[Third Person Pov]
By the time Sam and Tucker reached the battlefield, the night sky above the city was already a chaotic canvas of green and black. They spotted the Bat-Jet first—sleek, angular, and banking hard through the air as it provided aerial support for their friend. Green laser blasts lanced from the jet's forward cannons in tight, controlled bursts, while Danny himself hung in midair beside it, both fists extended. Twin beams of pure ectoplasm hammered against the glowing energy shield that shimmered around Skulker's massive exo-suit.
Skulker's armor plates shifted with a hydraulic hiss. Rows of missile ports snapped open across his shoulders and back. Targeting systems locked onto the Bat-Jet with a series of sharp electronic tones, and then every rocket fired at once in a screaming swarm of fire and smoke.
Danny's hand shot out instinctively to intercept the barrage—only for Skulker to vanish in a blur of green light and reappear directly in front of him. The ghost hunter's katana came down in a brutal arc. Danny barely managed to raise his own blade in time; the two swords met with a ringing clash that sent shockwaves rippling outward through the air.
Inside the Bat-Jet, Batman's hands moved with cold precision over the controls, rolling the aircraft through a tight spiral that wove between the incoming projectiles. Beside him, Robin's fingers flew across the weapons console.
"Robin."
"Deploying decoys!"
A small cylindrical device dropped from the rear of the jet. Instantly the swarm of rockets veered toward the new heat signature. A massive fireball bloomed in the sky as most of the missiles detonated against the decoy—but a handful punched through the smoke and continued on their original course. The Bat-Jet flipped end-over-end with almost impossible grace. Batman and Robin answered with a coordinated volley of their own missiles and energy blasts. The resulting chain of explosions lit the clouds in blinding white and shook the jet hard enough that the shockwave nearly threw it out of the sky.
Below, Danny glared across the locked blades at Skulker, eyes glowing an intense, furious green.
"You're really crossing a line here, Skulker!"
The hunter's helmeted face split into a malicious grin. "Oh, kid… you don't know the lines I'm willing to cross to have your head as my trophy."
With a powerful kick, Skulker shoved himself free and flipped backward through the air. A bright, searing light ignited over his wrist gauntlet. The emitter spun in a rapid blur, and a thin, razor-sharp laser beam lanced outward like a monomolecular whip.
Danny tucked himself into a tight ball and spun away, instincts screaming that the beam could not be blocked. The cutting laser sliced past him—and struck the Bat-Jet dead center.
The aircraft erupted into a crimson fireball that painted the entire skyline in hellish red and orange. Batman and Robin ejected at the last possible second, their silhouettes briefly visible against the flames as they deployed gliders and fired grappling lines into the distance.
"Danny—!" Batman's warning crackled over the comms, but it was unnecessary.
Danny had already seen it. One of the wild laser beams had carved through the side of a high-rise apartment building like a hot knife through butter. The structure groaned, tilted, and began to collapse.
Screams tore through the night.
"Ahhhh!"
"No! No! No!"
"Mommy!"
Residents spilled from shattered windows, tumbling into open air. Danny split himself in a flash—multiple identical figures peeling away from the original and streaking toward the catastrophe. The duplicates moved with perfect coordination, snatching people two and three at a time out of freefall, phasing them safely through the air, and depositing them on solid ground before vanishing again.
One Danny caught a mother who was still clinging desperately to her young child. He cradled them both with careful strength and set them gently on the street below before rocketing back upward. A couple few phased straight into the crumbling architecture, searching for anyone still trapped inside. A third hovered above the tilting mass of concrete and steel, arms outstretched, white eyes blazing as he poured every ounce of telekinetic power into holding the building aloft. Tons of rubble and debris froze in midair around him, suspended by sheer force of will.
It wasn't the weight that strained him most—it was the razor-edged focus required to keep so many separate objects from plummeting at once. Sweat beaded on his brow. His jaw locked tight.
Then a familiar voice cut through the chaos.
"Here. Let me help."
Sam landed beside him, boots touching down on empty air as if it were solid ground. Violet light already flickered around her hands.
Danny's head turned just enough to catch her in his peripheral vision. Surprise flickered across his face.
"Sam?"
"Just trust me," she said, voice steady despite everything that still hung unspoken between them. "I can help."
Danny let out a short, almost bitter scoff. Sam slowly turned her head toward him, one eyebrow raised in silent challenge. He pressed his lips into a thin line, the expression somewhere between residual hurt and reluctant acknowledgment.
"…Okay. Deserved," she muttered. "But now really isn't the time for that."
Sam exhaled, the sound equal parts exasperation and acceptance. Then her eyes flared with brilliant violet light, the glow intensifying as she reached out toward the suspended ruin beside him.
