I ended up writing this and the next chapter simultaneously because I was so excited to finish this arc.
Also, I was checking out the stats on Gothica and wow! Shoutout to all my international readers out there! As a born-and-raised American, it's really amazing to see so many people from Japan, Russia, Hungary, South Africa, Guam and many more countries all over the world reading my Danny Phantom fic! I hope you are having as much fun reading as I am writing it!
Once again, thank you irl friend, Hellborne95, and all my readers. You keep me going!
-Song
Without thinking, Danny raised both hands and, in the nick of time, a green ecto-shield erupted from his palms. It covered just enough of his arms and elbows to protect him from the first stab of the second vulture's beak. He gasped at the shock of the bird's force, and was knocked back a foot. He skidded on his left leg and fell to one knee, the shield barely there as the first vulture now advanced.
Its talons scraped harshly against the shield and rang sharply in Danny's ears, and he felt right away that he'd made a grave error. These birds were tough.
Why did he think he could take three ghosts all on his own without backup? Sam and Tucker were miles and miles away, and his ghost-hunting parents were down in Vlad's ballroom rubbing elbows with old friends.
Why did he think that leaving his parents in the dark about his new half-life - his ghostly powers, his mission to protect humans from ghosts - was a good idea again?
Danny felt a beak cut into him from the side and he gasped in pain.
Because they'd probably flay me alive, duh, he reminded himself. Focus, Fenton!
Danny dropped the shield and raised his fist, which collided with the top of the third vulture's head. It weirded him out how solid the bird's little skull was, and he reeled back as the bird squawked in surprise and pain.
"Cast out the boy," the first vulture hissed.
Danny flew forward and shot out a side-kick that the bird dodged, and from behind the second vulture sliced into Danny's right arm. He shot his elbow back in a moment of pure instinct, clipping the bird in the belly. He felt the figurative air rush out of the ghost, and he ducked just in time to miss another peck.
"Get back," he growled at the birds, no longer afraid. Amazing how easy it was to let annoyance take over in a fight, to let it turn into bravado. "I'm not playing around."
The Three cackled in unison again. Danny had to remind himself that they were barely injured, and he'd gotten hit twice.
But giving up easily was not a Fenton trait.
Danny summoned his shield again, this time on his left arm only, and rushed the Three. With his right arm, he was able to land a hit on the second vulture, which shoved it into the third, and the two went careening through the hallway wall on his left. They turned intangible and disappeared through the wall. The first vulture's ghostly feathers puffed in fury. It suddenly looked twice the size, its beady, glowing red eyes staring right into his.
"Child," the bird hissed. "You will regret your decision to linger here. Our master's plans cannot be disrupted."
The bird spread both wings and flew straight at Danny, who raised his left arm and shield to prepare for the blow. But the bird was strong - too strong! - and it was like being hit by a dodge ball that weighed fifty pounds. He felt the shield first crack, then shatter, and the bird's talons ripped through his measly ecto-energy and into Danny's chest and right shoulder. He screamed.
The vulture dug in, lifting Danny off the ground, and it flew them both back down the hall at a surprising speed.
"Let me go!" Danny tried to pry the talons out of his body, but it only made the pain worse, and they held like a vice grip.
He went intangible then - another mistake - thinking he would simply fall out of the bird's grip. But of course the bird was a ghost, and no matter how he struggled, his intangibility did no good. The bird's talons held, and it made another chuckling sound deep in its chest.
The bird became intangible as well, and then they were passing through the walls and floors of the castle. Danny started to realize where they were headed when he recognized the dead-end hallway, which ended with the billiards room. The red felt tabletop, the boar's head on the wall.
"Why are we-?"
The bird flew them through one of the bookcases on the opposite wall, past the moldering books, and what appeared to be a secret entrance.
Danny had a brief moment to reflect on just how castle-like the Dairy King's vision for this place had been, before he was thrown down a flight of stone stairs and into the castle's basement.
