The Witch Doctor Incident

[sqweakie]

 

Chapter Six – The Witch Doctor’s Castle

Thor ignored the small voice as he started farther down the hallway. Danny followed, his boots adding quiet footsteps to the hunters heavier tread and the blue creatures constant murmuring. They made it halfway down the corridor before the hunter started to relax, thinking the Whisper was just a distraction. While it continued its twirling and muttering, Danny looked nervous. He looked round and round, literally turning around to watch their backs.

“We’re almost there,” Thor said, trying to soothe the boy. They made it another ten feet before it all went south. The Whisper grew bored circling Danny’s head so it made it’s way back to Thor.

“Too late,” it whispered, wrapping around Thor’s ankles before darting down the hallway into a block darker than the rest at the end. A deep rumble surrounded the human and ghost standing in the middle of a black corridor. No doors broke the walls and the ceiling started to shift and break apart.

“Run!” Danny yelled but Thor froze, dust and small rocks dropped from above. He hit Thor’s back, propelling him into motion. They ran towards the nearest end of the hall. It looked too far to reach and as the first large rock crashed to the floor he knew they would never reach safety.

He grabbed Thor’s back, pulling at his suit causing him to stumble. The hunter spun around as the ceiling collapsed around them and a flash of light illuminated every individual stone.

He caught a glimpse of frightened brown eyes before everything turned black…

He took a steadying breath, ignoring the claustrophobia clawing inside his skin as ceiling fragments settled and silence suffocated him. Instead, he reached up and found Thor’s shoulder. Sensing the human’s panic, Danny dragged his hand down the man’s arm until he could grasp the shaking fingers and led him out of the debris. Step by step he pulled the man through solid darkness and stone.

They broke from the trap and Danny took his first real breath in six days. His heart pounded with excess adrenaline as he continued to pull the hunter into the light of the torches. He turned away just as Thor’s head broke through the rocks and continued to pull him out of the hallway and into a solid wall. On the other side a disused room lit by a single sputtering torch offered them a temporary sanctuary from anyone alerted by the trap.

Danny carefully let go and turned around to face Thorton. The man looked dazed, shock freezing him as he stood in his khakis and green shirt, the ectosuit he originally wore laying under a couple tons of rock.

“You…you… you’re… Danny?” he stuttered, mouth gaping.

Phantom nodded shyly, strands of black hair falling across his forehead. His eyes drifting down to the dark blue t-shirt over a long sleeve white shirt, to his favorite faded jeans and grey tennis shoes. If he kept his attention on Thor instead of his clothes he wouldn’t have missed the man’s eyes widening and his face paling to a new shade of white.

Finally Thor reached out, hands gently touching the half-ghost’s shoulders, testing to see if he was real. Then the hands traveled to his face, lifting his chin so Thor could peer straight into the icy blue eyes the boy inherited from his grandmother. One hand stayed on his face while the other dropped to his neck, fingers pressed just hard enough to feel his pulse and each hesitant breath the boy took.

“This is my human form,” Danny said quietly, trying to figure out what Thor would do next.

The hunter didn’t respond. Instead he continued to study the teen, comparing the human boy to the ghost he known for months. Quietly he let go of his face and instead took Danny’s right arm, still without speaking. Fingers traced the spider web of scars running up his forearm before he gasped and the brown gaze shot up.

“You’re Jack and Maddie’s son!” he said, sounding horrified.

He pulled out of Thor’s grip and put some distance between the two of them. He turned around, hand rubbing his scarred wrist trying to get rid of the feeling of the man’s grip. He could guess that the wheels in the man’s head were turning a mile a minute putting everything he ever knew about Danny Phantom with the scant knowledge of the Fentons’ estranged son.

“Do they…”

“No, they don’t know,” he admitted, anticipating the man’s next question.

“I think I need to sit down,” Thor said, two seconds before his legs gave out and he dropped to the floor. Danny turned back as the man buried his face in his hands.