Sam moved her hands in slow, deliberate arcs, matching the rhythm of Danny's telekinetic hold. Violet energy bled from her palms and wove itself into the suspended ruin, threading through concrete, steel, and glass like living thread.
"Répare!"
The word rang out clear and resonant. At once the fallen structure began to reverse its destruction. Chunks of masonry drifted backward through the air as though someone had pressed rewind on reality itself. Twisted rebar straightened. Cracked walls sealed. Shattered glass shards rose in glittering clouds, each fragment finding its exact place before the fractures sealed shut, restoring the windows to flawless, unbroken panels.
Sam's brow glistened with sweat by the time the last piece locked into position. When she finally lowered her hands, the building stood whole again—scarred, but upright and stable. She exhaled a long, shaky breath, shoulders sagging with the residual strain of a spell far larger than anything she had ever attempted before.
Danny watched the last of the debris settle, a flicker of reluctant admiration crossing his face.
"Well… your magic certainly seems to have improved."
"Thanks," Sam answered, a small, tired smile tugging at her mouth as she brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Tucker finally landed beside them, winged shoes folding neatly against his heels. He offered a cautious grin.
"Nice work, you two."
Danny's gaze shifted to him. "…Tucker."
"Hey," Tucker replied, the word coming out a little too bright, a little too awkward. He flashed a toothy smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
Danny's expression softened for half a second as he noticed the wings attached to Tucker's sneakers. "Nice shoes."
"Thanks," Tucker said, the smile turning more genuine.
Then the moment evaporated. Danny's face hardened again, the familiar green glow returning to his eyes as he glared sternly at both of them.
"Now go home. I'm serious. You shouldn't be here. We'll talk about this later."
Without waiting for a reply, he and every remaining duplicate shot forward in a blur of white and green, converging on the original Danny still locked in combat with Skulker.
Sam and Tucker turned toward each other, the same awkward, rueful smile mirrored on both their faces.
"Think he's mad?" Tucker asked dryly, the question clearly rhetorical.
"Really?" Sam shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm. "What gave that away?"
Across the skyline, the air itself seemed to darken as the swarm of Dannys surrounded Skulker. The hunter raised a shimmering energy shield just in time. Multiple voices roared as one—
"Skulker!"
—and then the Ghostly Wail hit from every direction at once. Waves of pure sonic force slammed into the barrier, making it shudder and crack under the overlapping pressure.
From a nearby rooftop, Batman launched himself into the air, cape snapping open into rigid glider wings. Robin followed a heartbeat later, flipping off the ledge with theatrical flair. Two spectral duplicates streaked down from above and phased directly into them. The moment the phantoms entered, both heroes' eyes flared an eerie green. Their movements sharpened, infused with ghostly speed and strength.
Skulker barely had time to shout in surprise before his shield shattered into glittering fragments. The force of the collapse sent him hurtling backward through the air.
What followed was pure bombardment.
The Dannys dove in as one, an avalanche of spectral energy that lit the city skyline in violent neon green. Explosions of fire bloomed between the buildings. Sheets of ice and swirling snow crystallized the air in the same instant, snowflakes drifting through the smoke like frozen ash. Batman and Robin closed the distance alongside the assault, fists, gadgets, and enhanced limbs battering Skulker from every angle.
Batman drove a powerful knee into the underside of the exo-suit's chin, snapping the hunter's head back. Robin followed with a flying dropkick that cracked against the chest plate. Danny himself appeared in a cyclone of green fire, fists moving so fast they left trailing afterimages of flame as they hammered the armor one after another.
"How the hell are you suddenly this strong?!" Danny demanded between impacts, voice tight with exertion and fury as he noticed nothing was getting through the exo-suit.
Skulker's helmeted face twisted into a smug grin even as the suit absorbed the punishment. "It's all thanks to the marvel of technology," he replied, almost cheerful. "Oh—and it also helps that I'm simply better than you."
Without warning the exo-suit's wrists flared. Dozens of flashbangs erupted in a blinding white nova. Everyone—Danny, the duplicates, Batman, Robin—cried out as the light seared their vision. In that precious second of disorientation, Skulker's blades flashed. Several of the spectral copies were cut down in rapid succession, dissolving into wisps of ectoplasm.
Then Danny unleashed a devastating Ghostly Wail as a counter, the shockwave hurling the ghost hunter backward.
Inside the protective shell of the armor, the small, gelatinous true form of Skulker slapped a series of glowing buttons with frantic precision.
"Computer," he ordered, voice low and hurried, "start analyzing fight patterns and begin constructing a counter-sequence."
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