The Obligatory Author's Note:
Hey, I'm back again with another update. About time, right? Eheh... anyway, this actually took quite a while to rewrite, even though... on the whole, both this version and the previous one are quite similar. Ah well. I'm much happier with this, nonetheless. It's a little strange going through old work, and then thinking "What the heck was I on when I wrote that?"... xD Never mind.

In any case, part two of two! The end result.

Lightning Rod; An Ethical Nightmare
A fanfic by Pseudinymous

~ Part 2 ~

Danny screamed; it was the only thing he could think of doing. The cogs and gears in his brain stopped altogether, leaving him frozen in midair, shaking. This was something he saw in stop-motion; the red-haired girl he knew and loved as his sister slowly, agonisingly, clutching the base of her neck as she was blasted backwards and slammed into the stairs.

The mug she'd been carrying quickly fell from her loosened grip, the once-contained cocoa proceeding to fly through the air and splatter over the floor.

Jazz gritted her teeth together. With all the effort left in her body, she brought her head back up, her bulging aqua eyes staring into those of Uncle Vlad's. But his were remorseless, red, empty... she attempted to say something, but her voice and her breath had been well and truly snatched away.

Jack hadn't seen what had happened around the corner, but his daughter's strangled gasp was quite enough, alongside the ghost kid's horrified scream. It seemed to rebound around the room, coming from just about everywhere but the place it had originated.

The last thing Jazz said was nothing but a whisper, something that would have required the most exceptionally sharp hearing to detect. It was a very simple word, but one that struck remorse into Vlad's heart for the first time in over twenty years.

"Why...?"

The teenage daughter of the love of his life closed her eyes forever.

Danny finally regained possession of his ailing mental control, diving so quickly towards Jazz that he looked more like a black and white streak. He checked everything; her pulse, her breathing, even a heartbeat! But it was useless; as much as Danny refused to accept what he'd just witnessed, her very presence was... lost.

Instinctively, Jack shoved Danny right out of the way, crashing down before his fallen daughter and performing exactly the same checks his son had just done. Of course, it turned up nothing, as Jack's face plainly indicated when he turned his head to face his old friend.

"Call an ambulance."

"Jack, I-"

"CALL ONE!" Jack bellowed, loud enough to be heard by all of Amity Park, even atop the thunder. An awful, crushing silence followed, where the only sound remaining was the eerie, distant creaking of the roof.

Vlad didn't move. He just stood there, becoming paler than his skin usually allowed. Jack eventually, though not without questioning himself on why he was doing this, turned to Danny with a pleading look.

The half-ghost looked up, trying to get a grip of himself by rubbing away the few green ectoplasmic tears that had collected in his eyes. "Dad, get mom and tell her what happened. And – and while you're upstairs, call 911. I'll look after Jazz."

Jack looked at him with the kind of shocked curiosity that seriously worried Danny. And then – something that worried him even more – a sudden, though short-lived, dawning look of enlightenment. It was only after Danny's father had raced up the stairs that he realised his very small, very important mistake.

Not that he cared.

Put in perspective, it didn't matter. Every single one of Danny's thoughts looped straight back to his sister; he didn't even notice or care about the vampiric ghost behind him, trying instead to hold Jazz at a point where the stairs weren't grating into her back. Not that it helped anything but... it was Jazz, he had to...

But then it really hit him. Vlad had done this. Even though Danny had knocked his aim off, he was still aiming to kill his father and therefore a member of his family. Someone would have died at that man's hand tonight, whether Danny had been there or not.

... What had Jazz done to deserve this?

Danny carefully picked up his sister and placed her on the floor in what looked like a more comfortable position. Finally, he acknowledged the elder half-ghost's presence, a weight in his eyes suggesting that they were containing quite a bit more than tears.

"You killed her."

There was ice in Danny's words, and Vlad couldn't answer to that. It wasn't that he was overcome by remorse – he'd gotten over that in less than a minute. Instead, he was overcome by shock. He hadn't meant to kill the girl at all...