“Are you okay?” Phantom asked, his voice without the telltale echo distorting it. Thor’s reaction caught him by surprise. The man laughed, slightly hysterical, without looking up at the teen.

“Oh gosh, we were arguing a couple nights ago about how human you acted. We never guessed you were ‘this’ human.”

“No one was supposed to know,” he informed the older man, gracefully dropping down next to him.

“Why?” the hunter asked, curiosity winning over the shock as he lifted his head out of his hands. Dumbfounded, Danny stared at the man wondering how he could ask that.

“You’re kidding, right? I’m a freak of nature… a statistically impossibility. I’m half human and half ghost. Do you think I’m going to shout it to the world?”

“How can you be half ghost?” Thor asked, studying him intently. Danny’s fingers teased the hem of his shirt as he carefully picked his words knowing the man would need the whole story to believe.

“Just after my fourteenth birthday my parents completed their greatest invention. They worked on the damn thing on and off for almost twenty years, consuming most of their time. The supposed pinnacle of their research and experimentation.

“The Fenton Portal?” Thor asked. Danny nodded before continuing.

“The day came that every circuit was set, every calculation was perfect. They plugged it in and nothing happened. I mean it sparked for a couple of seconds but after that nothing. Can you imagine how they felt? Twenty years of work wasted. Gosh, they were so devastated. My Mom and Dad just wandered back upstairs and I didn’t see them the rest of the night.

“The next day after school me and my two best friends descended into the basement to check out the portal. My friends were interested in the giant hole my parents made into the basement wall. After egging me on, they convinced me to pull on one of the lab suits and take a look inside. I thought it was a bad idea but I was…”

“Curious,” the hunter said with a knowing smile.

“Yeah. Just before I stepped past the threshold my Dad yelled it was time for dinner. After my friends left that night and everyone else climbed into bed I lay awake in my own room, that stupid portal’s failure bugging me.

“I finally crawled out of bed and downstairs, pulling on the jumpsuit as I approached the portal. The dead machine gaped at me and the lights in the basement didn’t even reach the far end but I entered it. I slowly made my way inside searching for loose wires or tripped circuit breakers, anything to explain the malfunctioning portal. I was hoping I could fix it and make my parents happy.

“Towards the back I stumbled and I threw out my hand to steady myself. My hand landed on a button and it sunk in when I put my weight on it. After I pulled away I could see the panel the panel had two buttons, ‘OFF’ and the one I pressed, the ‘ON’ button. I didn’t even have time to panic before the portal come to life struck me with a lethal amount of electricity and ectoplasm.

“When I woke up I thought I was dead.”

“Danny, a ‘lethal’ amount of anything means you’re dead. You look pretty alive right now. You had a pulse even when you looked…when you were Phantom. Why did you think you were dead?”

“Just imagine waking up on a concrete floor and as you push yourself up you notice that your black gloves are now white, that the hair falling in your eyes it too light and lets not forget the little fact that you’re glowing. I knew something was really wrong. Just off the lab was a small half-bath. I stumbled in and looked in the mirror. What do you think I saw?”

Thor sat riveted to the floor and pain flooded Danny’s face.

“I had snow white hair and glowing green eyes. I was all alone and scared and by being a klutz I managed to turn myself into a ghost, one of the things in the world that my parents hated. I collapsed to the floor and willed it all away. I guess my parents heard me scream when the portal roared to life, I’m not sure, but it took them a while to find me. After a while my mom found me in the bathroom in my t-shirt and jeans, cradling my burned hand to my chest, sweaty black hair plastered to my head and tears falling down my face. Somehow I made myself human again and I thought it was over.

“Do you know what the doctor in the ER said to me while he was bandaging up my hand? He said I was lucky to be alive, that the electricity that burned my hand could have easily killed me.”

“I’m going to assume you figured out that you still had ghost powers after that,” Thor said, pushing the story along.

A smile flitted across his face. “Oh the stories I could tell. I’m banned from ever handling fragile or breakable materials in the science lab because I didn’t have a handle on my abilities that first couple of months and I would phase out or turn invisible at random.”

