecting the message. Elmerton was a ten-minute flight away, he'd timed it once. How was she—

"So, what's the situation?" She spoke behind him, suddenly appearing as if by teleportation.

"Jesus, when did you get there, Huntress?"

"Five seconds ago."

"But, I didn't hear…" he trailed off, trying to recall if he'd ever heard her new hoverboard make noise. He hadn't. "So it's fast and quiet now."

"Almost as speedy and quiet as a ghost." She smiled behind her visor, and the sight eased some of the anxiety in his chest about the upcoming fight. They'd gotten along better since splitting up the city. With a little communication and a lot of teamwork, they could handle this.

"It's not fast, but it is enormous, filled with weapons, covered in ghost hunting equipment, and likely hostile to all ghostkind."

"I can see why you called for back-up." She drifted to one side, helmet darkening for a moment, before her face returned. "Still no ghost energy, so I'm not sure how effective the Fentons' weapons will be against it."

"You can see them from here?"

"I've got incredible new tools in this baby, including the ability to zoom and enhance like some cop show techie. Their weapons are denting the outside of the Center, but it's not like it can knock a ghost out of it." She drew up beside him, taking in the hulking behemoth working its way north. "How strong would a ghost have to be to possess something like that?"

"I'm not sure…" He hummed in thought a moment, taking in the size and anti-ghost weaponry inside. "Someone like Technus could do it, or maybe me, but not someone like the Box Ghost."

"Too weak, huh?"

"And their energy isn't specialized enough to handle it." He blinked in surprise at the look she was giving him. "What?"

"You're not a technology ghost." It wasn't a question. She didn't seem the least bit unsure.

"That's correct. Want to know your prize?"

"How come you can possess technology as good as Technus, then?" He felt tingles claw down his spine, hot and full of warning. She was fishing, for what he couldn't tell.

"I'm not a scientist; I'm a superhero. How should I know?"

"I figured you'd know how your powers work." A boom echoed off in the distance as a blast from the GAV bounced off the reinforced steel of the Ops Center.

"Could we table the power discussion for when Amity Park isn't the star of the newest version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers?" He flew off, expecting her to follow.

"Sure, I've got time. I'll get the answer out of you eventually." It should sound like a threat, but instead it felt playful, something airy and teasing in her tone that reminded him of her declarations of victory at the arcade.

"You'll have to do better than just asking me outright." He shot back, pushing past the fatigue and the pain to catch up to the lumbering metal menace crushing the streets of his hometown. "Ok, I flew all the way over here, and I have not thought of a clever plan to stop it."

"Here's a plan," Valerie said, pulling out a new bevvy of weapons from her upgraded arsenal, "blast it into pieces until it stops moving!" She fired off a few rockets, and a dozen lasers, the whole barrage slamming into the side of the Center with a bang.

"I don't think that's a great idea? We're in the middle of town. The debris—" he dodged around return fire, a searing cold blast from an ecto-gun narrowly whizzing past his shoulder. "We don't want to crush someone, or damage too many buildings."

"This thing is headed directly for the richest part of town, and tearing up anything in its path to get there. I think collateral damage is the least of our worries right now, Phantom."

She was right. He hated that. He could already feel his core panging from the flight over, a protracted or energy-heavy fight would wipe him out. He shot to the side, zigzagging around another wall of Ops Center fire, to appear on its other side. "You wanted a pincer maneuver that one time?"

"That's not how those work, ghost boy!" She shot another set of something that boomed into her side of the walking tax increase. "But, I'm picking up what you're putting down. Help me drill a hole through the middle of this thing." Another loud set of booms, released from her suit, and this time the machine wobbled in its step.

"Once inside, I could probably shut it down just by trashing things."

"Then we just need to drill a hole…" She trailed off as a wave of lasers fired from the top of the Ops Center towards her side. He couldn't see her with all the debris and smoke in the way.

"Huntress!"

"I'm fine! Stop worrying about me, and get to shooting holes in this hunk of junk."

