Synopsis: When Danny's parents capture him with the help of a mysterious new enemy, they make all Danny's fears come to life. The only person who can save him is his billionaire arch-enemy, but can the two halfas look past their differences and work together before the Fenton family falls apart?

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Edited: 5/10/18 - for typos and smoothness

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The Life We Fight For

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Chapter 1:Fire Away

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In the less-than-peaceful town of Amity Park it was most certainly not unusual to hear about a ghost attack at least once every other day. It was even more common that the name 'Danny Phantom' came up in almost any conversation concerning the attacks. With less and less people in the small town gunning for Danny's afterlife, the half-ghost's life was much less dangerous than it once had been. The 'Guys in White' always seemed to be out for the halfa's ectoplasm spilled, but they were no longer aided by the people of Amity and most people defended Danny Phantom, despite not knowing about Danny's half-ghost status.

His sister had repeatedly told him about the innumerable benefits of confessing his secret to their parents, then maybe the world as well, but there was always a mess of worries that flooded the ghost boy's brain at even the mere mention of his parents. His emotions remained cautious and his thoughts fixated on the countless 'what ifs' that surrounded such a scenario. Being the psychologist that she was, Jazz had tried to talk Danny through the fear she could never understand, but it had only caused a rift to firm between them, with Danny's irrational behavior toward his sister becoming the result.

In the half-ghost's eyes, his life was perfect. He wasn't hated by the town, or even called the annoying nickname 'Invosibill' anymore. Things seemed to be looking up for him, and that was a feat Danny hadn't thought possible in a long time.

However, there was still plenty of other dangers in the teenager's everyday life.

"Danny lookout!"

The halfa dove downward towards the ground in front of the teens' school just before a beam of energy could slam into his chest. The ghost in front of him, clad in a metal, weaponized suit, chuckled as his eyes landed on the source of the cry. It was none other than the whelp's comrade, the clumsy, redheaded, helpful one.

The morning was clear and the ghost's hunting obsession was kicked into full-drive. As far as Skulker was concerned, the human girl before him basically screamed 'bait'. The ghost boy seemed to realize the implications of her presence as well for he instantly had a glare set on his face and carelessly turned away from him to yell at her.

"Get out of here Jazz!" Danny said with a scowl. Jazz had been eating at him all of the past week about being more careful in his fights, and had taken to following him around on patrol and monitoring his training with his friends, making her brother more aggravated than usual. Jazz was his sister, and he could never hate her, but the almost obsessive behavior she was showing toward his ghost half was irritating at best, and Danny was completely frustrated.

When his older sister merely smiled sweetly at him and pointed behind him, he immediately gasped and whirled around, only to realize he had done so too late and was struck right in his chest by a ghost ray, sending him flying back towards Jazz and crashing into the grass beside her, groaning in pain.

"Come on little brother, I thought you were better than that." Jazz teased, her eyes narrowed in a challenge. "Even I know not to turn my back on my enemy."

Danny merely spat out a mouthful of dirt and glared at her in disdain. Why did older sister's have to be so meddlesome?

"You know, she's right!" came Skulker's voice as several cannons sprung from his suit and launched themselves at Danny, forcing him to rocket into the air and weave through the maze of missiles being released in his direction, hoping and praying he wouldn't be blamed for any damage done to the school.

Danny swiftly turned invisible and shot through the sky to the back of the school, trying to spot his two friends through the crowd of panicking students and reporters interrogating them. He saw Sam at the front of all the chaos standing beside Tucker, who was swiftly typing away on his PDA, his face scrunched in concentration.

Danny landed beside them and turned human, still invisible, before popping into their line of sight, thankful for once that he was barely spared a glance while all the a-listers were interviewed about their 'tragic' attacking. This time Danny was honestly grateful that the hunter ghost had attacked whilst the class had been in session. The panic going on around him had been the perfect distraction in order for him to change into Phantom.

"What's taking so long Tuck?" Danny said, effectively spooking his friends.

"Dude!" Tucker jolted, playfully punching his half-ghost friend's arm. "Don't do that!"

Danny frowned as Skulker continued to circle the building with an evil sneer, no doubt looking for his ghost half. Sam followed his line of sight and then turned to Tucker, peeking at his PDA. They'd been trying for the past few minutes to shut down the mecha-ghost's suit, but there had been quite a few complications.