“So why didn’t you ever tell Jack or Maddie?” Thor winced when he received a withering look from Danny at the question.

“Oh, yeah. That’ll be a great conversation. ‘Hi Mom, Dad. I’m doing okay. Classes are good and oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m really Danny Phantom.’ That’ll go over really well.”

“You’re afraid of what your family would say or what they would think?”

He snorted. “It doesn’t matter what they think. I burned that bridge months ago. My Dad hates me and Jazz…”

“What about Maddie?”

“I know my mom loves me but I won’t make her choose between me and Jazz and Dad. They need her more.”

He let the silence hang in the air for a couple of minutes before standing up. “Stay here,” the half-ghost ordered. “I want to see if any of your guns or the scanner made it.” The pale man nodded and remained sitting on the floor. Turning invisible, he escaped into a deserted hallway.

Right away he noticed voices echoing from the area of the collapsed ceiling. Carefully, he leaned around the corner. Not fifteen feet away hovered an almost formless green ghost trailing after a twirling Whisper chanting “Intruder…Intruder…”.

The ghosts stopped at the very edge of the rubble, the green one’s red eyes glittering as it examined a glove sticking out from under a larger boulder, jointed fingers half curled and mimicking a real hand. A puddle of ectoplasm pooled out from under various rocks making a grizzly sight and bringing a dark smile to the ghost’s otherwise featureless face.

“One hunter down,” it laughed. Waving its hand, the ghost sent the Whisper spinning back down the hallway and over Danny’s head and diving into a black stone behind him. The blob ghost chuckled one last time before it too followed the Whisper, selecting a larger but equally dark section of stone to phase through, never once looking back. If it had examined the trapped glove it would have only found an empty suit, the ectoplasm leaking out of the fine tubing.

Instead, Danny was the one to search the rubble, scavenging a pair of slightly damaged ectopistals. He found the scanner in about a dozen pieces trapped under Thor’s suit along with the larger ectorifle and the spare ectoblade Smithy lent the hunter. The suit itself was a loss, so battered and torn up he left it buried under the rubble. Hoping the two guns would be enough, he headed back into the storage room.

Thor sat exactly where Danny left him, sitting behind an unmarked crate, hands rubbing his sore ankle while his eyes flickered back and forth searching for the shadows.

“I’m back,” he announced as he became visible. The hunter nodded and relaxed a tiny bit. Danny made his way to Thor’s spot, choosing to rest next to the wall.

“Any luck, kid?” he asked, not sounding hopeful.

“The scanner’s busted. So is the suit and most of your weapons. All I could find were these,” he handed over the two small pistols.

“Shit,” he said, turning one of the guns over in his hands. “You sure the rifle was a loss?”

“Unless it can fire with a ninety degree turn in the middle of the barrel, no.”

“Danny…” Thor said hesitantly.

“If it’s about my parents I don’t want to here it.” He turned away and crossed his arms, trying to stall.

“I know that. I was just thinking…”

“No, there is no way I’m telling them,” he said straight out. “No one is supposed to know that Danny Phantom is also Danny Fenton. Hell, you weren’t even supposed to know that I was part human. I’m not telling them.”

“Then you don’t have to tell them,” he said nonchalantly.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he hissed, figuring out where Thor was heading.

“You’re a child,” the man accused. “I have a responsibility to tell your parents.”

“I’m fifteen years old! I’ve existed with this secret for over a year without involving them.”

“‘Existed’ is a good word. You ‘exist’ but you haven’t ‘lived’.” Danny looked away.

“I died that day. I’ve accepted it, I wish you would too. I don’t want my parents…”

“To judge you …hate you … what?” he asked, voice raised in anger.

“To know,” Danny’s eyes flickered in Thor’s direction. “To feel like they have to grieve the boy who died… the innocent child that disappeared in a flash of electricity and ectoplasm.

“I’m a stranger to them. They didn’t even recognize me after I tried to kill myself on the hospital roof. They asked the doctor why I was acting ‘nuts’ after my labs returned to normal. They couldn’t comprehend why their bright little boy was ready to put a gun to his head.”