He dodged a small blast of his own and flew upwards, angling away from the bulk of the Center's surface. He summoned up an ecto-blast, firing it at the closest set of guns, hoping to cripple its defenses and gauge how tough it'd be to blast through the outer hull in his condition. To his dismay, only a few bits and pieces fell away. The guns were disabled, but no blast that piddly would cut through the thicker ecto-steel farther down the Center. They might have to change tactics. He zapped away three more guns, clearing more on his side to give him breathing room and time to think. If he wasn't so sick, he'd be able to blast through with Val's help. If the Ops Center hadn't just gotten a remodel with newer, thicker plating, it might have been possible even with him being sick. And if whatever stupid plague going through town hadn't started, he'd be laying in bed nursing his wounds instead of wracking his meager collection of brain cells for a solution to this impossible problem.

He fired off an ice blast into one of the joints of the Center and, hoping to keep it in place, then fired behind him into the other leg on this side.

"Since when does this thing even have legs?"

"It just got an update."

"You know way too much about the Fentons' lives."

He groaned as a twisting dodge made his vertigo worse. "I need to know these kinds of things to sneak in to use their portal." That previous lie was coming in handy.

"I guess knowing their offensive and defensive capabilities is also useful, since they're trying to capture you." She reappeared under the bottom of the Center, flying low as she let loose a spray of weapon fire.

"It's thickest at the bottom. No way you get through down there."

"I don't see you blasting anything."

He pointed at the frozen limbs of the Center, the whole thing rocking back and forth trying to get free.

"Ok, fine, you did lock it down."

He flew to the other side, where Valerie had originally been fighting. "Trade you. There's more guns over on that side, but I bet you've softened up the steel. "Plus," he noted, charging up another ice attack, "I need to blast the legs on thi—" A wave of fatigue hit him, and his ice powers evaporated in his grasp, whisked away in a rush of pain. He dug deep and summoned up more energy, a pale blue glow coating one of his hands. The blast that sailed away barely coated the surface in a sheen of ice, the thin veneer climbing across the entire limb's surface, but never thickening enough to hinder movement. "Shit."

"You, uh, having some performance issues, Phantom?"

"Oh God, that is not remotely funny."

"This is the worst time for your powers to give out on you. What's been up with you lately?"

"I'm just," he ground his teeth together and pulled the last strands of cold he could from his core, gathering it into both hands and firing, "tired from all the fighting." The blast built up this time, wrapping around one of the lower joints on the Ops center's back leg, further arresting its movement. This time, when the attack ended, he felt cold . A shiver traveling through him as a gust of wind pushed him away from the mech. That can't be good. He dodged around another two blasts from the machine, returning fire with some weak green ecto-blasts of his own. They disabled the guns, but didn't do much else. He looked at the scorched sides of the metallic nightmare, taking in the damage Huntress' weapons had managed. Even with areas softened up, there was no way he was getting through that ecto-steel.

He flew back, taking in the view of the whole battle. His parents fired away at the underbelly, Valerie dipped and dodged around the remaining guns, giving it hell back, the legs creaking, ice cracking as the forces animating the Center tried to push past his poorly-made restraints.

He closed his eyes and took internal stock of his energy supplies. He had enough. It would be close, but he could use his wail and still be able to fly afterward. Just thinking about summoning that much energy at once made preemptive pain echo along his nerves. It was fine. "Huntress, you need to give me some space. I'm gonna use my Ghostly Wail!"

"In the middle of downtown?!"

"Not a lot of options." He flew above the Center, hoping to focus the attack down on the Center's footprint. "Tell the Fentons to clear out." He heard her agree and then lined up above the struggling Center, watching as they moved away and the first of its frozen legs shook off his ice attack. He closed his eyes, feeling the power build in his chest, pulse out of his core, and catch in his throat. With one final second to let it build to a crescendo, he let it free, the energy barreling down on the top of the Ops Center, breaking off smaller pieces and rattling the thicker plating.

Immediately, he felt his core try to deactivate from lack of energy, and held on, pushing back against the press of oncoming humanity with his will. One second...two seconds...three seconds. He listened to the thumps as the attack began breaking off larger plates, sending them plummeting to the earth, crushing lamp posts and denting parked cars. Things felt distant, the pull of gravity heavier and yet spread out over more of his body, but he held on for another few seconds. Finally, the largest plates near the bottom cracked through, the noise like thunder, exposing the sensitive innards piloting the animated tech. His wail cut off, stopped by his power running dry instead of a conscious command, and he opened his eyes as he felt himself falling. No...come on... He reached for more energy, and came up empty, not even mentally scrapping for wisps of power came back with the tiniest piece. The ground grew closer, drawing nearer, faster with each passing millisecond.

