Chapter 7

Act 2: Aftermath

The burst of adrenaline from his excitement wore off and Danny plummeted towards the ground as his consciousness faded out. He was only a few feet from the ground before his mind came back and he pulled himself back up, but when he did, his ghost ray unwillingly erupted from his palms.

"What the—?!" Danny looked back towards the lab, but it didn't seem like anyone in there noticed the shot. He shook his head. His powers still being on the fritz even after he had escaped didn't reassure Danny. "That was a close one. Gotta make sure that doesn't happen again," he said to himself.

He needed to find somewhere to hide, and fast. Surely, any minute, the GIW agents would swarm outside the building to find him. He looked around and saw a dense forest nearby. That would be a good place to hide. Danny dove into the safety of the trees with a less than graceful landing, but at least he was conscious. He needed to get some distance between him and whoever would follow. He flew nimbly through the woods, but was getting slower with every passing second. Danny shook his head to try and wake himself back up. He couldn't let his exhaustion get the better of him. He stopped and rested his feet on the ground as he rubbed his eyes and began walking. As much as he loved flying and the speed that came with it, it was taking up too much of his energy. He needed rest. More than that, he needed to replenish his human half's energy. He needed food.

While Danny was lost in his thoughts, he stepped into a small clearing. He froze, a sudden wave of anxiety stopping him in his tracks when he realized and looked around, assessing the change in surroundings. It was like all sound had ceased around him and all he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. He glanced around the edges of the clearing, finding nothing but underbrush and trees before his eyes settled on the little log hunting cabin in front of him. Danny eyed it with suspicion, as if he was waiting for something to jump out at him, but nothing came. He took a hesitant step towards the cabin, still half-expecting something to happen, but when it didn't, he took more tentative steps. He crept up to the window and looked in to see shelves of canned food, water, camping supplies, a cot; everything he needed to recuperate, and it was all unsupervised. Danny phased through the wall, but his intangibility faltered before he'd cleared the furniture on the inside of the wall. He yelped as he fell onto the floor, taking a cabinet with him.

Danny grunted in frustration as he stood and dusted himself off. "What is going on with my powers?!" This couldn't be happening. Had the maniac ruined his powers with his experiments? "Get it together, Fenton!" Danny let out a stressed breath. He supposed he'd have to do what he did when he'd first gotten his powers. He'd have to learn how to control them again. Hopefully that would work. Maybe Sam and Tucker would have more ideas.

Danny looked around the room instinctively and, for the first time in way too long, he let the glowing white rings travel over his body, transforming himself back into his human form. He felt the familiar warmth of his human half spread over him and he realized that he had really missed it. He also had missed the feeling of clothing that wasn't made of spandex. Before, he'd never felt like being in his ghost form was a burden, but being in his human form now felt like he'd just stretched out a muscle that had cramped from being flexed for too long. A weight had lifted, and he took a deep, cleansing breath. Although, with being in his human form, he also felt more exposed, and he wasn't too comfortable with that.

The overwhelming hunger hit him all at once. He grabbed the closest can of food to him, popped the lid with a nearby hunting knife and started downing the food inside, barely having any time to taste it. The can was already empty before he even knew what it was. He grabbed a bottle of water next and that was gone almost as fast. He was by no means full, but at least the pain in his stomach had eased. Now he could think. He walked over to where the supplies were and picked up an empty, plain black rucksack and began loading it with as much of the canned and dried food and bottles of water that he could. He had to prepare for being out here for a while. After all, he had no idea where he was or how long it would take him to get back to Amity Park, and backtracking to steal more supplies from here was definitely not on his list of things to do.

As he continued searching the cabin, he found a map. While he didn't think it would help initially, he thought it might come in handy when he found any landmarks that could tell him where he was. He looked through some of the first aid supplies, grabbing a few bandages and antiseptic just in case, then a flashlight, which he threw into one of the easier to access pockets on the front, and he came across a radio. He was about to put it back when he had the idea of using it to help him figure out where he was. After all, local stations usually said where they were broadcasting from. He switched the radio on and used the dial to cycle through the stations, but all he heard was static. With a defeated sigh, he packed that in the bag at the top so he could use it later, after he'd traveled some. He struggled to zip up the rucksack with all its contents, but managed to do so after he'd adjusted the can the zipper had been getting stuck on.