Or is it a dungeon? Danny thought as he pulled himself off of the floor.
"Now," the first vulture hissed, its echo even worse down here in the depths of darkness. "It is time to return you to where you belong."
Danny panted, completely spent. Ectoplasm was from his wounds. His vision was getting a little blurry. He wouldn't have been able to summon a shield if he tried. But he turned to face the vulture, which had flown to the far side of the room. Danny then realized that the other two who had disappeared earlier - the slightly weaker ones - were perched atop a huge archway, and his heart dropped into his stomach.
How could he possibly take all three of them now, when he'd barely done so at full strength? But they only stared at him from atop the archway, their red eyes glowing in the half-dark of the basement.
Then he realized they were sitting on a metal archway which looked very familiar.
Danny blinked. He did a double-take.
"This is…"
The entire dungeon of the castle was just like his parents' basement - their laboratory. Stainless steel tables with beakers, charts, shelves, specimens in jars were neatly sat in rows. On the walls were charts and blinking monitors with test results and tests not yet completed. He could barely make out some of the words, but things like ectoplasmic analysis, energy signature mapping, and molecular deconstruction were among the data.
Black rubber mats were laid under and around each table. They were like the kind that kitchens use to prevent slipping on wet surfaces.
Like ones covered in blood or ectoplasm, it seemed.
Danny was starting to feel sick.
And finally at the far end of the room, where the two other vultures were now perched, was most definitely a ghost portal.
It was all so similar to his family basement, and yet so much more advanced. Danny spun in slow circles, taking it all in. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
How was this possible?
I still believe in ghosts, you understand - that's what Vlad had said. Danny had been so surprised by that information. He'd thought it was quirky, silly even, that Vlad - a man who seemed to have done very well for himself in the world of science and engineering - still believed in ghosts like his parents.
Because Danny had assumed Vlad had no proof.
He thought Vlad believed based on faith, just like them, and that the man probably saw ghosts as a fantasy worth pursuing, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
Now, looking over organized rows of carefully cleaned metal trays which held scalpels, retractors, lots of needles, and specimen containers next to a neat little label maker… Danny was starting to put the pieces together.
But not fast enough.
"Go," the vultures hissed in unison. The ghost portal doors were opening, and a swirling void in pink hues was awaiting him. "Go back to where you belong."
The first vulture was behind him now - when had it gotten there? Had Danny let himself become so overwhelmed that he was about to be thrown into a strange ghost portal without a fight!?
The bird was on him in a second, and he screamed as it clasped him in its talons once more, and started to fly him toward the open maw of the portal.
"NO!" Danny cried in protest. He tried to fight but he was in so much pain, and he was starting to grow tired. Like his strength was being sapped away.
What would happen if he were to be tossed into an unfamiliar portal - one that was located in Wisconsin, no less. Would he be spat out in some unfamiliar part of the Ghost Zone? Some leagues and leagues away from his family's portal?
Would he spend the rest of eternity wandering oblivion in search of home? Or would he be so weak, so unable to defend himself, that the ocean of unknown ghosts on the other side would pick him apart, bit by bit?
"P-please," he croaked, feeling more afraid than he'd had in months. "Please I can't-!"
"Enough."
The bird stopped flying. Danny blinked, dazed, his heart racing.
Who said that?
The voice had been deep, slightly lilted. Lofty.
Commanding.
"Drop that thing. You have no idea where it's been," the voice said.
The bird dropped Danny, who fell to the floor with a wet slap. He hit his head hard. It shouldn't have hurt so much, but it did, and his vision was starting to go. He blinked up at the vaulted stone ceiling of the castle's dungeon - for he was convinced that's what it was - and tried to breathe. To calm down, to think of a plan. But the world was swimming around him.
"The child ghost was speaking with the old man," the second vulture chittered from atop the portal.
"It must go," the third agreed.
"Your plans, Master," the first vulture, which Danny could no longer see, insisted. "The child threatens them."
