You Can Take It With You

As soon as Danny was hit, Sam knew that it was going to be bad. She knew, because, unlike Danny, she knew what the Fenton Mortifier was supposed to do.

It was designed to force ghosts to relive their deaths.

According to Mr and Mrs Fenton (or Dr and Dr Fenton, if they were feeling annoyed with you) a ghost's death was the only thing that they could really feel, the only thing that could scare them. According to them, it would be enough of a deterrent to drive any specter comprised of ectoplasm and post-human consciousness out of Amity Park for good.

Beyond the obvious ethical concerns, Sam was dubious. Also, she was considering making her own 'destroy immediately' list.

Beside her, Tucker was still working on turning off the shield generator. She would have thought that unplugging it would do the job, but the cable apparently came up from underneath the gym floor, so that had been a no-go, and Technus had somehow disabled the on-off switch. Sam, and, she saw out of the corner of her eye, Jazz, were more concerned with watching Danny.

Danny had been hit a full minute ago, and so far, he had just been hanging in the air where he had been hit, staring blankly ahead. The other students from their class (sans Valerie, who looked like she was trying to find an ectogun in her backpack) were cautiously approaching Danny. Mr Lancer was trying to get his students to get away, back to the relative safety provided by the bleachers. Mr and Mrs Fenton were running around, trying to find out where their latest containment unit had gotten kicked during the fight.

(Could one even call it a fight when it was so one-sided?)

Sam had begun to hope that the 'reliving' part was all happening inside Danny's head. That was bad enough, sure. It was horrible, and, once she had gotten the time to think about it a bit more, Sam would probably never forgive Mr and Mrs Fenton. (Just like she had never forgiven herself). But, if Danny had been forced to act out his death, it would have been worse. Not much worse, but worse. If it was inside his head... Well, he had survived it once, hadn't he? And all the nightmares, too.

Then Danny twitched, his face contorting, lightning leaping off of his fingers, and he began to scream. And scream. And scream.

And Wail.

(Every time Sam heard Danny's Ghostly Wail, she hoped it would be the last. Every time, she remembered her friend dying. Screaming. In pain. Because of her.)

The people who were still standing were knocked to the floor. It was a good thing that Danny wasn't aiming at anything or anyone in particular. It was a good thing that Tucker hadn't gotten the ghost shield down yet, because otherwise the roof would be coming down.

The screams died abruptly, without warning. Sam uncurled herself from the floor, raising her head, pulling slightly-bloody hands from her ears. Danny was still floating there, still staring, but now he looked limp, exhausted. Was it done now? Sam knew it had taken longer between the end of the screaming and Danny dragging himself out of the portal, but, surely, the screaming had stopped because he had died, right? Because he had become Phantom? Not because he just couldn't scream any more?

(For all the jokes Danny told about his death, he had given his friends very few details about it.)

Then Sam saw it. A swirl of green in front of Danny's chest. That couldn't be what she thought it was, could it?

There was a flash of green as the portal expanded outwards.

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