I'm still in ghost form. It would save his life when he slammed into the earth...maybe. He wheeled his arms trying to control the fall, reaching for his still vanished energy, when suddenly he stopped. He looked up into Valerie's face, brain trying to catch up to the fact his fall had been arrested by her catching him instead of becoming road pizza.

"I've got you, Phantom." She piloted the board around a couple loose pieces of falling plate, zipping out from under the shuttering Ops Center to the other side. She was warm. He failed the saving throw to avoid snuggling closer. The movement didn't seem to register, instead she focused on flying them away from the battle and to a roof nearby. She set him on the roof, gaze soft and worried. "Are you—" His rings started up. He smothered them ruthlessly.

"I'm spent." He stated the obvious anyway.

"You're not gonna melt the second I turn away, are you?" He focused behind her concerned looking face, taking in the still standing Ops Center with an exhausted gaze.

"I thought that'd take it out."

"You gonna answer my question?"

"How am I gonna beat it now? I've got nothing left."

"Phantom, ignore the mech for a second and answer me!"

"It's going to get free from the ice soon; I didn't make it thick enough. It's gonn—" She got right into his face, blocking his view of the towering disaster movie come to life.

" Phantom, if you don't answer my fucking question right this instant, I'm going to drag you back to the Zone after shoving you inside your mystical soup container."

"I'm not gonna melt, Valerie." His tone sat just this side of furious and to the south of hopeful. "We have bigger things to worry about." She finally moved back, turning away to size up the rocking and creaking Center squatting over the middle of Fifth Ave.

"You made holes big enough for me to fly inside. I'll just get in there and start blasting."

"Wait, no!"

"Why not? That was your original plan." She stared down at him, the concern from before replaced with irritation.

"Because I can go intangible if the whole thing tried to collapse or blow up before I made it back to an opening, and you can't. All it takes is one wrong blast, and the walls fall in on you, or the ceiling, or something inside blows you into a wall and knocks you out or—" He's cut off by a loud crack, the noise followed by chiming sounds as some of the ice on the left back leg fell away. The abomination started rocking more aggressively, the ice on the other side already beginning to break.

"We don't have time to argue." She flew farther away from the roof, but tilted her body back towards him, keeping him in sight. "You. Stay there. I see you trying to fly again before your levels recover on my scans, you won't have to worry about what the Ops Center is going to do, because I'll be your biggest headache." She turned away, racing towards the stumbling tin can as it forced another leg free.

He watched, terror building in his core, as she slipped inside one of the cracks in the middle of the machine, and disappeared. The last leg broke free of his ice, and the whole damaged wreck began working forward once more, smashing down the center of the street without care for what landed under its clawed, grasping arms. It took two giant steps forward, knocking over trees in the center of the avenue and stomping footfalls setting off car alarms for blocks, before its movement faltered. He watched as smoke and then plumes of fire poured out of two cracks lower down, before the whole thing was seized in a pulse of electricity. It listed to one side, then righted itself taking another halting step forward.

"God, this can't be happening."

"I can't tell from the news report from the weather copter; what's going on?" Jasmine's voice broke through his concentration, drawing him back to Team Phantom on the phones.

"Valerie just flew inside of the Ops Center to blast it apart from the inside."

"That might not be the best idea?"

"That's what I said, Jazz!" he huffed, trying to force himself back onto his feet. He groaned when he realized they'd dissolved back into his tail again. Perfect.

"She did get that new suit upgrade, maybe she'll be fine?" Sam sounded hopeful, but when another explosion billowed out of the inside of the mech, he felt his chest fill with ice.

"I don't care what fancy new tech Vlad gave her. Unless she can walk through walls, she shouldn't be inside while trying to blow it up." He tried again to stand or force his feet back into existence, then gave up the effort to drag himself to the edge of the roof. He still couldn't fly.

"I'm guessing you're drained."

"Like an empty Capri-Sun." He forced his shaking arms to support him, and swung his tail over the edge of the roof. If he could float even a little, he'd have jumped already. "I can't even fly."

"You are still in ghost form, right?" His sister's voice sounded frantic, and he rolled his eyes.