"I'm certain I told you three to stay upstairs where I need you," the voice hissed. Danny saw the two vultures above him duck their heads in fear and shame. "Go. You know what to do. I will be up momentarily."
Without further discussion, each bird began to disappear, and the flapping of ghostly wings echoed out of earshot.
"So," the voice said quietly, slowly. Whoever it was hovered just out of Danny's sight, which was going black. "It really is you."
Me? What about me?
"I thought perhaps the girl. Then again, I had a feeling. This wasn't how I thought this would go but I suppose…"
Danny listened as footsteps moved away from him, somewhere across the room. Things were moved on trays. He heard the label maker get punched into. Something printed.
"I suppose I shouldn't let the moment go to waste," the voice finished.
Danny flickered in and out of consciousness.
I'm in trouble… he thought. My body… everything hurts…
Someone crouched down and poked at his shoulder wound with a sharp instrument. He cried out in protest, but it was over fast, and the moment of adrenaline half-woke Danny back up.
"Yes," the voice came again. "That's fine."
"Who… are you?" Danny moaned.
A face came into view. It was very pale blue. Danny jumped a little.
It really is Dracula, was his first thought.
Danny was convinced he was staring at a real-life vampire with red, piercing eyes and pointed ears. But rather than a bat-like Nosferatu from a nightmare, the face was similar to a human man. A man with black and silver hair, a sharp long nose, a surprisingly groomed goatee.
The pale blue face tilted, assessing Danny like a specimen. Then it smiled.
Danny's eyes widened at the two sharp fangs in the vampire's mouth.
"I am Plasmius. A ghost, just like you." It laughed aloud. "Actually, you are just like me. Who would have thought it was possible?"
Danny felt a gurgling sensation in his throat. He coughed and a little ectoplasm came out.
"No, don't try to talk. I'm sure you would have nothing interesting to say, anyway. You're barely, newly dead, what could you possibly know?"
"I'm Phantom," Danny hissed up at the vampiric ghost, and spit the ectoplasm up in its face. "I know all about the Ghost Zone."
Plasmius laughed, wiping its face with a gloved hand.
"Phantom? Adorable." Plasmius lifted Danny up by his shirt, putting them at eye level. "So you know all about the Ghost Zone, hm? Have you traversed its many realms? Mapped its far reaches?"
Danny remained stoic.
"No," Plasmius answered for him. "Of course you haven't. No one has. But I intend to."
"Why?"
"Because the potential to harness the power of that realm is limitless. You've no idea of the possibilities. Just one drop of it, in the palm of my hand, would make me unstoppable."
Plasmius dropped Danny who fell to the floor yet again, jarring his already battered body. He tried to ask another question but more ectoplasm came out in a hollow cough, staining his face. Plasmius loomed over Danny with a look of curiosity.
"You really are so much like me. Less powerful of course, but you've got a lot of catching up to do. Still, it's a little eerie. A glimpse into the past…"
"I've heard of what you do to other ghosts," Danny growled. "I am nothing like you."
"Of course you are," Plasmius said with a fanged grin. "And because of your little donation earlier, I'm going to learn so much about us both. More than I'd ever dreamed."
Danny wasn't sure what Plasmius meant by that. But he was starting to understand why the Dairy King was so afraid. There was something even more… unnatural about this ghost than any of the others. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but then again his vision was starting to go again.
"Rest now," Plasmius said. "It's a shame you won't be awake to witness my plan come to life, but I'll let you have a leading role."
The ghost raised its hand and pointed it at Danny's face. A bright pink light erupted from Plasmius' palm.
"Wait-!" Danny cried.
The light shot out faster than he could blink, and then everything went completely black.
...
Back in the ballroom, everyone attending the party agreed that it was in full, drunken swing, when suddenly Vlad Masters raced into the room, carrying a bloody teenager in his arms, and started screaming for help.
