Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Columns of fire shot up from the building of the Central Ghost Intelligence Agency. Small explosions erupted throughout the laboratories, and dark smoke billowed out from the debris.
Guys in White ran in droves to escape fiery death, leaving behind important documents and even their own trapped comrades.
"The fire's spreading to the Central Vault," cried a technician from within the command center.
His superior was already preparing to abandon to him. "Lock down the main passageways to contain the damage!"
"I can't, sir; the system isn't responding! It's—it's overheated. I repeat, the system has hit critical temperature levels. It's shutting down!"
As commanders struggled to contain the fire, others stumbled out of the smoke, among them various groups of scientists holding only fragments of their research.
"The Phantom Files," one scientist cried, voice hoarse. She coughed from the surrounding smoke and turned to her comrades. "The notes for his ecto-nucleic code... did anyone pull them from the system?"
The woman's soot-soaked assistant watching with wide eyes as the flames heightened with another ground-shaking explosion. "We'll just have to start over," she mourned, "once the fire dies down."
"How? He's still hooked up to the Deactivator, with a minimal ecto-signature from the last drain sequence." She coughed in pain from the smoke.
"But he's a ghost," the assistant argued.
The scientist kneeled down in the dirt, rasping for air. "Draining limits them. Remember the...the creature that faded out when their cage flooded?" She waved her hand at loss. "Oh, we weren't prepared for this. All of our work..."
Two years ago, the Guys in White formed the Central Ghost Intelligence Agency (located in the outskirts of Amity Park) to research and study the strange events surrounding the city.
Their outward objective was to track all paranormal activity to ensure an event like Pariah Dark's invasion could not happen again, which included containing threats such as the ghost boy, Danny Phantom.
The ghost had been plaguing the city for over five years since his first appearance, and major figures (including Jack and Maddie Fenton) believed he was still a force to be stopped, closely examined, and then destroyed.
Containment was a kinder word that did not alarm the more sensitive citizens of Amity Park who supported Danny Phantom, save for the savvy few who knew better.
"What happens to us," the assistant asked apprehensively, "if Danny Phantom fades out over this? We can't...we can't reproduce our results. He was the strongest ghost we knew."
A silence fell over them, with the roar of the fire and the cries of their coworkers ringing out.
The scientist said in exhaustion, "We have some energy storages off-site.
We could back-engineer parts of his ecto-nucleic code from that, but... we'll be limited to only the powers we've programmed so far." She slammed her fist weekly into the dirt, tears of defeat rising in her eyes. "Dammit."
The calls of firefighters and reorganizing CGIA agents echoed in the night around them.
"Agent O," called a technical support analyst, who stood over a portable display of several monitors, typing desperately on a keyboard. "I've tapped back into our backup system, but it's already glitching. I can't...I can't pull any data, sir."
A stoic man stood before the fires, hands clasped behind his back, unaffected by the cries of the lower-level CGIA agents trapped. "Even from the Containment Labs?"
"Correct, sir."
His face twitched. "If we can't preserve the data, then we must preserve the asset. The agents you tasked to manually trigger the reinforcement walls to buy us time—have any checked in?"
"Negative, sir. I...I think they ran." The analyst began typing on a second monitor, face sweating hard. "I mean, it's suicide go back in. Unless you know someone who's fireproof?" A portion of the building had begun to collapse. "And can fly?"
Agent O tilted his head, and then he pulled out a communicator, pressing the special button to page the CGIA's most celebrated and elusive agent. "Valerie Gray captured Danny Phantom. She can complete the mission...and has a personal reason that would keep her focused against a little fire."
The analyst turned around, eyes wide. "Valerie Gray? The Valerie Gray?" He paused, and then flipped back to his computers. "Wait, wait. She was here earlier this evening. I remember seeing her security credentials light up." His brows furrowed as he looked into the glitching system. "I'm trying to pull up our tracking data on her."
The communicator buzzed in Agent O's hand, with silence in response. No sleek and dark figure in the night, rising up on a jet sled. "Where is she?" he demanded.
For several tense seconds, the analyst attempted to push through the overheating backup system. "S-sir? It looks like Valerie Gray is...it looks like she's still in the building."
...
Deep inside the CGIA's halls, a soot-streaked figure swerved on a jet sled to avoid a falling beam. "Dammit," Valerie cried, her breathing ragged and shallow. "You've gotta be kidding me."
