literature

DP: Return of the Hero Chp 11

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Morning arrived faster than any of them had honestly hoped it would. Tucker ate a rushed breakfast before grabbing his gear and running to the garage to get his skooter.

"Are you off to Danny's house again, Tucker?" his mother asked as she peered out the front door.

"Yep; we've got some serious practicing to do," he replied, climbing onto his skooter.

"At a time like this? But a bunch of ghosts just attacked the town, Dear."

"Yeah, I know; that's what makes it interesting."

His mother only rolled her eyes. "Just don't go doing something stupid with him again, okay?" she said, disappeared into the house.

Tucker rolled his eyes once she had left. "At least she didn't keep bragging on about how he's such a secretive boy, again," he muttered to himself before driving down the street.

*****

Sam had just arrived at the Fenton's house when Tucker came around the corner. The black man honked his skooter horn before coming to a stop next to her. "What's the fizzle, shizzle?" he said while removing his helmet.

"You're twenty-five, and you still say things like that?" Sam said while raising an eyebrow.

"Lighten up, Sam; it's just for fun," Tucker replied while tucking the keys to his skooter away.

"Hard to lighten up when one, I'm a goth; and two, we're on the verge of turning into ghosts, Tucker," Sam replied while holding up her arms.

"Danny seems to lighten your mood nicely."

Sam froze at these words and blushed. She smiled wryly. "Eh, there's exceptions, you know," she replied with a nervous laugh.

Tucker smiled cleverly. "That's what I thought," he replied as they walked up the stairs. "Did your parents ask you where you were going?"

"I told them Danny's. They're starting to like him again, especially when he made them dinner a few weeks ago. Apparently, Astronauts need to know how to cook."

"Wow, that's new. So they don't mind that you two are going out now?"

"Not really, though they've constantly tried to get me to wear something pink out on a date." Sam stuck out her tongue. "So not going to happen. How about your folks?"

"Dad was still sleeping, and thankfully, Mom didn't bother asking much this time," Tucker replied. They stopped in front of the door. "Is it just me, or is hiding Danny's identity from our parents really hard?"

"It would be a lot harder if his family wasn't a bunch of ghost cooques," Sam replied as she rang the doorbell.

"Point taken."

They waited until someone opened the door for them. Jazz appeared on the other end, her hair tied up in a ponytail. She smiled. "Morning, guys!" she said.

Sam and Tucker walked into the house. "You're sure cheerful this morning, despite the fact that we're on the verge of a mega ghost war," Sam noticed.

"Did your parents do something?" Tucker wondered.

Jazz only smiled some more. "No, they're busy putting together some new ecto suits for us," she replied.

"Ecto suits?" Sam echoed. "You mean they actually expect us to be doing some fighting?"

"Actually, they expect the whole town to be joining in once Danny Phantom shows his face."

"Speaking of which," Tucker said, "Where is Danny?"

Jazz' smile brightened, and it was then that Sam and Tucker realized what she was grinning about. They smiled as well. "He's training?" Sam guessed.

*****

Jazz led them down to the lab in the basement and they peered around the corner. The entire basement was filled with traps, pop-up walls and weapons coming in and out of slots. Lazers blasted in every direction.

And in the midst of it all was the one ghost who dared to take every single trap on at once.

Danny zoomed back and forth, shooting ghost rays at fake targets and putting up different shaped plasma shields. He punched at bags and kicked them off of their chains. His dodged lazers and zigzagged passed bullets. Sometimes, he did plenty of these all at once.

"Pretty amazing, huh?" Jazz said with a grin as Sam and Tucker looked on in awe.

Danny shot ghost ice rays from his eyes and made a nearby gun explode.

Tucker covered his head as pieces flew about. "Man, when Danny said he hasn't had practice, I didn't think he would actually be kidding," he said. "He sounded pretty serious yesterday."

"He was," Jazz replied as they continued to watch Danny fight. "He never spoke once about practicing while at NASA, whenever he emailed me. And if I asked him over MSN if he had been doing anything with them, he'd only ignore the question or answer with a simple yet immediate no."

"But then, why's he looking like he does this every day?"

"He was up all night. He couldn't sleep, so he figured he'd do some training."

Sam watched her best friend fly in zigzags while attacking fake enemies. Danny even managed to duplicate himself once in order to perform two acts at the same time. He turned intangible and even went invisible from time to time. He fought the training exercises as though they were actually enemies he had fought throughout high school.

Danny came to a stop at the center of the room and floated in place. He closed his eyes and remained incredibly still.

