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FOP Burning Black: Chapter 19

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19


The lot on which the Dark Spire stood was vast and devoid of any kind of life. Cracked concrete and patches of metal stretched as far as Timmy could see, and the soulless eyes of decrepit buildings watched them vacantly from where they surrounded the lot and the tower. Stretching towards the stars above, they were walls of brick and block that sealed the three figures standing at the edge of the lot away from the outside world. Danny Phantom remained somewhat airborne, refusing to touch the ground, and his younger cousin didn't blame him.

The very air smelled drained of life and magic, dearth left a distasteful aroma that weakened anything vibrant.

He shivered as the wind made an attempt to sweep the dust from the lot. Forget heroism, he wanted home; he wanted home, in bed, under the covers, sucking his thumb and clutching a flashlight. The radar in his hip pouch beeped rhythmically, a mechanical heartbeat that long replaced his real one before he learned to fake it with Lightning. Pulling it free, he checked it, his mouth turning dry at the sight of so many markers on the screen.

It was fully updated, and it even had the ability to distinguish different units; circles were nullifiers, squares were capture units, arrowheads were destroyer units. The ratio of nullifiers to capture and destroyer units, two to one to four. Crocker wasn't interested in capturing anything tonight. He was prepared to annihilate whatever it was that had attacked the tower the first time, his paranoia forcing the assumption that the invaders had not been fairies and were going to be returning for a second attempt.

His paranoia was correct.

Timmy pulled the Battle Staff from his pack and held it tightly, seeking strength from the heavy wood and the cruel metal head that promised unbiased destruction to whatever it contacted. Was this why Wanda clutched her wand so preciously at times? Was this the feeling she sought each time he chose to risk life and limb?

"Timmy? Everything okay?" Wanda's voice made him jump and gasp. In this dead night, with all its silence, her voice, his voice, sounded so deafening. He glanced around, almost afraid that something else heard them.

"I'm fine. You startled me, that's all." he whispered and looked up at the android. Caleb met his gaze and gave a silent nod, gripping his own weapon of choice. Timmy had laughed when he first saw it as a kid; a giant wood and metal fork, it had to be a joke. Then he saw the angel use it in practice, and he never laughed again. There was a reason why Caleb called it the Wonder Fork, and the spell it unleashed was nothing less than a destructive wonder. The doll insisted he would use it only if everything truly went to hell, the force was comparable to a small nuclear explosion.

"The armlets are fully charged, the Topaz Crest is deactivated." Danny murmured, shimmering green ectoplasm flaring in his hands, "I'm ready."

"Right. We're going in." Timmy agreed, forcing thoughts of retreat from his mind. He couldn't run now; so many lives depended on them, depended on him, to restore magic to the city.

"We love you, Timmy. Make us proud." Wanda whispered and the Phones went silent as Danny shot into the air with a yell, hurling a double blast of plasma bombs at the tower itself.

Alarms blared, shattering the dead silence as the metal sheets set into the concrete lifted up, revealing bays hidden under the streets that poured traps and nullifiers into the lot. Caleb and Timmy darted into the fray with feral cries, knocking aside ground-bound units with sweeps of their staffs. Airborne units scattered overhead and Danny spun and twisted in mid-air, hurling blades of shining green ectoplasm into any device that carried a set of mini-dish arrays.

With metallic debris raining down on the field, Caleb halted and threw open his arms, a circle of magical light blooming at his feet, spinning and swirling bits of rubble and grit from its forceful winds. Clothes and hair lifted by the energy, he cried out incantations to spells that Timmy could only hope to one day acquire for himself.

"Infinite powers, grant me thy strength!" he howled out, clouds of mana struggling to collect high above him, "Meteor Storm!" The maelstrom condensed, churned and came hurtling down onto the field in the form of a dozen massive spheres of fire and rock, devastating hordes of flying anti-magic traps. Danny swept around them all, ecto-shield wrapping his body in a shimmering green capsule as he sought out still more nullifiers. Timmy raced to avoid the collisions, leaping over the canine-like destroyers and sweeping aside airborne bladed units with the Battle Staff.

"I see the entrance! Cover me just a little longer!" he screamed out, bending forward in an effort to gain more speed. "Don't just run; fly!" Wanda's words from the rescue mission rang in his memory. Never before had he yearned so whole-heartedly for wings of his own.