Danny took the heavy bag over to the cot and plopped onto it, using the bag as a pillow, the exhaustion finally becoming too much to fight. He needed to get some decent rest before he set off on his journey back home. After all, he hadn't gotten any decent sleep while he was held captive. If he wanted to have any chance of getting home in one piece, he had to sleep.

Danny woke up to a loud bang nearby that made him jump. His heart hammered in his chest and his eyes darted wildly around the dark, moonlit room to find what had made the noise, but there was nothing he could see. The wind swelled and whistled in the branches outside and there was another thump. Danny's eyes followed the noise to the window's storm shutter whipping back and forth from the wind, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Then Danny realized he felt the chill in his chest from his ghost form. How had he gone ghost without realizing? He doubted he was going to be able to get back to sleep after that. Danny sighed and changed back. He decided that he may as well get something in his stomach and hit the road. He grabbed the rucksack off the cot and a bag of beef jerky off the shelf and headed to the door. As he was about to phase through it, he saw a rain jacket hung up on the hook by the door. That might come in handy, too. He put the oversized jacket on and swung the bag back over his shoulder as he phased through the door. Danny looked around and saw a pathway into the forest in the direction leading away from the lab. A trail had to lead to a road somewhere, then he could find his way towards Amity Park. Towards home. He was about to transform to follow it as fast as possible, but then decided it would be better to stay in his human form so close to the lab. They would recognize him instantly as a ghost, but as a human, he was a total nobody to them. Danny wanted to keep it that way.

The moon was bright enough to light his way through the woods, but the deeper into it he went, the harder it was for him to see. Danny grabbed the flashlight from the front pocket and flicked it on to its lowest setting. He wanted to stay as inconspicuous as possible. As he walked, he began to feel like he was being watched. He wasn't sure if it was just because he was in the woods alone at night or if it was something else, but whatever the reason, it made him step up his pace. When Danny's ghost sense escaped from his mouth in a wisp of fog, he stopped in his tracks to look around him, turning off the flashlight in case whatever was there could find him with it. He didn't see anything, but the chill he felt told him there was something there. He was sure of it. Was it Vlad? If here was here though, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for him. He figured Vlad would want to find him and bring him home, if only to score some brownie points with Mom. Danny cringed at the thought. Although the fact that he hadn't come forward in some fake-concerned way made Danny think that it wasn't him. How would he have known where he was, anyway? Danny decided to keep moving. Whatever was here was obviously hiding, not concerned about fighting, and Danny didn't care to start one, though he began to wonder if there really was anything there. With the way his powers had been shorting out, could he even trust his ghost sense? He pursed his lips as he shook his head. He just wanted to get home.

Danny kept walking for about an hour, but with every passing minute, the feeling of being followed put him more on edge. The surrounding light morphed from a pitch black to hazy grey as the sun began to rise and Danny took the radio out of the bag. It had to be early enough for some station to be on. He flipped through the channels and finally got to one that had a staticky, hard to decipher voice, but it was something. Danny tried holding the radio higher to get it to clear up.

"—search cont-…-for loc-…-Danny Fenton-…-m-…-sing…or three wee-…—"

"Come on!" Danny grumbled, shaking the radio as static took over. He had to be at least somewhat close to Amity Park if they were talking about his disappearance. At least the GIW hadn't taken him across the country. He turned off the radio, shoved it back in his pocket, and continued walking on the path. He still felt that uncomfortable feeling of being watched, but since his ghost sense hadn't gone off again, he concluded it was malfunctioning, just like his other powers. Even though he had made it out of that hellish lab, he still felt trapped there. He was still suffocating.