"Still no luck?" she asked, her lavender eyes both curious and cautious at once. "This is the first time his tech has withstood all your nerd abuse." Tucker scowled at her, but before he could think of an insult, Danny spoke up.

"You can't override his systems?" Danny questioned, watching the technogeek struggle to pass firewall after firewall. "Never thought the dude would learn."

Tucker nodded distractedly, his eyes glued to the screen. When he finally caught a break, gaining some progress in his hacking, he spoke up.

"It's weird, I got in pretty quick at first, though there was whole new coding, but their was this program I couldn't get into no matter how hard I tried. It looked a lot like some kind of spyware." Tucker once again got blasted out of the ghost's systems and he sighed in defeat. "I think he's gotten outside help to upgrade his software."

"And that someone is watching us with the spyware you saw?" Danny concluded, his gaze hardening in thought. "But who would-?"

A loud scream ripped through the air and Danny gasped, his icy blue eyes widening with recognition. His blood ran cold and he instantly ducked down out of sight in the confusion and panic and turned invisible once more, transforming and launching into the air.

"Jazz!" Danny exclaimed, his eyes glued to the ghost on the roof, his metal arm clamped around his sister's shoulders, while a cannon-like gun was pointed directly at Danny.

"You continue to be useful to me, girl." Skulker sneered, his metallic mouth curved in a smirk while his eyes remained trained on Danny. The ghost boy glared daggers at the hunter in return, his eyes glowing a toxic green.

"Let her go Skulker, or believe me, you'll regret it."

Skulker chuckled at the bravado the clumsy one's brother had. He clearly did not understand the position that he was currently in. Skulker grinned and within a second a blade sprung from his arm, curving around Jazz's neck dangerously close to her throat. His sister cringed in response but otherwise looked calm, keeping her eyes on Danny in silence.

"No!" Danny yelled. He touched down on the roof and advanced toward Skulker, his hands glowing with green energy.

"Ah ah ah," Skulker mocked, his gun humming with power. "One step further, and you're both done for. However, if you stand down now, I'll spare the girl."

Danny looked at the panicked face of his sister and bit his lip, his hands fisted at his sides but still containing energy at-the-ready. Jazz was yelling at him, pleading with him to run, to fly away and leave her. Danny's stomach churned at the thought and the energy around his hands evaporated.

"Fine...just let her go." Danny relented, his hands coming up in surrender. He didn't hear his sister's screams as Skulker dropped her to the ground and held her still using energy. Trapped on the ground with no possible way of saving her brother, Jazz yelled in anguish.

"Stop! Leave him alone you crazy ghost!" Jazz demanded, struggling as much as she could. Danny looked angry and hostile, not at all afraid, but Jazz could only see the image of her younger brother's corpse laying on the ground, with her alive, never being able to forget it. The thought left her breathless and energized at the same time, and she fought her bonds with vigor.

Danny grit his teeth in rage. He was trapped, up against a wall. Skulker had been attacking him more and more throughout the past month, and with each fight, he emerged with new tech, and Danny was all too familiar with his newest phase-proof ecto cannons. One strike in the right place, and he was down for the count. He wouldn't die in one hit, that he was sure of, he'd gotten hit twice before, but it had almost made him change back each time, burning him and tossing him through the air like a ragdoll when he'd been hit by the cannonball-shaped bullet.

"Finally," Skulker said, his gun whirring to life. "I can't kill you, but it's going to be fun watching you squirm in agony for a few hours. Say goodbye to free will, ghost child!"

Danny stood on the roof with every muscle in his body screaming and tense with the need to fly away. But his morals and the sight of his sister still held in the hunter's energy kept him rooted to the spot, staring down the barrel of the gun that would no doubt hurt...a lot. He watched with clenched teeth as Skulker smirked and set his finger over the trigger, preparing to fire.

Suddenly, a blinding blue light sprung to life beside Danny, and he turned to see his two friends standing near the door to the roof, clearly having ran all the way from the crowd below to the fight above. Sam held a thermos in her slim hands, a victorious smirk on her lips, and as she pressed the appropriate button and the vortex of blue began to suck up their screaming enemy, she couldn't help but shout,

"I think it's you who should say goodbye to free will, Ghost Zone's Worst Hunter."