Thor gave him no response, stunned at the rough words and the flashing green eyes. Running out of energy, Danny willed his body solid enough to lean against the wall. Thor sat nearby, busying himself with the pitiful weapons rescued from the trapped ectosuit, knowing that he couldn’t make the boy listen to him. Danny buried his face in his arms resting on his knees while the clicks of a dismantling gun soothed him. Val had the bad habit of taking apart her ectorifle while waiting. The clicking of dismantling and reassembling metal became a welcome distraction.

“Thanks,” Thor’s voice broke the silence.

“For what,” he asked, looking up.

“For the…” he trailed off, hand waving towards the collapsed hallway.

“You’re welcome,” was all he could say, knowing they still weren’t out of the woods and the conversation wasn’t over yet.

“They both look like they’ll work. We’ll find out when we run into any unfriendlies. Are you ready to go?”

He nodded and forced his legs to straighten and stand up.

“Thor can you please,” he started, trying to think of a way to make the man listen to him.

“This is not the time,” Thor bit out, just as unwilling as Danny to leave the issue up in the air but knowing that they had a more important mission to concentrate on. “We’ll deal with this if we get back home.”

He started towards the nearest wall when a warm hand grasped his wrist. “When,” Danny said, determined blue eyes spearing the older man’s brown ones. “When we get back home.” Thor nodded, unwilling to destroy the boy’s brittle hope. Danny led the way out of the room, Thor limping slightly behind him as they traveled deeper into the castle remnants slowly heading up the levels as they searched.

A couple close calls caused Danny to take a quick step back and grabbing Thor’s arm to make the both of them invisible to hide from a Whisper on an errand or a ghost pacing the hallways. The boy could only hope they still travelled in the correct direction. Thor’s ectoscanner and the unfortunate luck of getting tangled up with the ectosuit and was crushed under tons of rock. Between the two of them they had the two ectopistals, Danny’s powers, their headsets and nothing else.

Breaking out of his thoughts, Danny stepped backwards again and caught Thor’s sleeve, turning them invisible as a Whisper twirled past. Once it was safely down the corridor he stepped away and let go of the hunter.

“They’re coming more often,” Thor whispered as they started walking. “Not counting the ones we think are guarding traps that had to be the fifth one.”

“Sixth. You forgot the one that dove though that dark pass-stone.” He referred to the dark rocks like the one the Whisper phased into to trigger their trap. As the walked the found a number of similar areas were Danny’s ghost powers could phase through. Some were just big enough for a Whisper to fit, others were full sized doorways.

He looked back over his shoulder to see that Thor was giving him one of those searching looks, the ones that started only a couple of hours after the Witch Doctor’s first attack. The look made Danny feel like he was a puzzle that the hunter was putting together and as time went on he kept finding more pieces. In other words, it was time to get the hunter moving to distract him. Right now Danny only wanted to worry about the missing children and not the fact that a ghost hunter that his parents worked with on a daily basis knew that he was part ghost part human.

So they continued along, occasionally dodging ghosts and wisps. Finally they came to a dead-end corridor with only one set of double doors at the end. In front of it twirled a pair of blue whispers. He had a feeling about this door and what lay beyond it.

Danny reached out and grabbed Thor’s hand. With practiced ease he turned both of them invisible and led the way past the oblivious ghosts and solid doors. The boy stopped just inside the room. It had to be the largest room they had come across yet, a circular balcony overlooking another room. On the far side of the space high, narrow windows let a cool breeze into the space. The room itself was dark, any torches inside were doused and opaque curtains blocked light even as they fluttered.

A burst of wind pushed back the curtains, finally letting rays of green ectoplasmic light into the room. Thor gasped almost silently beside him as the light filled the area, coloring Danny’s sleeves emerald and turning the man’s hair the color of new leaves. Below, down a set of steps and beneath their balcony, fifteen beds laid out in neat rows. Multicolored quilts hid child-sized lumps that moved and sighed and coughed as they watched.

