Chapter Text
Danny stared at the waves sliding and sloshing against the shore and sighed with contentment. This was bliss. Literal heaven. His phone was off. Nobody knew where he was. Nobody needed to be rescued or fought or-
The phone he’d tossed carelessly onto a towel rang loudly.
“…god damn it, Tucker.”
Danny stared at the waves for a long moment. He could just ignore it. He could crush the phone into tiny little pieces. It was literally in his business budget to buy multiple phones a year. The world would be fine without him today.
His hand reached over and scooped the device up anyway.
“This better be an asteroid level threat, Tucker, because I swear to Pariah Dark-”
“Danny,” the geek wizard cut in, “you already picked up so shut up. You’re really gonna want to see this.”
Danny sighed but slowly sat up on his beach chair.
“What is it?”
“Just sent a link to your phone.”
Danny sighed again but clicked on it. He watched the first few seconds of the clip with a complete lack of comprehension then froze when he suddenly saw Vlad. The older man was kneeling in front of a small huddle of employees, arms tied or cuffed behind him. The older man’s hair was mussed and blood at the corner of his mouth made Danny see green for a minute.
When he’d managed to bring himself back from the sudden and overwhelming rage, Danny forced himself to listen to what was being said in the video.
“-If you want him alive at the next board meeting, you’ll send $30 million to the account on this screen,” the disembodied screen said.
“Tucker, what the ever living fuck is happening,” Danny growled, feeling his fangs slip out.
“It’s a livestream that popped up a few minutes ago,” Tucker said, keys clacking in the background. “They’re demanding a ransom for Vlad.”
“What about the rest of the people on the plane? His staff?”
“Hasn’t said anything about them,” Tucker admitted. “Several have already been injured. They got emergency first aid, I know that much. Vlad, um, you know how persuasive he can be.”
“Yeah, I do. Send me the location?”
“Danny, this will be a really difficult infiltration. The livestream is probably why Vlad hasn’t taken care of the problem already,” Tucker pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll just have to be discreet.”
“Are we talking about the same Danny here because-”
“Talk later, Tucker.”
Danny opened a portal to the Zone and slipped inside. He’d discovered a shortcut intervening large distances across the earth a few years ago. Well, Vlad had, but he’d shared the logistics of it all with Tucker. Danny’s best friend had somehow become the defacto go between for the two halfas, and usually Danny wasn’t complaining about it. Now, he wished he had a way to immediately contact the older halfa.
Danny cursed as he teleported to another area of the ghost zone, then ripped open another portal and slid back out to earth and quickly checked his location with his phone. He repeated the actions several times and was panting heavily by the time he got close to where Tucker said the plane’s location would be.
Using the portals and ghost zone to quickly navigate was fast, but it came at the cost of using up an insane amount of power. Danny pushed past the exhaustion and sped up into the sky. Aha! There it was. Danny would have to time this just right…now!
He flew into the side of the plane as it roared by and phased through. Danny almost yelped as he passed right though a heavily armored human on his way in and the merc shivered.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Just a cold chill,” the man said, shifting his stance and shaking out his shoulders.
Danny just barely kept from making a quip about chilling out as he grabbed both men by the back of the neck. They grunted in surprise, but they were asleep in seconds. Danny carefully set them in the back then started forward, but his whole body suddenly wobbled. He quickly lowered himself to a small galley space as his body fluctuated back to human for a moment then to phantom again. Shit. He’d hoped to have a few more minutes, but the power drain was already kicking in.
He mentally kicked the darkness at the edge of his vision away, breathing slowly through his nose. After minute, it disappeared again.
Danny sighed with relief then turned invisible and carefully floated down the plane, taking out two more mercs as he went. It didn’t take long to find the hostages. They were in the main conference room, shoved up against one wall where they sat, trembling. A few were on their backs, and Danny assumed these were the ones that had been injured. Thankfully, all of them appeared to still be breathing.
Vlad was in front of the other employees, closer to the mercenaries. Whether by choice or if he had been dragged there wasn’t clear to Danny. The older halfa was furious but carefully hiding it. It had been almost ten years since Danny had seen the other man face-to-face, and he was struck by Vlad’s attractiveness even in this situation. Or maybe because of the situation. Danny did have a thing for people tied up, after all.