Danny stared at him, somehow taking on an unearthly and almost demonic appearance. That sparkle in his eyes had nothing to do with tears, either.

Vlad knitted his brow together, although the movement itself was hard to pick. Both hybrids stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time, their expressions unreadable but with an ice in the air that was colder than the chill of the Antarctic winds. Anyone who had've been watching would never have seen it coming, and yet, at the same time, what was going to happen was blindingly obvious...

The younger's face twisted into something that could only have been summoned from the depths of hell, and dived. Vlad barely had time to react before his I-wish-this-was-my-son had him pinned to the ground, snarling.

"You killed my sister!"

"Daniel-!"

"You killed her! Jazz! You killed Jazz! I'll kill you!"

Danny's hands headed straight for his archenemy's throat, barely thinking. Before now, he'd never thought he'd ever want to kill someone, to feel that horrible urge to reach into someone's chest and rip out their heart; not even for Vlad. But at this moment, it was unbelievable – a rage like no other Danny had ever felt, even against the threat of his future self. Because this time... this time, someone really had died.

"It was your fault, Daniel!"

He froze, staring into Vlad's eyes with a mixture of horror and disbelief.

"You heard me! If you hadn't pushed me aside, then that ray would never have hit poor young Jasmine."

"You bastard!" Danny screamed. Tears he'd only somewhat been trying to control now had full reign on his cheeks, leaving long salty trails behind. "You were trying to kill my dad! It's ALL your fault! If you weren't trying to kill him, then Jazz wouldn't be...! You bastard!"

"You're trying to give the blame away when it really is your fault, Daniel. At least face up to what you caused, blundering about just like your idiot of an old man."

"Take it back!"

"You know it, Daniel!"

What Vlad exactly aimed to achieve with these mind games was up for discussion. Was he trying to move the blame to Danny simply for the benefit of his own mental wellbeing, or alternatively, did he perhaps genuinely believe Danny was the one to blame? Whatever the purpose, this harsh and unrealistic judgement only seemed to provoke the teen, who wound up punching and shattering Vlad's nose with all his might.

The crunching sound was hideous, and the blood plentiful. Vlad's nose was bent to its side, and while one may have argued about Vlad's motivation for infuriating Danny as he did, one certainly could not have argued against the brokenness of the vampiric half ghost's nose.

The older hybrid choked, spitting out a decent spatter of reddish green blood, and glared at his junior. Danny might have been fuelled by the stuff only seen from within the depths of hell, but Vlad knew he could overpower Danny any day of the year. In a swift motion, he threw himself to his feet and elbowed Danny in the mouth, knocking the boy to the ground.

Any lesser person would have quickly become unconscious.

"Yo're dust a silliy li'le boy 'oo needs do ged 'is brioribies in orda!" screamed Vlad. In his mind it had sounded really quite menacing, but even he had to admit, through a broken nose it was about the least menacing thing he'd ever heard. Somehow, all the credibility drained from the statement when it sounded as if he had a very bad cold.

Vlad wasn't on an even playing ground for long, however. In the time it was still taking him to recover from having his nose fractured, Danny had already dived for one of the tables up against the walls, where some weapons had been left unattended from his parents' various tinkerings.

Danny didn't know what the weapon he picked up did, but one thing was for sure; just about everything in this lab hurt.

There was no choice for Vlad but to flee. While he didn't have anymore of an idea about what the weapon did than his opposition, he wasn't willing to become its first test subject, either. Any attempt to blast the blasted thing out of Danny's hands would need the sort of precision aiming he didn't have time for. Maybe the sky wasn't such a good place to be during a storm like this, but he trusted his chances even less in such a tiny, enclosed area.