"We'd be having a very different conversation if I'd transformed." He jolted as another blast echoed out, this time stopping the mech in its tracks with a metallic screech of metal on metal. This was followed by another flutter of electricity over the surface of the Center, like the discharge of a taser, and a resounding boom as flames licked out of every crevasse in the frozen machine. It teetered, right, then left, before falling forward into the middle of an intersection with an earth-shaking crash. The whole mass of metal, electronics, weapons, and ghost shield came to a deathly still stop. He hadn't seen Valerie fly out. "Did anyone get an angle of Val getting out of the Ops Center before it collapsed?"

"Not on any of the news cameras..." Jasmine trailed off, voice sounding hollow from the other side of the phones.

Numbness, cold and sudden, raced through him as he thought of the other teen being crushed alive in the falling debris or burned by the explosions. He'd just been sitting there. Doing nothing and Val was risking her life, maybe even seriously injured or—he fought down another wave of fatigue and his transformation rings, groaning at the pain that caused, feeling like someone just swung a metal wrench into his chest. "I'm fine, just trying not to transform." It was mostly true. He looked back up at the smoking wreckage blocking all of Fifth, trying to peer through the choking, black smoke for the Red Huntress' form. "Let me know if any of you see her; I'm gonna try to get off the roof."

"So, are those the ghost friends you're talking to, or some of your mysterious sources?" The relief almost knocked him out of ghost form from how quickly he'd relaxed.

"You've got to stop sneaking up on me."

"Why? You did it to me all the time. I'm beginning to see why you found it so fun." The teasing tone from before the fight was back, and he smiled despite himself.

"If I look behind me, you'll be yourself and not a ghost?"

"You're the one with the ghost sense, Phantom, can't you tell?"

He turned, taking in the smirk on her lips. "New ghosts are too weak to give off much of a signal." His lifting mood brought enough buoyancy to float, and he joined her in the air. He took in her still flawless appearance with a modicum of jealousy. He knew he looked like death reheated in a microwave.

"How would you know that?" Her face suddenly looked serious, the jovial tone from before gone, and he mentally retraced his last few sentences, before realizing the info he'd revealed.

"Every ghost knows that," he thanked being able to pretend to be a full-ghost for the second time in so many minutes, "it's why they have to stay in the Zone right after they're made." He took in her skeptical look with a wince, core picking up in beat from the exertion and his worry. The look vanished with a shrug and she floated closer.

"You gonna be able to make it back to the Zone in this condition? You don't look much better than when I left."

"You weren't gone that long."

"Back to dodging questions—" The whine of the news chopper's rotor blades cut through the air, drawing her attention away. He took the opportunity to turn invisible and book it, feeling the urge to transform becoming unavoidable. He did not want to have that conversation.

He landed in his bedroom, and transformed, sinking down into the mattress. He forced himself onto his arms, and rolled overlooking at the clock. 7:06. He still had to go to school. He fell back onto his pillow, the pain from before replaced with the numbness of post-battle fatigue and fading adrenaline. Still, underneath, he could feel pain already awakening to light up his nerves. If he could already feel it this soon, walking would be impossible come second period.

" You're back! You weren't answering us, so…" Jazz leaned past his bedroom door, mouth gaping wide as she took in his appearance. It must have been ghastly; she took three whole seconds to say something. "Oh my gosh, you didn't say you got injured!"

"I didn't," he croaked out, pressing his face back into his pillow with a groan. "I'm just tired."

"This is not 'just tired'. I've seen you tired after a fight, you know. This is way worse. Did you get thrown into something? Did you hit your head? Or maybe you got blasted? Did—"

"Jazz... I'm fine . You've never seen me this wiped after a fight, cause I haven't been since right after I got my powers, but this is just what 'Drained Danny' looks like." He heard her pick her way into the room, around his clothes and books strewn on the floor, to come stand by his bed.

"I don't believe you." She reached out and grabbed his arm, trying to turn him over before she snatched it back. "You feel…warm. You feel human level warm . Do you have a fever? Do you get those?" She reached out again, brushing his bangs away to place her palm on his forehead. He batted her away.

"Cut it out, Jazz. I already told you I'm fine. I'm more human when I'm out of ghost energy." He forced himself to roll over, looking up at his sister.

"Sam and Tucker say that's not true!"

"Sam and Tucker aren't inside my body." He sat up using his forearms, glaring in earnest now. "Quit being such a busybody. How would you know how I react when I'm low on energy?"

"Well," she took a step back, face considering, "I guess I wouldn't. But, Sam says you mentioned feeling sick, like with a cold. This might just be a normal fever. Let me find where we put the thermometer."