A metal plate, so badly covered with dust and grime it bordered on city camouflage, slid up before him, exposing a maw filled with fresh units that rampaged straight into his path. With a startled cry, Timmy threw himself aside, tumbling across the ground and ripping the long-sleeved turtleneck he chose to wear that night. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the sting of the gravel embedded in his exposed arm as he scanned the battlefield quickly. How far off course had he gone? Was anything homing in on him?

A dozen ground units and air units, that's what. Timmy darted aside, mentally wishing that there was something in the way of cover on the lot. An abandoned car, a dumpster, a crumbling section of wall, anything he could put between himself and the many metallic jaws that gave chase! They continued trailing him, he could hear their silver-white paws scraping the concrete as they bounded after him. Too many to count from the steps; if they jumped him, it was over.

"Gentle winds! Gather before me and transform into waves of air! Cyclone!" Caleb's voice carried on the stream of mana and the young immortal didn't need to look back, he could feel the stream spin behind him, pulling dead air into a fierce wind that spiraled upwards, carrying ground units and airborne traps alike towards the stars. From the corners of his eyes he could see beams of green raze the ground, tearing into still more traps; Danny Phantom had finished off the last of the nullifiers and was applying supernatural force to clear the path.

The Ghost Ray swept before Timmy and he didn't bother to look up, Danny's voice laughing in the wake of the destruction told him to keep going. They had the advantage, the field was theirs; all that remained was for Timmy to enter the gate and secure the entrance.

Another yard more, he was so close now. Wanda's voice was in his ears, transmitted via the Fenton Phones. She urged him on, comforted his mind as the rest of him streaked past traps and destroyers that all but threw themselves at him in their efforts to stop him, rip into him. Half a yard. His hand curved almost claw-like, three small spheres of red forming in his palm at the ready. The Light orb trick only served to show Timmy that he could manipulate mana in new ways. His experimenting revealed a new use for Fire mana. Its first field test would be tonight.

Caleb would be moving in towards the tower by now, the number of traps should be low enough to allow him freer movement. Danny's rays would pick off any ones tailing him like bottles off a fence. They were relying on him to make sure the remaining forces clustered around the base of the Spire were dissipated enough to grant them entry. The spheres glowed red-gold in Timmy's hand. Only a few feet more to go.

He swept the Battle Staff aside to knock over a ground destroyer, only to have it grab the neck of the heavy pole in its jaws, snapping it apart with the force. Timmy leaped over it, releasing the broken staff as he moved. Forget it for now; it had served its purpose. Another second or so, and it wouldn't matter. He had something else to deal with those things.

Oh crud! The door was shut! Whatnowwhatnowwhatnow?!

"Open, says me!" Danny laughed, hurling a green sphere of ectoplasmic energy at the metal barrier. Ecto Bomb; it blasted open the doors and hurled the slabs of dull gray aside. Timmy managed a smile, then cried out all the fears and stress he'd gathered over the course of the near three months of fighting as he pushed off against the concrete.

"Fly!" Wanda had whispered.

This was pretty close to it.

Soaring over rows of ground units gathering to march into the field after a brief recouping, the young immortal twisted in mid-air, reorienting himself to face the scrambling sets of traps as he brought his arm around to hurl out the spheres of mana in his hand. Clear the entrance, they told him, just clear it and we'll all be in with you.

As they wished.

"Bulla Scintillare!" The name just seemed to jump at him. Where it came from, he didn't care at the moment. All that mattered was that he called it out and unleashed the fiery gems upon the mass of metal that surged towards him. The spheres broke apart, impacted the ground among the traps and exploded into brilliant flashes of red and golden light, casting whatever traps hadn't been burnt to a crisp out from ground zero. Caleb darted through the rising remnants of smoke and skidded to a halt beside him, eyes wide with surprise. Danny Phantom flew in and immediately turned to push the crumpled doors back in place.

"What the hell was that?!" the android exclaimed, "I didn't teach you that!" Timmy blinked up at him, puzzled. In all the thousands of years this guy claimed to have lived through, hadn't he ever tried to do something different with mana? It couldn't be that bizarre to him, could it?

"I came up with it just now." the brunet replied and looked aside at his cousin using the Ghost Ray to seal the edges of the door and prevent the units still in operation from following them inside. He returned to blink up at the redhead. "Why? Was that illegal?"