Danny's face lit up and he felt relief wash over him as the bonds surrounding his sister vanished and his friends grabbed them both in a hug. As Danny took the thermos from Sam and strapped it to his suit, his eyes went to the crowd below, which had slowly begun to disperse now that eminent danger was not present.

"I wonder if we'll have to go back to class now," Danny wondered, turning away from the lingering scene of chaos below. "You'd think they would be used to the attacks by now."

"They've definitely been much more frequent lately." Sam said worriedly, gazing up at the morning sky. "Especially Skulker. This is the third time in only two weeks he's come after you, talk about obsessed."

"It's definitely weird." Tucker agreed. "I'm sure the update to his suit has something to do with it, too."

Jazz stood back, her redish-orange hair swirling in the wind. Her eyes were downcast, a troubled look on her face. She still felt as if something wasn't right. Skulker was gone, her brother was safe, there was nothing to worry about. But for some reason, she couldn't shake this sudden, odd feeling that something bad was going to happen!

"Danny?" Jazz said, interrupting whatever conversation the teens had been having. Danny glared at her but said nothing. "Maybe you should turn human, just in case."

Danny looked down at his glowing, jumpsuit-clad ghost body. It wasn't a completely unreasonable request, but because he was so annoyed with his sister's recent meddling he just stuck out his tongue at her childishly and created a brighter hue around him.

"What, are you scared of me now?" Danny teased, his eyes lit up with mirth. He had meant it as a joke, but Jazz couldn't help the pang of hurt in her chest. "There's no one here Jazz, chill." He continued.

Honestly, he just wanted Jazz to leave, but he knew Sam would have slapped him silly if he were extremely rude to her. Sam wasn't great friends with Jazz, but she didn't like when they fought in front of her, Danny was often in a bad mood the rest of the day afterwards, leaving her to help him resolve things. Jazz sighed, breaking the tension that had begun to form in the air.

Still, the girl held an annoyed yet cautious gaze and rolled her eyes. "Whatever." she mumbled as the younger teens began to converse once more. Her muscles were tight and her breath quick. Danny was getting on her last nerve, but her knowledge of psychology kept her from pushing the matter further.

"So hypothetically, would you be able to gain the power to control water since ice is a form of it?" Sam wondered, her thoughts turning to her friend's abilities as she eyed his ghostly aura.

Danny himself had thought about the possibility that he could control water, he could already freeze it to suit his needs in battle, but manipulating the molecules of water themselves was a completely different matter. It wasn't a solidified element he could concentrate on as a whole, it was a freeform body of atoms he'd have to learn to move as a single company of compounds.

Still, he couldn't help but dream about it. Such a power want exactly common in the Ghost Zone, energy blasts were the most universal method of attack, even the most primitive specter could manipulate its energy. Danny knew some more powerful ghosts could make their energy more powerful, Danny had figured out that the color of their energy displayed their power. He didn't quite understand it all completely, but the thought frustrated him to no end, unable to figure out how he could get his energy to become more powerful...maybe water was the key.

"I..." Danny began, thinking it over. "It could happen, maybe, I'll be sure to ask Frostbite about it next time I visit, he would know."

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly a blue mist pooled out of Danny's mouth in a quickly dissapating vapor. The four teens shared a bewildered look and the very next second began looking around quickly, but they found no ghost, there was absolutely nothing in the area around them!

"Guys!" Tucker hissed, his head cocked to the side. "Do you hear that?" All the teens grew quiet in tense silence.

Jazz followed Tucker's gaze to the door to the roof. "It sounds like...Footsteps?"

A loud 'BANG!' resounded through the air, and a smoking gun and angry blur of orange and blue came into focus as the door to the roof was blasted to the floor, torn completely off its hinges.

"Mom! Dad!" Jazz exclaimed, her widened eyes falling on her brother, who was frozen in shock. She heard the 'clink' of her parents guns and turned her attention back to the ghost hunters in front of them.

"Don't worry kids! We'll save you from that evil spook!" Jack Fenton, father of Danny and Jazz, yelled in reassurance. In his hands he held a strange, long gun pointed directly at Danny's chest. "Hold still Phantom, you're toast!"