"Jazz, if you don't stop mother henning at me, I'm going to kick you out of the room and lock the door."

"You can't get up off that bed." She sniffed, looking far too confident. He'd regret this later, maybe even only two minutes from now, but he didn't appreciate her meddling.

"You're wrong." He tossed his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up before his body could think better of it. With determination and increasingly protesting muscles, he stomped over to her, grabbed her arm, and started dragging her out of his space. "Get out of my goddamn room. If you want to help, think of a good alibi for us to be out of the basement." With that, he shut the door, turning the lock for good measure. He panted into the silence of his room, leaning against the door as his knees buckled. His ears rang with a high-pitched squeal, everything had progressed past spinning and had gone vignette.

"Danny, why'd you lie to Jazz like that?" Sam. Oh, shit. He still had the Fenton phones in.

"Uh, she's just fussy, guys. I don't want her worrying about a little cold."

"She said you had a fever."

"I don't."

"You didn't check," Sam argued back, as stubborn and smothering as his sister.

"It's fine."

"You've been saying that a lot, dude, and you know? Usually I believe you, or I don't push, but I don't think it's fine." Tucker. Tucker. Really?

"I already have one overbearing sister, and Sam auditioning for the role of her understudy, so I don't need you riding my ass about this too."

"Harsh. Totally uncalled-for, even. I'm just worried this cold is something more serious. We saw you fighting in the news cameras, you know? You shouldn't be this tired from the fight."

"Didn't sleep well."

"Even then—" Sam started, before he cut her off with a snarl.

"It's not a big deal. I've been fighting tech for a week. I haven't slept as much. I have a cold . All of you are acting like the world is ending because I feel tired and a little achy."

"You don't just feel a 'little' achy." It sounded like she'd screamed it, but when he finished wincing, he realized it had only been normal volume. "If me or Tuck speak at a normal level, you flinch like someone punched you. You picked over your food at Busters yesterday. You look dead on your feet all the time now. You almost transformed in public!" She stopped, silence filling up with nothing but frustration from both sides. "Other than hurting like crazy and having no ghost energy, you don't have any other symptoms. This isn't a cold."

"You don't know what a ghost cold is like."

"Neither do you!" She actually raised her voice this time, and he ripped the phones out of his ears, breathing through the nausea and sharp shooting pain it'd cause with a bit-back sob. That was over the line.

"You both are being stupid." He leaned over the Fenton phones on his bed, unwilling to put them back into his ears. "I'm not putting up with this conversation anymore. I'll see you at school." He tossed the phones away to scatter onto his bedroom floor with a clatter. He'd find them later when he felt like searching. Pressing his palms into his temples, trying to massage away the renewed throbbing of his headache, he thought things over. He'd be able to head to Frostbite's on Wednesday, this weekend at the latest. His friends and his sister were all just overreacting, being ridiculous, trying to control him. He already had enough people in his life trying to do that, between his parents and Vlad. He thought they were on the same team, his team. But instead, they wanted to put him and the town in danger by benching him. They wanted to put him in danger by getting evidence he was sick, so his parents would find out. They wanted to control him. They wanted to hurt him .

No. Wait, no, they don't. He brought his spinning thoughts to a halt, laying back on the bed in a strung out heap. He needed sleep. None of his thoughts were making sense anymore. Another peek at the alarm clock showed it was 7:18. God, he did not want to go to school today. His phone buzzed, and he picked it up off the dresser. The notification said it was a text from Jazz. He opened it.

"Mom and dad texted. No school. Too much clean-up in town and they have a lot of answers to give the police so they won't be home for a while."

He blinked blearily at the text, taking in its contents into his slowly functioning mind. Oh. Thank god. Small miracles. It came at the cost of the Ops Center crashing through the center of town and an argument with the rest of Team Phantom, but it was still a miracle. He closed his eyes, and failed to summon up the will to even get under the sheets. He'd be fine after some sleep. And maybe he'd apologize too once everything stopped spinning and feeling like shit.

A/N:

Welcome to the bottom, dear readers! I hope this little skirmish was exciting! Danny's had a hard day, and it just started. Hopefully, this isn't a sign of something more serious to come. :3

That's it for updates until Saturday. Can't wait for more updates? Feel free to visit my art blog where you can ask questions, read tidbits of upcoming chapters, and more.

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