Everyone within earshot halted and turned to look, and though the music was still blasting out of the stereos, Maddie Fenton's wail cut through it all. The rest of the party came to a dead stop.
Jazz, who had been standing next to her mother, nearly fainted - memories of seeing her brother hooked up to dozens of machines in a cold, lonely hospital room started flashing before her eyes - and Jack Fenton rushed forward, reaching for his son.
"No, Jack!" Vlad cried. "I need your help!"
"What do you mean-?"
And then, it happened.
Into the room flew the culmination of everything that Jack and Maddie Fenton had spent their entire adult lives pursuing. A passion that time and responsibility had not been able to mellow out. The Fentons watched as their life's work, the object of their ultimate faith, careened into the ballroom.
One, two, three giant flaming black and green vultures with blood-red eyes, piercing talons, and beaks like butcher's knives, appeared as if from nowhere, and began screeching so loudly it was likely to shatter the windows. Every guest at the reunion screamed too, so it was almost impossible to hear Jack Fenton cry out in fear, in vindication, and in total shock, the words he had always hoped to scream:
"GHOSTS!"
Maddie gazed up in horror, her entire world turning on an axis, spinning almost entirely out of control as the birds descended onto the party guests. The guests were in chaos, pushing each other over, out of the way, clawing to get out of the crowded ballroom. She saw that one man was bleeding, clipped by a stray talon. She was shoved into, elbowed and almost engulfed in the madness, but she fought like Hell to get to her son.
"Danny!" she cried. Vlad's eyes were wide with fear as he held her baby boy.
What had happened? How had everything gone so terribly wrong!?
"Maddie!" Vlad met her halfway, shouldering people aside to get to her. "I found him in the hallway by the bathroom. Those ghosts! They must have-"
"Mom!"
Maddie grasped Danny's limp hand in hers and turned to see Jasmine duck just in time to avoid the claws of one of the vultures. She felt paralyzed.
What was she going to do?
It was time to hunt ghosts, finally, after all these years - all this waiting, studying, searching…
And yet.
Her son was bleeding into the arms of an old friend. Her daughter was terrified. Her husband had reached for a plasma pistol that he kept safely in his ankle strap and was now taking aim.
Maddie turned to Vlad.
"Please," she squeaked, her voice thick with fear and emotion.
"With my life," he said, nodding at Danny.
Maddie raced off, reaching for her own ankle holster, and went to protect her daughter.
Jazz's arms were covering her head, but she still saw her mother slide to her side, pivot, crouch, and draw what looked like a glowing green pistol from beneath her dress. After three fast shots, one blast took out the eye of one of the giant ghost birds - Jazz still couldn't believe that ghosts, GHOSTS, actually existed! - which careened out of the air and literally disappeared through the floor.
"Jasmine," her mother said with a commanding voice. "I need you to get your brother to the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle. I need you to activate its anti-ghost shields, and wait for us to come get you. Can you do that?"
Jazz was in shock. That must be why she couldn't open her mouth, couldn't move. Couldn't say or do anything but cower in fear behind her mother who looked ready to kill.
"Jazz, can you do that!?"
Jazz jumped. The ballroom was emptying of people. Her father was taking wild shots at the two birds still attacking the stragglers. Danny and Vlad were sheltering behind the refreshment table.
Danny was bleeding onto the floor.
"I-I can!" Jazz cried. "Okay!"
"Okay," Maddie agreed, as calmly as she could. "I'll cover you. Go!"
Jazz took off running. She heard more shots behind her as she raced to her brother's side.
"Jasmine," Vlad gasped. "Thank goodness you're alright!"
"I need to get him outside," she cried. "Now!"
Vlad stared wild-eyed around the room. "But the ghosts!"
"Mom's orders. The RV will keep us safe. Please!"
Vlad nodded and collected Danny once again into his already bloodstained arms. "Of course."
"Run!" Jazz ordered, and the two of them took off together into the hallway.
