Author's Note: A spur-of-the-moment oneshot fanfic that takes place when Danny is roughly nineteen or so. It's one of my better works, I think. I own absolutely nothing, expect the hope that you will review. Please?

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"I won't, I won't, I won't!"

The scream of futility. No powers. A thousand feet in the air. Vlad's smirk was to be Dan's last sight before death.

After all this, to be brought down by a simple trick. A vat of something Vlad and Clockwork had whipped up. So stron it was impossible to resist for a full ghost. Add in the Spector Deflector, and this was indeed his final moment. It was getting closer, but the glow was everywhere. Like a moth to a flame, the most destructive ghost ever to exist was now magnetically drawn to his own doom. He cursed his stupidity. This was it? After all his work to master his powers, after his reign of terror, after the armies had fallen and the blood had been shed...

Nine hundred feet.

Time for last thoughts. About what, though? About his mother, his father, his sister, family in general? He could spend his final moments thinking about Sam and Valerie, those two chances he'd missed, the queens he could've had to rule over his world alongside him. Or he could remember his hero fights and his villain fights. Certainly, this moment reminded him of all his near second-death experiences. How many fights had almost ended him? Every day had always been a fight, but no one ever cared. No one ever took him aside to tell him, 'Danny, I know you've got it hard'. It was always 'Danny can handle it'.

Eight hundred feet.

No he couldn't, or Dan would never have come about. Danny couldn't handle every little thing that every person threw at him. Danny was not so inhuman as to be perfect. In fact, imperfection was who he'd been back then. No one ever saw that. Danny, apologize for this, explain this, do these chores, take crap from people, get perfect grades in school, be a romantic person. Dan's eyes glowed faintly, perhaps for the last time ever. Every single one of them just left him to do everything. Not a one of them had taken responsibility for him. If he was stressed, he was overthinking things. If he was in pain, they pretended not to know why. If Danny needed someone to tell him, 'It's okay' or 'It'll be alright', he just couldn't find it.

Seven hundred feet.

Danny was broken now. They wanted an inhumanity. They wanted a piece of perfection minus the stress, the pain, the flaws and the complaints. They didn't want him. It was better that the poor little human half died. He was in a better place now. Any place with Vlad couldn't get much worse, yet still, that was the one right act Dan had committed. Beneath the scream of fear for more pain there was an acceptance of what was needed. Danny could not be around anymore. He was the broken half of their life. But Dan, now, he was whole. He had laid his humanity to rest - slain his own inner angel, if you will.

Six hundred feet.

Dan loved watching them die. Maddie, who for all her motherly instincts had drifted away when Danny needed to be pulled close. Jack, constant embarrassment to everyone everywhere. Jazz, who could not see the real Danny for all her training. Tucker, who had hindered him more than helped him. Sam, who had rendered Danny's heart out and expected it to still be hers. Mr. Lancer... Who wasn't glad to see him die? Dan had relished the flames and the explosion more than anything he'd ever seen in his life. These kinds of people didn't deserve to live. If all they wanted was to nag him to death, then he was merely striking first, not striking them down.

Five hundred feet.

If only someone had taken Danny aside, told him he had a place to confess. Sam would just tell him to get over it. Tucker would actually laugh at parts. If only one of them had just listened. His parents almost seemed not to care. Ghost invention this, ghost invention that. Dan scowled. When did parenting turn into a brief part time job? This was all their fault. If only Mr. Lancer could give someone, anyone at all, a break. This was not Dan's fault, not Danny's. They were innocents caught up in a whirlwind. Now that Dan had survived the hurricane, could anyone blame him for wanting payback on those who threw him into the storm to begin with?

Four hundred feet.

Dan was not sorry. He was not sorry for homicide, genocide, and arson. He was not sorry for those who had died at first and those who would die later. Dan did not regret that his actions had rendered North America uninhabitable. He was proud of the damage he had done. He was the struck down hero rising from the ashes. He would not be defeated even in half-death. There was nothing to regret in his actions. All his afterlife he had been a fighter. If they wanted to make him their slave, then the revolt was to be expected. Morons should have seen it coming. But...

Three hundred feet.

