[Third Person POV]
Kitty cast a sharp glance over her shoulder, her feline-green eyes narrowing as she locked onto Danny. For a heartbeat she held his gaze, the corner of her lips curling into a sly, taunting smile. Then, with a theatrical roll of her eyes and an exaggerated sigh, she pressed two fingers to her mouth and blew him a kiss.
"Wha—!!" Sam and Jazz exclaimed in perfect unison, both girls' eyes going wide.
But this was no playful gesture. The kiss shimmered in midair, twisting and pulsing until it condensed into a glowing projectile of concentrated ghost energy. A banishing kiss, deadly and precise, erupted from Kitty's lips with the velocity of a fired cannon, streaking toward Danny like a comet of blue light.
The half-ghost didn't even flinch. He merely tilted his head with a lazy, almost cocky swagger, his form flickering with a brief afterimage before he phased out of sight. The beam screamed past the empty space where he'd been standing, detonating against the ground in a burst of blue sparks.
Kitty blinked, startled by the sudden miss. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints as a cold shiver slid down her spine—Danny's emerald-green eyes were already staring back at her from inches away.
Before she could react, his glowing fist shot forward like a piston.
The impact landed square across her face with a thunderous crack, the sheer force lifting her off her feet. Johnny and Kitty were sent tumbling across the ruined street, rolling and skidding violently before slamming to a stop.
Danny lowered his smoking fist, flexing his wrist as trails of green ectoplasmic mist curled from his knuckles. His smirk was razor-sharp. "How about," he said coolly, "you kiss my fist instead?"
Kitty groaned and pushed herself up, her hair disheveled and her ghostly aura flickering erratically. Blood trickled from her nose, staining her pale skin as she bared her teeth in fury. "You… you bastard! How dare you hit me!" she shrieked, her voice echoing with spectral distortion.
Blue fire erupted around her hands, sparking and hissing like plasma. With a furious scream, she launched herself forward, her legs dissolving into a sleek, twisting ghost tail as her hair whipped wildly behind her. Energy gathered at her palms until it exploded outward in a relentless barrage of searing blue blasts.
Danny planted his feet, his eyes narrowing to slits of burning neon green. His hands glowed as he deflected the incoming blasts with rapid swipes, each motion conjuring translucent, crystalline panels of energy. The makeshift shields absorbed the attacks before he flicked his wrists, transforming the panels into razor-edged discs of concentrated ectoplasm.
The discs shrieked through the air like spectral buzzsaws, forcing Kitty to weave and roll with desperate agility. She ducked, spun, and phased through the debris, her own energy flaring hotter with each near miss. With a feral snarl, she coiled her body and lunged, pulling back her fist for a counterstrike meant to return Danny's earlier blow with interest.
But Danny was faster. He caught her punch mid-swing, twisted her wrist, and drove a brutal shot straight into her gut. Kitty's breath left her in a pained gasp as he hunched forwards, Danny grabbed her head and yanked her down, driving his knee up with bone-rattling force. Her head snapped back violently as green sparks erupted from the impact.
Dazed and reeling, Kitty barely registered Danny appearing at her side, two fingers poised like a spear. He struck her midsection with a compact, one-inch punch that detonated with a burst of ecto-energy, sending her rocketing backward. She crashed hard into Johnny with a wet thud, a spray of glowing ecto-goo trailing through the air as she coughed and gagged.
"Johnny!" she rasped, struggling to catch her breath. "Stop— cough—stop being a useless wimp and help me!"
Johnny floated a few feet away, clutching his side and grimacing. "But I'm injured!" he protested, his voice cracking with panic. Yet, despite the complaint, he forced himself forward with a reluctant snarl.
The two ghosts shot toward Danny at breakneck speed, a tandem streak of blue and black energy. Danny didn't hesitate—he launched himself to meet them head-on. The air erupted with shockwaves as the three collided mid-flight, fists flashing and bodies spinning in a storm of ectoplasmic fury. Sonic booms cracked through the battlefield as each strike shattered the air itself, their movements too fast for mortal eyes to follow.
Sam's jaw dropped as she tried to track the chaos. "Um… shouldn't we, like… be helping him?" she asked, her voice trembling. All around them, the environment quivered—chunks of reality itself were fracturing, floating like shards of broken glass.
Jazz folded her arms, her lips twitching between worry and disbelief. "Yeah… maybe. But does it look like he needs it?" she deadpanned, nodding toward the sheer one-sided carnage unfolding before them.
Danny twisted around Kitty's next punch, his body moving with fluid grace. With a sudden burst of speed, he backhanded Johnny with a crushing blow that sent the biker ghost hurtling through the air. The very space behind Johnny cracked like a shattered mirror as he spiraled helplessly into the swirling expanse of the Ghost Zone.
Kitty barely had time to gasp before Danny struck again. She opened her mouth to unleash another deadly banishing kiss—
—but Danny's hand shot forward like a striking viper, clamping over her lips and cutting the attack short as he dislocated her jaw while clenching his fist. Lifting her effortlessly with one arm, he suspended her in midair as her legs kicked wildly.
With his free hand, Danny summoned a glowing chain of emerald energy. It burst forth like a living whip, streaking across the dimensional rift until it latched onto Johnny's leg. The chain yanked taut with a violent snap, dragging the struggling ghost back through the air.
Johnny barely had time to cry out before Danny dissolved the chain, using the ghost's own momentum to sling him forward—right into the path of Danny's raised boot.
The biker's face collided with the kick in a brutal, echoing CRACK. Danny followed through without hesitation, slamming Johnny's head downward with crushing force. The impact shattered the pavement and widened the growing cracks that already spiderwebbed across the ground.