She'd fallen asleep in a private room after a quiet and simple night of patrolling, only to wake up to blaring alarms and the unsettling scent of frying circuitry. A few measly sprinkles of water had dripped from the overhead fire suppression systems, indicating mass system failures.
And that fallen beam had just cut off her escape route.
She stopped short on the jet sled as she stared at the flames licking up the metal door now blocked by the beam.
She turned around, hesitating as she considered accessing one of her ecto-weapons to blast a hole through a wall. Or would that make the walls cave in on her? She didn't know. Her gear was not designed for fires.
She'd forgotten her visor back in the room, in her panic to get out.
As she passed by a nearby server room, the uneven signals of her suit's communication frequency functions reactivated, buzzing with the name of CGIA Command, and she picked it up. "Hello?" she called desperately. "Hey, can anyone hear me?"
The deep voice of Agent O crackled in, glitching. "Agent Valerie Gray. Are you still inside the building?"
"Hell yes, I'm still inside here," she said, voice cracking. "I need an escape route out. I'm trapped on the living quarters level, and the only door I got left takes me to the lower levels."
"I have a mission for you," came the man's smooth voice, unaffected. Likely, coming from safe ground. "Our systems are compromised by the fire. I need you to manually engage our reinforcement walls for the Containment Labs in the basement."
Valerie's breath hitched. "What?"
"Our contained asset Danny Phantom may escape before we manage to control the fire. And we can't allow that, can we?"
"No," she said. Her voice carried a harsh rasp. "You mean to tell me that the Labs don't have a functioning suppression system either?"
"All of our systems—" began Agent O, and then suddenly he glitched out. "Labs—"
Valerie turned back to the server room, attempting to recapture the signal, her hands trembling. She looked back at her only other escape route, which was a door that led downward, to the lower levels of the building.
To where Danny Phantom had been contained for the safety of Amity Park.
"You've gotta be kidding me," she breathed again, a frustration overwhelming her. She'd never liked Agent O, who seemed all too eager to sacrifice his own people. Everyone to him was just a pawn, including her.
"Dammit, I needed a rescue here, not a mission!"
But as she hesitated, it hit her that the wall reinforcements on the lower levels would likely result in some fire suppression and further structural integrity.
Even if she were unable to fly out of the building, it was certainly possible that she could survive in the belly of the beast, long enough for the firefighters to put out the main threat.
Maybe it wasn't the worst idea.
She swallowed hard, heart pounding. It was getting harder to see, harder to breathe in the current hallway. Activating the reinforcement walls would mean being locked in somewhere near where Danny Phantom.
It had been two years since she had left him to languish in the basements, but at least he would be tucked away in self-powered cryostasis, based on the official CGIA reports. Unable to lash out.
"Fine." Valerie forced her jet sled into full speed.
But in her hesitation, the fires had spread down the hall in a quick whirl, bending metal in the heat. Screeching sounds and ground-shaking rumbles alerted her that the building's upper levels wouldn't last much longer.
Another beam fell, crushing the tiles beneath, and rolling unsteadily up against the final escape door.
"Oh, come on," she snapped, breath catching with fear. She jumped down from her jet sled to tear at the pile of debris blocking her escape. Within seconds, the high heat of the burning beam began to singe through her suit's protective gloves.
A flame licked up her wrist as she grimaced, rolling the beam back.
Steps away, a loud crash echoed. Valerie turned around in fear to realize debris had fallen onto her jet sled. The proud, sleek metal now whined with broken circuits, with a metal pipe sparking through its heart.
Her own heart skipped. "No."
She had to get to the lower levels now, and fast. She turned back to the door, her eyes beginning to burn, with tears or with smoke, she didn't know. "Dammit." Her gloves began to peel back and melt from the surrounding flames. The air was burning her lungs. She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't breathe.
The door's circuits had fried, but so had its hinges. In desperation, Valerie pushed on the door to force it open, gasping with the effort. The door gave way with a cooler blast of air, and she stumbled in, grasping for railings to hold onto.
It was seconds later that she realized the flames had bit through one of her gloves, sizzling into her skin, and she cried out in pain, even as she instinctively pulled her hand to her chest to stifle the flame.
Shaking, vision blurry, Valerie forced herself forward.
She would die if she didn't.
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