Danny finally regained feeling and launched off the ground away from the other teens, knowing exactly how 'professional' his father's aim was. If the bullet ricocheted while they stood behind Danny, it was sure to be a disaster. Danny's eyes stayed trailed on his father's hulk-ish form and tried to think, but his mind kept screaming at him to stand down. Hurting his parents wasn't exactly a heroic thing to do.

Maddie jumped in front of her husband, a smaller, but equally lethal gun trailed on Danny. Unlike the ghost boy's father, she wasted not a single breath and pulled the trigger. Danny froze, a silent gasp on his lips.

"No!" Sam shrieked, running toward them. Tucker had just enough logic in his adrenaline-filled brain to grab her upper arm and yank her back, but Jazz had ran ahead of the two and all but tackled her mother. Sam stood shaking slightly but still angry and struggling in the arms of her dark-skinned friend, her eyes widened and her mind in a wild whirlwind of emotions. her friends were going to get hurt. Her crush of so many years would die if she didn't do something!

Danny hadn't been prepared for the shot. Not a word had been said between them. Usually there was some sort of witty banter, an exchange of insults and commentary at each other before any real fighting began, but the look in his mother's eyes had been...nothing short of murderous. Her eyes had flitted to Jazz for only a second, but it had been all she could take. Her child was being controlled, she was sure of it. Anything, human or ghost, that had the gall to hurt her children, had to deal with the wrath of Maddie Fenton, mother of two children. One of which she had just shot at point blank range, not that she knew that of course.

Danny grunted as a sharp pain shot through his side, sudden and biting but not overly painful. Danny looked down quickly and noticed that a pointed, small dart had struck him in his right side. He yanked it out, and his vision grew bleary instantly. He felt a second of fatigue that slowly went away after a few seconds, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. He threw the dart to the side and moved lower to the ground, unsure if he would be able to stay airborne. He saw Jazz run to his parents and he instantly sprinted to her, pulling her off their parents in a hazed state.

"It's okay, Jazz, I'm okay!" He said over the noise of Maddie's surprised yells and Jack's confused shouts, but Jazz just turned to him in a panicked state, almost hysterical. She'd seen the dart before, in her parent's lab. She wasn't sure exactly what it did, but she was sure it was only going to cause her brother pain. Her eyes were wide and her hands shook as she tried to push him away, desperate to make him understand before it was too late.

"Get out of here!" She yelled, seeing the boy sway and losing his grip on her a bit. Her nightmares were coming true, her brother was going to be hurt, and it was going to be all her fault for not going with her gut feeling! "Danny, fly!"

"Danny, dude, we've got her, go!" Tucker said, holding Jazz's upper arms while Sam ran and kicked away the discarded dart gun from Maddie's sprawled form, the device flying to the rails of the roof with a 'Clang!'. The woman in blue grunted and pushed herself up, scrambling for her discarded weapon, while Sam glared at her, nearly defenseless but willing to resort to bodily harm to protect her friend. Tucker, seeing the look on her face instantly latched onto her arm, and turned her to Danny instead, who wobbled dangerously just a few feet beside them.

"Get away from my daughter!" Jack shouted, pulling out a second, oddly shaped gun Danny could barely see due to his clouded vision. She pulled the trigger and fired, a large, green and glowing net sprouting from it and encasing Danny inside it. Danny collapsed in the tight hold of the ghost-proof rope and crashed to the floor on his side.

"Danny!" His sister and friend's collective voices yelled, making his foggy head pound painfully. Like the world was going in slow motion, Danny's eyes slowly went out of focus and began to close. His bright green eyes dulled and his gasping heaves for breath turned less labored and deep. The last thing he saw was a flash of bright orange, and the cold, foreboding, condemning voice of the woman he'd known his whole life.

"Finally gotcha, ghost boy."

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Next Chapter: Danny's nightmares become reality in the worst possible way.

Well hi! Priscilla here~!

Yeah, I know this is waaaay overdue, but here it is, my new series: The Life We Fight For!

My dream is to bring the best story that I can to the Danny/Vlad father/son category, especially because there is simply not enough in my opinion...actually there never will be I think, teehee.

I will warn you now: This story will contain scenes of corporal punishment/spanking between Vlad and Danny later on in this story. Strictly parental! There will be absolutely no slash in this story besides a slight Danny/Sam pairing, though it is not the main focus of the story.