As Johnny lay groaning in the rubble, Danny turned his gaze toward Kitty, his eyes burning with a fierce, electric glow. Twin orbs of ghost energy flickered to life within his eyes, their emerald light casting eerie shadows across his face as the charged ghost ray began to hum ominously.
"Since when was Danny so… scary?" Jack whispered, his booming voice reduced to a nervous murmur. He never thought he'd feel such a way when looking at his own son.
"Probably… Batman's influence," Maddie said with an uneasy half-smile, though her hands tightened anxiously on the straps of her gear.
Jazz gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "Makes sense…" she muttered.
Nearby, Sam and Tucker stood frozen. Their earlier coordination had made them blind to the fact before. A dawning realization struck them both at the same time—They all knew. Their eyes met in silent panic.
'They know!!' they mouthed to each other, faces draining of color.
Far above the tense group, Kitty and Johnny hovered in midair, gasping for breath. Blood dripped freely from open cuts and split lips, their ectoplasmic bodies mottled with deep bruises. Their normally vibrant auras flickered weakly.
Across from them floated Danny—unscathed. His snow-white hair rippled in the cold air, and his neon-green eyes burned with an intensity that made the very air hum. He hovered silently, every inch of his presence radiating lethal calm.
Kitty and Johnny exchanged a fleeting glance. A shiver crawled down their spines, instinct screaming at them to retreat. Without realizing it, they both drifted a cautious step backward.
Then Danny moved.
In an instant he became a blur of silver and emerald light, blasting forward so fast the air cracked like thunder. He vanished from sight, only to reappear between them with arms outstretched. His forearms slammed across their chests in a brutal clothesline.
Both ghosts choked on startled cries as the impact knocked the wind from them. Before they could recover, Danny became a whirlwind of violent precision. He spun upward, dragging them helplessly into his storm of motion, their senses reeling as the world dissolved into streaks of green and black.
With a sharp twist, Danny broke the spiral and hurled them downward.
Kitty and Johnny plummeted like meteors, their screams cut short as they struck the ground with bone-rattling force. The street below erupted in a miniature earthquake, asphalt buckling and flying apart in jagged chunks. The sound of cracking pavement echoed through the ghostly rift as both adversaries coughed violently, spitting blood and ectoplasmic goo onto the broken ground.
Groaning, they tried to rise on trembling arms—only to freeze as the world lit up with a blinding flash of green.
Danny hovered above them. Between his palms, an orb of pure ectoplasmic energy spun faster and faster, swelling in size until it roared with a sound like wailing spirits. Behind him, the very fabric of space quivered. Jagged fractures of reality spread outward like spiderwebs, and within those cracks drifted spectral sprites—tiny, distorted faces twisted in eternal screams of agony.
Kitty and Johnny could only stare, paralyzed by the raw terror of what they were witnessing.
With a sharp motion, Danny thrust his hands forward.
The orb erupted into a colossal beam of searing green energy. The blast lit up the air like a second sun, reflecting in their wide, horrified eyes before swallowing them whole. The force of the attack drove them deeper into the ground, the surrounding street tearing apart as a massive crater bloomed outward from the impact.
When the smoke finally cleared, Kitty and Johnny lay sprawled in the center of the wreckage. Their bodies were burnt, bloodied, and barely conscious. Their fingers clung weakly to each other's hands.
Above them, Danny hovered, staring down at them. Slowly, he tilted his head to the side, an icy arrogance in his posture as he reached to his belt and unclipped the Fenton Thermos.
"Let this be a warning," he said, his voice low but carrying a deadly edge. "Do not insult my family. Do not touch my family. And never—" his eyes flared dangerously bright "—ever think about putting them in danger ever again."
The Thermos began to glow with a pale blue light, humming with a vibration that made the cracked pavement tremble. Danny's grip tightened around the device as he gave one final, chilling promise:
"Because as you can clearly see… it doesn't end well for you."
With a twist of the head, the Thermos roared to life. The suction beam expanded in an instant, a swirling vortex of light that engulfed Kitty and Johnny in one breath. They had no strength left to resist. Their screams were lost to the howl of the Thermos as it pulled them inside.
Steam hissed from the barrel as Danny exhaled a long, controlled breath. Slowly, he descended to the fractured street, landing softly before the stunned group. He held the Thermos tightly against his chest, his glowing eyes dimming back to a softer green.
For a moment, silence reigned. Only the faint crackle of lingering ecto-energy filled the air. Danny closed his eyes, shoulders rising and falling with each slow breath before finally turning to face his family.
His voice, when it came, was quiet… almost fragile. "...How long have you guys known?"
Maddie stepped forward, her usual composure giving way to a gentle solemnity. She lowered her goggles and mask, revealing eyes glistening with restrained emotion. "For a while now," she admitted softly. "Since you told Sam and Tucker that… we were supposed to be dead."
Danny's lips trembled. He bit down hard, trying to force control back into his expression. But the effort only made his rings of transformation flicker to life around his waist. In a flash of light, the powerful Phantom faded—leaving behind a trembling teenage boy.
"I—I'm sorry," Danny stammered, his voice cracking as he tried to smile through the breaking emotion. "This is all my fault. I should've— I… I just—"
His words faltered. His eyes curved into shaky crescents as he tried—and failed—to hide the storm inside. A single tear broke free, sliding down his cheek in silence.
Jack, Maddie, and Jazz didn't wait another heartbeat. They surged forward as one, wrapping their arms around Danny in a fierce, protective embrace.
Danny stiffened for a moment… then crumbled into their warmth. His parents held him tight, their own eyes shining with unshed tears, their hearts breaking and healing all at once.
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