Damn it, Danny, not now, he scolded himself. You’re on a time crunch. Ogle the sexy older halfa later.
He couldn’t help glancing at Vlad again, and finally noticed the older man taking the briefest of glances around the room. Danny wasn’t sure what, or who, he was looking for but was not one to turn down a perfectly good opening (hah). He floated over to the conference table and found a pen near the edge of it. Danny carefully scooted it off the desk. All three mercenaries glanced over at the noise then clearly dismissed it and continued looming over the captives.
Vlad, however, did not dismiss it.
“I don’t suppose we could get some ice here?” he asked, addressing his question to the head merc. “Some of our injuries are starting to swell.”
“No,” the man said coldly.
Danny hesitated. He was already drained from the constant teleporting. But if Vlad, who had been studying the situation from the beginning, thought it was the best course of action…wait. He didn’t need to freeze everything in here. He could just ice the trigger mechanisms of their guns. Hah!
He glanced around again then spun the pen in a circle.
“Once for yes, two for no,” he heard Vlad’s voice in his head from all those years ago when they had first started to train together in earnest.
“We don’t need a code, Fruitloop. It’s just a spar,” teen Danny had said, rolling his eyes.
“On the contrary, little badger, it’s the first thing you should agree on in any situation involving violence.”
“Please, there are four of you here,” Vlad added, voice earnest and persuasive. “Surely you can spare one person to-”
He abruptly cut off when the lead merc’s weapon swung to point at one of his employees.
“No,” the man said again, a small smile crossing his face as he did so.
Danny could clock a bully from a mile away. He’d shoot just to get one over on Vlad, and Vlad knew it, too. His eyes shimmered for just a moment to red before he looked down at the ground, clearly chastened.
Wait. Vlad had said four guards. Danny could only see three. Shit.
Danny phased through the wall, avoiding the other three mercenaries and found the last one leaned up against the bulkhead of the area between the two seating sections. Actually, this was good news for Danny. He could take this guard out quickly and then ice the other three.
He silently approached then grabbed the merc’s neck. The man had just slumped in his arms when footsteps were all the warning he had as another stepped around the corner.
The man took in the slumped body hanging in midair then immediately lifted his gun. Danny froze the trigger and inside mechanism then launched himself at the man.
So much for subtlety!
The other two immediately turned at his cry, but Danny was already freezing their guns. He took out the merc below him with a deserved-but-harder-than-necessary punch to the jaw then launched himself at the other two.
But the lead merc had already spun and pulled out a handgun. Not aimed at Danny…but Vlad.
The older halfa made an abortive jerk, as if to move, then stopped. The livestream was still going, and Danny wasn’t sure how he knew, but Vlad didn’t want the merc hitting any of the other employees behind him when he successfully dodged the shots.
The merc fired in rapid succession but suddenly the whole room froze. Time just…stopped.
Danny stepped forward, crushing the four bullets in his fingers. He glanced briefly at Vlad’s face and was struck by what he saw there. A rather grim resignation mixed with a slightly manic determination to endure something highly necessary but unpleasant. It was…it was the same look he’d given Danny when the younger halfa had told him to leave Amity Park for good.
Seeing it again…hurt something deep inside the younger halfa. He had hurt Vlad back then, but he could keep someone else from hurting Vlad now.
Danny abruptly turned and grabbed the merc leader by the neck just as time started to flow again. One second the leader stood before Vlad and the next he was gone, beaten into the floor with a brutal maneuver that would have done Pariah Dark proud.
Vlad’s eyes widened slightly, but he quickly got to his feet, arms coming out from behind his back as he easily snapped the handcuffs. Danny added just a bit of frost on them for the cover story as Vlad headed for the livestream setup. But before he could get there, Danny wobbled then tilted to one side. Vlad immediately changed targets, grabbing for Danny instead. He caught the younger halfa who grabbed weakly onto his arm.
“Phantom,” Vlad said, putting a world of meaning into that word to make up for all the ones he couldn’t say aloud.
“Imfin,” Danny slurred before going completely limp in his arms.