"No, not that. It's just...." Caleb muttered, folding his arms over his chest as he tilted his head thoughtfully, "Unconventional. I've never seen mana used like that before." Danny joined them as he finished and smiled, breathing as heavily as a ghost could.

"That was incredible! Man, what a rush!" he laughed, "I've never felt so alive before! Not since the first time I ever flew!" Timmy grinned and shook his head.

"'Never felt so alive'? This coming from a ghost." he teased.

"Half-ghost." his cousin corrected and shed his backpack, "Okay, so we're in and I've got the bombs. Where do we place them?" He opened the flap and the android reached in to grab a pair of capsules.

"Look inside the backpack and you'll find a couple of printouts of this floor. Where you find red marks, those are the weakest points of the Spire structure." Caleb replied, the strange staff he carried already strapped to his back, "The timers are already preset to three minutes. Once they're activated, there's no shutting them off, so be sure they're placed properly." Timmy reached into the bag and pulled a pair of bombs for himself, cradling them in the crook of one arm as he grabbed a map.

"Aren't you gonna need one of these?" he asked the angel, waving the paper in his hand. Caleb grinned and shook his head.

"I'm an android, remember? I've got perfect memory, unless I erase it myself." he replied and helped him stuff the bombs into his backpack, "Now let's get going. We want this tower down tonight, right?" He ran off in some random direction. "Let's meet back here when we're done!"

"Catch you later, Cousin." Danny put in, tossing Timmy a salute as he flew off through a hallway. The brunet nodded and dashed off, hurling out a Light orb to guide his path.


Placing the bombs was considerably less stressful than the dash to get into the Dark Spire. After spending so much time working with the map in the armband he wore, Timmy found the paper map fairly easy to read. The stinging in his arm had finally bothered him enough to where he threw a blast of First Aid at it on the run, a feat that surprised him even as he did it. He'd always thought that he would have to stand still to use magic, but apparently not. Man, Caleb needed to get out of that mental box he'd shoved himself into!

There was the first bomb placement point. He slowed down, pulled a capsule from his backpack and set it against a wall that sheltered the support pillar. Pressing the small red button set by the LED screen, Timmy watched the timer activate on the bomb. Three minutes and counting; one more bomb and then he'd have to make his way back to the door. That didn't seem so hard.

He hoped.

Well, no taking chances. Timmy raced on for the next point, the Light orb flying ahead of him to illuminate turns and forks in the halls.

The Spire was full of rooms that seemed to carry parts for more anti-magic units. It seemed like the first floor was for assembly of the parts to build more traps and nullifiers. Some of them were even in operation, putting together pieces to create reinforcements for the batch of wrecked devices sitting outside the tower walls.

No time to gawk at them, Timmy guessed at least forty-five seconds had passed since he set that first bomb.

The map led him to another weak point, and the bomb was nestled with care alongside a large server of some kind. He blinked at the LED screen on that capsule. 1:57.

Oh crud; set the timer on one, set the timer on all of them. Caleb, you're either a genius or the world's oldest idiot.

Timmy launched himself away from the bomb, scrambling to retrace his steps and escape the tower. He could only wonder at what the others were thinking as they placed their bombs. Would they assume he had triggered the countdown? Would anyone guess it was him?

"Timmy? How are you doing?" Wanda's voice came on and Timmy breathed a sigh of relief. He needed a friendly voice at that moment, his feet carrying him down halls with all the speed he had left in him.

"Just finished setting the bombs. Got two minutes to get out." he huffed, passing by the rooms of assembly lines.

"Two minutes?! Make a wish! Wish yourself out of there!"

"Can't do that. Nullifier assembly. Not active, but almost there." Timmy gasped out, skidding around a corner. Was this the right path? He couldn't remember. Where was that map?!

How much time was left?!

The map was still in his back pocket. He snatched it on the run, fumbled with it, tried to make sense of the halls again. Skimming the lines on the paper, he picked out the path to the entry room and stuffed it back into his pocket. Forget folding it. He'd do it later. Assuming later came for him, and he still had his hands attached to his body when it came.

Urgh, another fork in the path, which way to go? The map jumped back into his hands, tore as it opened. Time, time, time? Go left, and shove the map.

He saw a flash of light and darted towards it, emerging at last in the open cavern that was the point of entry. The flash of light had been the red mana wings of Caleb, spread as he came in for a landing. Danny already stood there, a worried look on his face.