Jazz squealed softly and ducked a little more behind the stairs, only allowing her eyes to be visible. "Oh, this is my favourite part," she said quietly as the other two mimicked her actions. "Danny's focusing all of his energy on one shot in order to take everything down."

"I don't remember him ever having a power like that," Sam wondered.

"He didn't," Jazz replied. "I asked about it last night, and he told me that he's actually just trying to feel for this ultimate control gift that he's got and trying to command everything in the room. Everything's mechanical, so it should be pretty easy for him to control."

"But focusing all of his energy would mean reverting to human form once the shot's done," Tucker pointed out. "That means that this would only be used as a last resort, Jazz."

"That's what I told him."

"And what did he say?"

"He told me to stuff it and go back to bed."

Sam and Tucker looked at Jazz in surprise. Jazz nodded her head. "Danny didn't want me near when he performed the trick," she said. "He said that it made him lose his focus. So I went upstairs and never found out what had happened. All I heard was a dull boom sound… and then silence. I don't even know if Danny turned back into a human after that."

They stared up at Danny again and fell silent. The ghost began to glow white as a mysterious breeze began to blow around him, making his hair wave. Danny raised his head yet kept his eyes closed and spread out his arms while opening his hands.

Everything in the lab began to rattle or hover. Jazz, Sam and Tucker gasped softly before staring up at Danny again.

Danny held his eyes shut tightly now, while clenching his teeth. Plasma waves of white light began pulsing from him like radio soundwaves. Danny slowly folded his arms around himself, as well as his legs, and then, as fast as he could, threw them back out, spreading them out in separate directions, and released the energy he had stored inside of him during those moments.

The lab filled with a blinding white light. Jazz, Sam and Tucker quickly ducked out of sight and shut their eyes. A loud VAVOOM-like sound caused a strong wind to blow passed them, knocking Tucker's hat off of his head.

They waited a moment before daring to peek around the corner again.

Danny had his arms up as if trying to order all of the objects in the lab to obey him. He groaned at the effort of doing so, but after a few mere moments, he gave in to weakness and let his arms drop to his sides.

The glow around his body and all of the hovering objects in the lab ceased, and immediately, everything fell to the ground with loud crashes.

Danny floated down slowly and heaved a heavy yet tired sigh before raising a hand to his forehead and moaning weakly. Once he had fallen to his knees, the familiar halo formed around his waist and intersected his body, transforming him back into the black-haired twenty-five-year-old that he was.

Jazz sighed sadly and shook her head. "Another fail," she said disappointingly.

Tucker and Sam looked at her for a moment before rushing out and running to Danny.

Danny took no heed of them until Sam reached down and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Danny?" she said softly.

Danny uncovered his face and stared in defeat at the floor. "How is it that I can do everything else perfectly," he said, "But when it comes to trying to control everything in the room, I just can't do it? I just don't have enough energy to perform something that huge."

"Don't beat yourself up, Danny," Tucker said gently. "I mean, you just learned about that power yesterday. And like Skulker said; not many ghosts have been able to control that power."

"But you don't understand, Tucker; I need to control this power," Danny said, looking up at his best friend. "I need to unlock it. If I don't, then the Ghost Keeper will kill me, take all of my powers including this one, and everyone else in Amity Park will die and turn into ghosts." He stared at the floor again. "I just… I can't let that happen."

Sam and Tucker helped him back up to his feet and dusted him off. "And you won't," Sam said with a grin. "There's never been a challenge that Danny Phantom couldn't face. We'll eventually unlock it, Danny; you just need to be patient."

"Sam, I have less than 48 hours to learn this power," Danny announced. "I don't have time for patience!" He slapped his fists down against the palm of his hand. "I need to learn it now, I need to unlock it now, and I need to use it now-!"

A wave of dizziness suddenly over came him and Danny moaned weakly before swaying and falling backwards.

Luckily for him, though, Jazz was there to catch him. Danny opened his eyes halfway and looked up at her.

Jazz smiled back warmly. "Before you do all of that now," she said, "Maybe it would be a good idea if you came upstairs and had some breakfast, Little Brother. My treat."

Danny blinked before grinning foolishly. "That could be helpful," he said as they helped him back up and led him to the stairs.

*****
Chapter 11.

CHAPTER SUMMARY:

Danny has been practicing all night on trying to call up his gift of Ultimate Control. Unfortunately, it only proves to be far too difficult or disastrous. Before he can fully control even a few items, he looses energy.



Enjoy! :D

characters (c) B. Hartman
story (c) KicsterAsh
© 2010 - 2024 KicsterAsh
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Esoulix's avatar
I just realized I jumped on the bandwagon like four years late and now I have a crushing inner defeat to deal with.