Thankfully no ghosts were out here. Vlad directed them swiftly to the exit, which Jazz would never have found on her own in all this chaos, and they raced through the already-open doors. People were scattered to the wind, scrabbling to get to their cars which had been abandoned by the valets who were, rightfully so, terrified and confused as to why all of Vlad Master's guests were screaming about murderous bird ghosts.
"There!" Jazz cried, pointing to the Fenton RV which was impossible to miss.
"Do you have the keys?" Vlad asked, panting.
"Don't need any," Jazz explained, and she pressed her palm to a panel on one of the four doors, each with its own Fenton bio code.
The RV sprung to life, unlocked itself, and even turned on the engine. Jazz jumped into the driver's seat, pressed a few buttons, and began gearing up the anti-ghost shield that she never thought she'd ever use in one million years. As it began to warm up, the RV interior shifted, and suddenly weapons were popping out from secret compartments she didn't even know they had! But she hopped out, pulled open one of the back doors, and turned to Danny and Vlad.
"Help me get him in here, on the floor I guess I don't know… I don't know," she said, tears now falling down her face. "Oh please, help, help him!"
"It's alright," Vlad said calmly, placing Danny gingerly onto the floor of the RV. He pressed his bloody hands to Jazz's bare shoulders. "You're alright."
"He's not alright!" she screamed in his face, terror in her voice. "My brother is not alright!"
"No," Vlad said quietly. "He isn't. But he will be."
Jazz shook. She felt again that she might faint.
"My little b-brother," she sobbed. "H-he's not alright!"
The RV beeped a few times, signaling that the shield was ready to go.
"Get inside, close the doors. Wait for us." Vlad reached past her and unclipped a plasma rifle from the wall of the RV. "I need to help your parents."
Jazz nodded and leapt inside. She fired the anti-ghost shield, which made Vlad back up several steps, and huddled with Danny within. But Danny started to writhe in discomfort, his eyes pressed tightly shut, his mouth in a hard line. Jazz didn't know what to do.
"The kit!" Vlad called from outside the shield. "A first-aid kit. Your parents must have one, yes?"
Jazz nodded and reached for the kit. Inside were bandages, creams, medicines and what appeared to be a sedative. The idea of sedating her brother seemed wrong. It wasn't a good feeling to be numb to the world, but the way he writhed, began to moan loudly in pain, Jazz felt perhaps she had no other choice. She glanced up at Vlad, who nodded encouragement, before pressing the EpiPen-like contraption to Danny's leg and firing.
After several seconds, Danny's face relaxed, and he lay back on the RV floor at ease, asleep.
"Good," Vlad said with a nod. "Stay. Here."
Then he turned and ran back into the castle, rifle strapped onto his back.
...
Jack Fenton had trained his entire adult life to hunt ghosts, but he was still a terrible shot. Maddie took out a second bird, which disappeared as well, before the third one began to charge them, flying in at breakneck speed. Maddie took aim, but Jack jumped in front of her at the last second, shielding her with his body.
"Jack I can-!"
A loud bang came from the ballroom doorway, and both Fentons turned to see Vlad Masters, holding one of their rifles, which had just fired. They watched the giant bird ghost fall from the sky, its chest a gaping hole, and splatter onto the stone floor. It shuddered and lay silent, before it began to mist into nothingness. Vlad and the Fentons watched, morbidly curious about the fate of the creature, which seemed to cease to exist in front of their eyes. After a few moments, only ectoplasm remained, as the bird's final feathers turned to a viscous puddle of goo.
Vlad took a deep breath and lowered the rifle. His eyes were cold and steady, but his hands were shaking.
"Vlad," Maddie cried. "You… killed it."
"How is that possible?" Jack asked.
"I-I don't know," Vlad said.
The three stared at the pool of ectoplasm which shimmered in the low light. The speakers continued to play 90's music at a horrible volume. Vlad pressed something on his phone to cut the music, and they were plunged into an eerie, reverent silence.