Phantom pushed back the black strands falling in his eyes, heart beating faster than ever. Thor tugged the boy’s sleeve and pulled him towards the stairs. They descended side by side while the sound of the wind covered their footsteps. The humans slowed as they approached the first bed; hope a fragile thing they clung to. Thor reached out but his hand stopped bare inches from the quilt-covered lump on the nearest bed. Sensing his hesitation Danny reached down and drew the covers away. Underneath laid a little boy, dark hair mused by sleep. Thor finally reached out and traced a hand on his arm, his fingers initially slipping through the soft skin. He pulled back. Determination setting his face, he reached out … this time able to touch the boy. He gently grasped the tiny wrist and suddenly dropped to his knees.

Danny ran over and dropped to his own knees, afraid something had happened to the hunter. “Thor,” he gasped out as his hands lifted up the man’s face. He froze when a smile, not a small hesitant smile, but a large jubilant smile broke across the hunter’s face.

“He still has a pulse. They’re still alive!” Thor’s hands grasped Danny’s face as he laughed, the half-ghost dumbfounded at the joyful sound. “Alive,” he repeated, asking the hunter. Thor just laughed and pulled the boy into a hug. “Alive, kid! Let Janet and Eric know while I try to wake them up.”

Danny nodded and after mentioning he would go up to the balcony to make the call he ascended the stairs, hiding in the shadows while Thor tried to wake up the first child. Pushing a strand of jetblack hair away from his headset he pressed a button and spoke, “Group One, this is Phantom.” He held the button as he paced inside the shadows of the balcony.

“Phantom? Are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself,” Janet’s voice came though loud and clear. Danny winced at the question finding out that the slight difference in his human voice came across the headsets. “We had a little trouble…”

“Then why are you on the headset,” she interrupted with.

“Oh you know, disobeying orders, letting you know that we found the children, the normal stuff.”

“You found them!” she gasped. “Are they?”

“The first little boy we found is still alive. I’m assuming the others are too,” he couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice. It seemed like their quest was almost over and it was hitting home.

“Thank God. Try to get them up. We’re about two floors above you. We found what looks like her lab or a workshop.” Cloth rustled for a couple seconds before the head hunter started talking again. “Jacobs thinks he found some sort of spell book or something important. We’re just packing it up and then we will be right down. No sign of the evil hag yet.”

“We haven’t seen her either, Janet. Just get down here as soon as you can.”

“Alright kid. See you in about ten.”

“Phantom out.” He released the button and silence filled his ears. Stepping back towards the light he could just see over the stone half-wall surrounding the sunken room. Thor stooped near the center, hands and voice gently waking the lost children. Danny counted six awake and out of bed and the rest started to stir, awakened by the others.

From above him he could hear two sets of feet running a corridor, he assumed the other hunters approaching. Making his decision, he closed his eyes and concentrated on that spot deep within his soul that he learned to trigger his transformations from. It burst, white tendrils emanating from that single point creating soul bright rings. His fists clenched as he fought the normal transition. The perfect rings oscillated and cloth turned to Nomex gloves and sleeves before shimmering to skin. The black, skintight suit formed only to be ripped away and replaced by soft cotton and dark denim. Taking one last deep breath the rings encircled his head and faded from sight.

Danny Phantom stepped back into the light, rumpled black t-shirt fluttering in the night wind. A wisp of silver hair blocked his vision before he pushed it away and tucked it behind his earpiece. He made it to the children at the same time that Janet and Eric entered the room and the last of the kids awoke. Eric waved as they crossed the room, his bag bulging and bumping Janet’s arm. The woman took no notice of the jostling, her attention solely on fifteen healthy, human children.

Danny headed towards them but a small hand stopped him. A little girl, a redhead maybe six at the most, grabbed the edge of his shirt. “Are we going home?” she asked. He smiled and picked her up, balancing her on his hip so she was eye to eye with him. “Yes, we’re going home."

Chapter Seven