Chapter Eight:

The empty briefcase, which Wraith had gone through a lot to get, tumbled uselessly to the floor like the piece of shit that it was. As if sensing that something was amiss, the trusty headphones that were always wrapped around his neck crackled to life as soon it hit the floor. It was, of course, Slade, and Danny made a sound that was some sort of mixture between a groan and a sob. He really did not want to talk to the guy right now.

After a few more seconds of staring with the blankest expression, Wraith slowly raised a hand to his headphones, moving strands of white hair to the side to access his mentor's communications link. Normally it was connected by default, but he made sure to temporarily disable it during his little rendezvous.

Instead of letting Slade talk first, Danny let his attitude get the best of him.

"Respectfully, sir… This is a joke, right? I just had to deal with the most annoying nuisances to ever exist, so please don't play with me. I'm not in the mood."

"Get back to base," Slade said. He completely ignored every word that had just come out of Danny's mouth, much to the sixteen-year old's surprise. Generally, Slade would usually respond with at least some semblance of a scolding whenever Danny got particularly sassy.

Something was wrong.

He put his frustration at his own predicament to the side for a moment. Although he would have loved to confront the Light and rant at the cowards hiding behind screens like the idiot that he was, it was probably not the best way to approach the situation.

But then again, Danny never was one to think social situations through.

"Don't you 'get back to base' me! This stupid briefcase doesn't have anything in it! Sir." Wraith yelled, picking up the briefcase and shaking it around just for good measure.

"And he opened it. Of course. Why am I not surprised?" After uttering a few words to himself, which were not in Danny's favor, Slade finally addressed him with a dismissive, "but that doesn't matter right now. Just come back to base."

"Alright, fine, but you bet your ass you're explaining everything later."

Despite the rather explicit demand, Slade said nothing and cut off the communications link, which Wraith decided to take as an automatic agreement. He teleported back to the house (refusing to call it a base, no matter what Slade said), ready to have a heated discussion with his mentor. However, there was just one problem.

Slade wasn't there.

Danny flicked out a hand with pursed lips, looking around the empty room. Great. This is just… wait, this is great! He grinned and practically skipped down the hallway. Since Slade wasn't here, he could talk to the Light without restraint! That is, if he could get into contact with them. Although, that did beg the question… where exactly was Slade?

Oh well. He didn't care enough to find out.

"What are you doing?" Slade asked, almost giving Danny a heart-attack at the sudden question bursting through his headphones.

"Me? Nothing, I'm just… I'm… taking a shit!" Danny blurted out. At this point, he found the Light conference room and began his attempt at navigating through the strange monitors that lined the walls.

There was a long moment of silence. Then Slade let out a long, deep sigh.

"Daniel, I can see you through the cameras. Get off that computer. I need you to go the corridor three and secure the USB drive labeled '9Q7'."

"The forbidden corridor?" Danny gasped in delight.

"Yes, the forbidden corridor."

"Consider it done, Master."

Corridor three was insane. It was probably the worst hallway to ever exist in the history of hallways. Honestly, it was so over-the-top and securely guarded that Danny couldn't even see why anything there would need to be secured. If anybody tried to bypass its security, it was game-over.

A towering steel door blocked off the entrance. The only way to get it open was by using the invisible handprint scanner that was extremely high up on the wall. In fact, it was so inconveniently high that it was a wonder how Slade even got to it. Danny could only imagine the mercenary jumping and slamming his hand into the wall like some glorified basketball player.

Thankful that he was one of the few able to access it, Wraith flew to the general direction of the scanner. It took a few tries to find it, but, eventually, a large, blaring red square appeared underneath his hand, giant letters screaming out, 'ACCESS DENIED'

Before he could even blink, the regular artificial lights all shut off and were replaced by flashing red ones, accompanied by an ear-splitting alarm.

"Holy fuck!" Wraith yelled, green-eyes widening in surprise.

Weapons immediately retracted from the ceiling, eerily turning in unison to point at their target. Said target repeated more curses and turned intangible, flying through the door just as an explosion of gunfire rained down where he had just been standing.

He could have phased through the door in the first place, but the security system would have registered him as an intruder. Using the scanner was the only way to get through the entrance unscathed. However, Slade was a paranoid bastard, and on the off chance that someone managed to cut off his hand to use it on the scanner, the motion sensors lining the hallway would have immediately registered them as unfriendly. Danny, apparently, fell into that category.

The hurried divebomb into the forbidden corridor led to a harsh crash-landing onto the cement floor. A dozen or so Sladebots were waiting on the other side, Wraith's sudden presence making them surge forward with dark, glaring eyes trained on him. Danny just grinned at the advancing robots and turned intangible.

The plan was to go the easy way out and simply fly through the defenses.

He should have known that it wouldn't be that easy.

It all happened in an instant. The Sladebots were backed by several guns lining the ceiling, like the weapons that had previously shot at him outside the hall, and, as if a signal went off, they started firing in sync. Wraith flew forward, directly into the barrage of attacks with the expectation of them passing through him.

Surprise, surprise.

He was sent flying backwards, careening into the hard metal door.

What the…!

No longer intangible, Wraith dusted himself off and stood up, eyes lighting a ferocious green.

Alright, I know this is short, but I promised myself I would update today, so~ I'm sure you have a lot of questions about what's going on, so most, if not all, of them will be answered and it will all make sense next chapter! (Hopefully xD)

RR:

Ms. McClue: You have a lot of great guesses, and one of them is right but I won't say which xD

cg037: Aww, thank you, I'm so glad! :D

The Crossover Addict: Yeeeess they are! It makes happy that you liked my fight scene because I basically suck at those xD

Kodi: Okay, BUT I FEEL THE SAME EXACT WAY WHEN I READ YOUR STUFF. However, everything might not turn out like you're expecting it to xD BE SURPRISED.

Rosie dragoneel: YES DANNY CAN RELATE SO MUCH! Honestly, same, but I know what happens later so I feel better about it xD

Drift219: Thank you! The Light will eventually be in trouble, but not yet :D

bluesz: ...you're right, he could have xD Whoops. But it was much more dramatic this way, I guess :D I can totally see that conversation happening, dude, thank you!

To the first four guests that all said similar things: Nope, Danny isn't, but so many things are happening that we'll just have to wait for it to play out :D

Nightwing15: I'm so glad you like it!

MoonStalker90: We'll see. I might talk more about the villain community Danny sometimes hangs around later~

Last two Guests: Thank you so much!