Danny looked up from the ground when he realized the surrounding light had gotten brighter. He could see the trees getting thinner and he stopped, feeling a sudden swell of anxiety gripping his heart. Something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong. Danny's ghost sense went off again, but this time, he knew it wasn't malfunctioning. He finally noticed what his subconscious had seen. There was a silhouette at the edge of the trees. If he hadn't had the hint from his ghost sense, he might not have noticed it was there. He stared at it, trying to figure out what was so off about it, but he couldn't tell. Then he blinked and it was gone. He looked around, trying to see where it went, but it was nowhere to be seen. His heart beat faster in his chest and his searching became a little more frantic.

"Come on, where are you?" Danny said, then whirled around when he heard the leaves behind him rustle.

The ghost leapt out of the brush like a jaguar, pinning him to the ground as he screamed. Seeing the thing up close, he realized what the silhouette had that had made him so anxious. It was wearing a lab coat; the ghost on top of him was a growling, beastly version of the maniac.

"Thought you got rid of me, did you?" the thing above him snarled.

Danny felt himself transform and he kicked the thing hard in its torso, launching it off of him. Danny jumped up, his honed fighting instinct taking over and he rocketed towards it fist first. When it connected, the ghost flew back and slammed into the thick trunk of a tree. "You know, I thought I had, but now I get to do to you what I'd wanted to do every second you were torturing me."

The thing started laughing a deep and guttural gurgle and got back onto its feet in a disturbing, contorting way, snapping as it did so, making Danny taste bile at the back of his throat. Any bravery he'd felt vanished and the fear that had sprouted in its place was urging him to run. Whatever this thing was, it was like no ghost he'd seen before.

"You think you're so much better than me, don't you? So much more moral with your superhero ideations. You were so offended that I never once referred to you as if you were a person. Never used your name, dehumanized you; made you a thing, a possession. So, tell me, Danny. What did you refer to me as?"

Danny was silent.

"Dr. Maniac, the maniac, the scientist, the thing, monster, it. You never once used my name, did you? Not in your thoughts, nor spoken aloud."

Danny's face drained when he realized the thing was right. "That's different—"

"Is it? What about when you were fighting those ghosts in the lab? Did you humanize those ghosts?"

Danny thought back. Surely he had. Of course, he'd… He cradled his head in his hands when he realized it: he hadn't. He'd pummeled them into piles of mush, calling them 'it' at every point.

"You see now, you're no better than I am, Danny Phantom." The thing cackled out a maniacal laugh as it watched the torment on Danny's face.

This couldn't… it couldn't be… He wasn't like that maniac! Danny's breath was coming faster from his realization as his heart pounded in his ears. The beating was so loud that he barely heard the sound of footsteps surrounding him.

"There he is! The ghost boy is here!"

The voice snapped Danny out of his anxiety-induced trance and he looked around to see that the GIW had begun to surround him. He flew like a bullet away from the encroaching agents and passed one that he recognized, skidding to a halt. It was the maniac. The very much alive maniac. Danny turned to look back at the ghost he'd just been talking to and saw an amorphous black blob being sucked into the GIW's version of a Fenton thermos, still cackling. It was a trick. He shook his head and sped away from them as fast as he could, deftly avoiding the nets they shot at him as the gap between them and Danny widened. He weaved through the trees and kept going faster, long after he'd stopped hearing the sounds of their pursuit.

Danny kept flying faster and faster until he could barely avoid the trees. He'd pushed his speed to the absolute limit, and it was taking its toll on his energy. He knew he couldn't keep this up much longer, but he needed to put as much distance between him and the GIW as he could. Danny was about to dodge another tree but moved out of the way a millisecond too late, and he felt his shoulder crash hard enough into the tree that he tore a chunk out of it. He went flying off in another direction and slid on the ground into a break in the tree line, coming to a stop on his back with his arm hanging off the side of a steep cliff. He felt his consciousness dimming and his body transformed itself to his human form.

Danny looked up at the puffy white clouds in the azure sky, taking in the peaceful sight before his eyes forced themselves closed. His consciousness was fading, but he thought he heard the sound of a helicopter blade somewhere above him. Danny's heart sank.

They'd found him.