Danny had it aimed and was almost ready to fire, but the billionaire was too quick for him. He'd already jumped into the air and shot through the roof of the basement, leaving the smaller half ghost aiming at nothing but metallic tiles. He did not growl, or curse profanities into the air, or give up. In fact, he was glad Vlad was running. That meant he was scared.

However, he hesitated before following. Danny had suddenly begun to realise at least part of the motivation the other ghosts had for scaring people half to death. Under normal circumstances, it wasn't a pleasant thought. Under these, it was perfect. And then he left, holding the enormous weapon tightly within his grip, and allowing intangibility to pour through his body.

His father had gone unnoticed when he'd come back down the stairs with Maddie. Now, he saw Danny Fenton in a very different light – especially when he burst into a solid mass of concrete, metal and a number of other very strong materials with absolutely no physical resistance.

The whole of Amity Park eventually came to know about Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius's fight on that wretched day, although few actually saw it with their own two eyes.

There was only one person who actually saw the fight in full – Jack. Maddie had boarded an ambulance with Jazz, despite the hopelessness that had overcome everyone trying to bring a living breath back into the girl. Jack, on the other hand, had followed the ghost fight through town in the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle, finding that driving like a maniac was a lot easier when the other drivers were off the roads due to the weather, and a lot harder with the storm pushing the 'RV' in all kinds of unwanted directions.

Up in the sky, Danny wasn't fighting for his life. Vlad was.

The wind churned, blowing the combatants the wrong way, causing them to misfire, misconnect, and become more lost than anything else. Still Danny persisted, frustratedly trying to shoot at what he, through heavily limited visibility, thought was Vlad. The weapon was voted No. 1 in the yearly contest by The Ghost Hunter's Association of Ridiculously Unnecessary Firepower (and with just reasoning) – surely it would eventually connect?

Five minutes passed, and still neither one of them had actually managed to hurt each other. The storm was blowing them around like paper, and lightning was a constant threat. Especially, Jack thought uncomfortably, considering Danny was holding a highly-powered ectoplasmic weapon that had been constructed mostly out of metal.

And all through this, not the slightest amount of banter was heard. Not even a single dryly-said comment, sarcastic statement, or any signs of any vocal chord use at all. They were locked in an eerie silent combat, somehow in a place that ignored the overbearing sound of the storm that swirled above.

Vlad's bloody nose was dripping everywhere, but the rain was so strong; it was merely washed away. By the time it'd hit the ground, it was unnoticeable. The pain, Vlad thought bitterly, was not gone. And it certainly didn't get any better when Danny hit him squarely in the face with a devastatingly large neon energy beam.

It was quite literally like being struck over the head with a flying mallet that was on fire. If Vlad's nose wasn't broken before, it certainly was now. The electrical charge in the ammunition forced his hair to stand on end quite a bit more than it usually did, and his face had been turned into something that appearance-wise, could have easily been used for torture.

Thankfully for Vlad, Danny seemed to be losing his grip on the gun. Something that large was an incredible liability with so much wind, and it had already taken up much of Danny's effort to prevent himself from dropping it. Large amounts of firepower certainly came at a price.

Vlad bit through the pain in his head – which felt more like it was one enormous tumour – and used this opportune moment to his advantage. Before Danny could even think about reacting, Vlad swooped over and ripped it from his gloved fingers. The younger's eyes widened in fear.

Vlad was, when you got right down to it, forty-something with at least twenty years of experience. Danny was but a fragile teenager. One teen didn't stand much of a chance against a gun like that; the shot was enough to leave Vlad looking as though he'd been hit by several trucks; he hated to think what it'd do to him...

And so the fight reversed, this time with Danny fleeing for his life and Vlad chasing quickly in pursuit. The anger was obvious – each move was highly calculated and yet completely and utterly desperate at the same time.

A mass of shots was fired in Danny's general direction, and he avoided all of them. Barely.

Jack had trouble keeping up even with the RV as the two half ghosts streaked through the clouds. Their directions changed in a sporadic fashion; dodging and attacking each other combined with gale-force winds took them on a frightening adventure all over Amity Park, before finally they ended up somewhere near the Western Side, near where the old abandoned mining shaft was.