"You made it!" Timmy exclaimed with a joyful cry, "How much time is left?"

"Took you a while. Take a wrong turn?" Danny returned nervously, "I just barely got here myself and the timer was counting down at one oh eight when I left it."

"Forty-eight seconds and counting. The timer's countdown is projected in my Internal Chronos System." Caleb gasped out, "Let's get out of here already! I used up a ton of mana flying down the halls to set the charges within the time limit!" Danny nodded and looked over at the doors, mouth dropping open as his eyes widened in horror.

"Crap! I forgot I sealed the door with the Ghost Ray!" he cried and held out his hands, "I'll have to blow it open again!"

"You do that and the traps out there will come in here! We don't need that delay!" Caleb shot at him, "It's going to cost us time to get past them! And we only have thirty-five seconds!"

"Danny, turn us insubstantial! Fly us through the door!" Timmy exclaimed and the halfa held out his hands, then shook his head.

"I can only take you and me! Caleb is made with magitechnology; ghost powers don't affect him!" he returned helplessly, "Can't you wish us out?!"

"You have to turn back into a human for it to work, and I'm not sure a wish will work here! There are assembly lines putting together more nullifiers back there!" the brunet blurted out, "Another few seconds and they'll pour in here! Caleb and I will be toast!"

"Twenty-six seconds! Can't we think of something?!" Caleb cried in desperation.

"Whose idea was it to melt the sides of the doors anyway?!" Timmy snapped at his cousin.

"It looked like a good idea at the time!" Danny shot back, "Why the hell would you care?! You're already dead! What's one explosion to you?!"

"At least you'll stay in one piece when it blows!" the brunet countered harshly, "You're a ghost; this junk will just fly through you!"

"If someone hadn't turned the bombs on so soon, we'd have more time to get out of here!" the halfa yelled in frustration.

"Oh, so now you're accusing me of activating them early?! Who preset them to give us only three minutes of escape time?! We're still human, not tireless robots!" Timmy shrieked.

"Don't drag me into this!" Caleb snapped in return and shook his head, "We've only got fifteen seconds! Why the hell are we wasting time with a pointless argument?!"

"Incoming!" Danny shouted, hurling a ball of ectoplasmic light at a group of anti-magic traps marching into the room from a conveyor belt. The explosion caved a part of the wall and ceiling, crushing the traps and sealing away the conveyor's entrance into the main room. "Were there any nullifiers in there?! Can we get wished out now?!" he exclaimed, looking over his shoulder at his cousin.

"No time." Caleb whispered, eyes wide with disbelief, "I botched the mission. Seven...."

Timmy stared up at the android, then at his cousin as he dove for the two and held out his hands imploringly.

"Six...."

"Grab on! I can at least save you!" the halfa cried. Timmy only kept the vacant stare on him.

"Five..."

"Timmy? What's going on? Is everything done? What's your time?" Wanda's voice called in for an update.

"Four...."

"Timmy, come on! I can't save Caleb, but I can at least drag you back to your friends in one piece!" Danny begged, green eyes tearing up as the rubble behind him began to shift. Metal jaws crunched through block and tile, heads emerged as the traps chewed through debris to break free.

"Three...."

"Timmy! Answer me! I need to hear your voice!"

"Two...."

Timmy seemed to snap into focus. That was it; it was perfect. If it worked, they would all be saved. If it failed, it didn't matter. Was there a nullifier unit that survived?

His hand flew up, mana gathering above his palm as Danny stared at him in shock.

"One...." Caleb murmured and dropped to his knees, tears running down his face as he continued staring blankly ahead, "Martel...."


The Dark Spire erupted in a blaze of fire and granite, sinking down into itself as the teens stared not at what was the glorious achievement of the three heroes, but at the heart-shattering screams of the pink-haired fairy that strained in Cosmo's embrace to race towards the collapsing needle of darkness.

She hadn't received her answer. And there was no sign of red wings in the sky, or shimmering white ghostly flight.

The heroes had still been within the walls of the Spire.

And dawn rose in time to watch the last of the control tower rain down upon Dimmsdale.
Chap. 18[link]

Chap. 20[link]

Heh. I love this chapter. Took me forever to write it, 'cause I'm not good at this kind of style, but I like the result. How'd I do?
© 2006 - 2024 Digi-Dolphin
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Hyllia14's avatar
I'm screaming and freaking over this x_x