He had one regret. It wasn't the kind of regret one would expect him to harbour. In these years, he'd thought about many possibilites, paths that he had refused to take. He could have killed himself while still Danny, but no, that was only a Dan line of thought. He could have joined Vlad, but Vlad would have just piled the pressure on him even harder, without the frail yet needed support network of his friends. He could have told his parents, but even the psychopathic logic Dan followed was unsure if they'd have accepted him. He could have told Valerie. Same thing, however. He vaguely regretted these things. His one major regret, conversely, did not deal with other people. It deal with himself.

Two hundred feet.

Dan could have run away. It was the one possibility he and Danny looked on favorably. He had the speed. He could be miles away in mere hours, untrackable, undetectable, invisible. He could have run away from it all. There would have been reprecussions, yes. Danny would also still be here. Danny would not have been stressed out enough to cheat. The human soul that everyone had done their best to break would be whole and well. Dan still existed back then, in ghost form; the guiding voice to how to use Danny's powers. What had stopped him from egging the possibility on? They could have flown as far away from Amity Park as possible. There had been an exit and Dan had failed to take it. (He really was related to Jack, then.) What he would give in this second to have a chance to do that over again. We'd be whole if we'd just run away from all this.

One hundred feet.

Nineteen year old Daniel. White hair, ponytail, dark aqua eyes, scars across his face. Scars Dan could have stopped from ever occuring. Daniel does not know the lengths to whic Dan wishes he had done to save him. Daniel doesn't know he needs to be saved from this life. To the beaten down, world weary, long time fighter that is Daniel Phantom, there is no other life. There isn't such things as peace and quiet and revenge. The world is as it can only be. Years of this have warped the young man's mind.

Fifty feet.

But there's a glimmer in his eyes, the eyes that have resulted from the combinations of ice and ghost. Dan is him. He is Dan. They are like brothers, not full but a hefty fraction. Maybe he is starting to realize that Dan isn't evil. Maybe Dan's last thoughts penetrated the barrier of Danny's mind. Dan hoped as he never had before that he had gotten through to someone, just once.

SLAM.

Daniel's eyes widened. Part of him screamed inside as Dan began to sink. Dan was in trouble. Daniel was a hero. Dan was weak. Daniel was strong. Dan was outnumbered and outsmarted. Daniel could outdo everyone here. At this second in time, Dan was dying, Dan was screaming, he was crying, he was hurting. What was left of the super hero's heart wrenched and he shut his eyes so he wouldn't have to see it. He slammed his hands onto his ears so he wouldn't have to hear it. But he knew what was happening, he felt it as his blue breath began to fade in and out.

"DANIEL, NO!" Clockwork screamed.

Dan felt as if he were lifted. Was this Heaven? No, wait, his body ached so bad, as if his joints were on fire, and his sight was blurry. He hadn't reached the Upper Afterlife, then. Fighting for consciousness, he saw the purple blur that was the master of time fall back, unable to catch the speeding Daniel. The halfa weaved and wove in and out of the air, getting higher and higher, farther away from that horrid substance Vlad had made. One hand grapsed at the Spector Deflector, ripping it off painfully as the other hand gently supported Dan's back. Dan's vision cleared as he gasped for the breath he no longer needed. The wind roared, the sun got warmer and brighter as they rose straight up. Daniel was looking for something. Slowly the pain faded. Clouds rushed by until there were all below. It could have been Dan's imagination, but he swore rain hit him after they were in the cloudless sky. Clockwork was ranting now. Daniel's ghostly abilities were stretched to max. Vlad was cursing and firing a barrage of his powers. The Dan-universe Vlad was watching with total despair. And Daniel's eyes clenched shut so hard it was painful, just for a second.

Was that why he was crying?

The portal to the Ghost Zone had to be blasted open. Clockwork dove for it, but Daniel was faster. Landing right in front of it, he managed to get the time medallion around both their necks. The Vlads realized the plan and screeched their fury. Plasmius shot at them again, missing by inches. Clockwork was saying something again and again, chanting a mantra of 'don't do it, Daniel, don't do it'. And the two by the portal heard not a word of it. For the tiniest split second, red eyes met aqua. Daniel's face was uncertain, but his eyes were not. There was a single message there, one that Daniel needed no words to convey, just as Dan had not needed to ask for this rescue. In spite of everything, they were still Danny. Daniel nodded once, turned, and blasted both Plasmius and Clockwork out of the sky in the single most well placed shot of his entire career.

"Remember what I told you, Dan." Then Daniel slipped his head out of the time medallion.

"I will."