This small fact, of course, hardly stopped them. And although the banter never really even got started, their intentions were clear. Both parties knew it was going to be kill or be killed. Danny switched back to the offensive, deciding that that was going to be the only way to pull the weapon out of Vlad's grip. Not that it was clean – the first ectoblast he fired went sailing off in the wrong direction, doing nothing but help the older hybrid when it came to determining Danny's position.

Vlad refrained from smiling due to the delightfully furious throb within the muscles and bone of his face, but even without any expression, it was obvious he was gloating. Danny tried desperately to hear what is archenemy was saying when he finally did speaktf, but found that the storm was simply too loud. Still, he kept on listening, trying to pick it up...

At least, until the huge ectoplasmic weapon, and consequently Vlad, attracted a thick, unforgiving bolt of lightning. It lasted only a second, but that was easily enough to knock him cold.

Vlad's one saving grace was that it might have been the first time he'd honestly attracted anything.

Danny's jaw dropped as Vlad plummeted a few hundred metres through the air, bright pink sparks shooting from his body as he went. Gravity wasn't merciful on a half ghost when he was unconscious, and neither was whatever remained of the tattered laws of physics. It was hopeless to hold onto his ghost form in such a state, which led to him reverting to his usual suited self before drilling a few inches into the ground directly next to the mine-shaft.

Things were already bad for the likes of Vlad Masters, but that didn't mean the universe didn't have just one more thing in store for the helpless ghost. He was just close enough to the edge so that, when the wind blew...

Into the shaft he fell.

Jack couldn't get anywhere near where Vlad had fallen due to most of the area having been fenced off, but it certainly didn't stop his son. Danny landed just above the huge hole in the ground and stared straight down; if there was a bottom, he couldn't see it. And then it dawned on him...

The source of all his hurt, his pain, his sadness... it was lying pathetically at the bottom of this shaft, helpless, and probably rather close to death. It was another one of those times where Danny's brain simply stopped. All the gears and sprockets clicked out of place and jammed, leaving him little more than a glowing statue.

In desperation, Jack broke through the inhibiting fence and ran over to scoop up his son, narrowly avoiding slipping into the mine himself. Without saying a word, he took to holding his son tightly, rocking back and forth.

Maybe if it hadn't have been raining, Danny might have felt three fat splodges splatter on the black part of his jumpsuit.

A few moments of silence were held before Jack steered him back in the direction of the RV. No one dared look back at the mine. Instead, Jack decided to look down at the being he'd been wishing to dissect for well over a year, and decided that Danny deserved yet another strangle-hug as he was placed in the back seat of the Assault Vehicle.

But... something struck Danny. He'd wanted to kill Vlad, and he'd wanted to do it as slowly and painfully and frightfully as possible, limb from limb, atom-by-atom... but now he wasn't so sure. He was Vlad, but... Danny was leaving him to, quite literally, die in a hole.

Didn't that make him no better than Vlad himself?

"Dad?"

"Yes...?" Jack hesitated cautiously, looking into his son's eyes. His son's unnaturally green eyes...

"I think I should save Vlad... get him out of the mine."

Jack wore a pained expression; it tore his conscience in half, this statement. But after today... there was only one answer. He looked away from the boy's eyes, and with a dark look, he replied; "Danny... sometimes... when some people are in peril... sometimes... it's better for everyone if we just leave them that way."

Whether his father's statement was true or not, Danny really didn't know...

The End

The Obligatory Ending Note:
Man, am I glad that's over. Been half-meaning to rewrite this thing for years, and I've finally done it. Anyway, thanks to all you folk for tagging along for the ride! Hopefully I can write something else you might find interesting some other time. :)

Feel free to review, praise, criticise, and grill me if I've done wrong by you. :P

Anyway, see you next time!