Danny took a quick look around the room. Fighting had largely stopped. The front of the building lay in ruins. Beyond it he could see a crowded mass of troops from The Order but they seemed hesitant to charge into the remains of the building. Perhaps they were waiting for someone to give them an order. Walker was sprawled on the floor,, a sight Danny had hoped but never really expected to see. However around him, in a pile, were four of his dozen renegades, including Psycho and Hammerhead. That was a third of his "army" right there. He felt a chill running down his back. How was he going to defeat the Commandants with such a small force. It had seemed so easy at first but now that reality was setting in Danny was losing his confidence. Still the members of PET'EM had come to his aid after all. And there was some hope in that.

Looking around he found Wulf standing in a corner, carefully looking for guards to attack. Danny remembered how when he had first met Wulf the werewolf-like creature had been throwing guards around like so many rag dolls. Wulf was incredibly strong and, when desperate, a ruthlessly aggressive fighter. But he tended to avoid fights. That he had come at all with his PET'EM colleagues had been a surprise. Danny couldn't fault him for taking a diffident approach to the battle, that was just who Wulf was, but he could use the other, more forceful, Wulf right now.

"Wulf," he cried, "good to see you!"

"Friend." Which was about all the English Wulf knew. He awkwardly hugged Danny, being careful not to shred him with his dimension-rendering claws.

"I need a favor from you," Danny said. "I need a tunnel from this room through some other dimension into the back of the room in the next building. Can you do that?"

"Tun-nel" Wulf echoed. Danny wasn't sure if that meant Wulf understood what he asked or not.

"We need to go there," Danny said, pointing towards the wall nearest the Commandant's main building. "We don't want to go out there." He pointed to the masses of people waiting expectantly outside the front of the building they were in.

"Ah-h." Wulf growled. "Tun-nel." and he made kind of a looping gesture towards the wall Danny had indicated.

"Yes! Tunnel!"

Wulf flexed his claws and bounded across towards towards the wall Danny had pointed to. Danny looked around and found Johnny 13 fighting with a guard across the room. Danny flew towards them and socked the guard from the rear. He realized that this wasn't the honorable way to win battles but from years of being bullied in school, realized that honor and winning rarely went hand in hand.

"Johnny, gather up the rest of our guys. Wulf is going to open a portal into the Commandant's room. We're going to take them by surprise."

Johnny nodded agreed and rushed away. Danny went to find the rest of PET'EM. He found the Lunch Lady on the upper floor balcony nursing a charred hand. Her machine-gun meat-grinder lay on the floor in a melted twisted mess. "Are you going to be OK?" He asked.

The elderly ghost scowled and held up her other hand. "I've still got my ladle!" Danny looked at the large metal scoop and nodded. He pointed to where Wulf was. "We're going through there to take out the Commandant and put an end to this Order thing."

She flew off.

Danny looked around some more, finding both Rollo and Lord Faultless Roy sprawled on floor. He wasn't sure what they could have brought to the fight but he would have liked to have still had them with him.

Youngblood came limping up, dressed as the Spirit of 1776, wrapped in bandages and tapping on a drum. Danny wasn't sure whether he was just in costume or seriously hurt but directed him over by Wulf as well. Then he went looking for Ember.

He found her trashing a room on the upstairs floor. "Where's Penelope Spectra?"

"The bitch took a powder!" Ember snarled. "Took one look at me and ran. Didn't even have a chance to hit her! I tried blasting her out of the sky with a hot riff but she was already too far away."

"And this..." Danny waved at the trashed room.

"Just making sure there isn't anything for her to come back to."

"Uh huh. Look, Wulf's digging a tunnel into the Commandant's building. We take them out this Order thing will just collapse. You want in on that, or do you have a little more aggro to take out on this room?"

"I don't know who the hell the Commandants are but if that pulls the plug on these goosesteppers, let's do it!"

Danny joined the group as Wulf was shredding through dimensions. Looking at his motley crew Danny quailed. How was he supposed to overthrow the leaders of such a large organization with thousands of members with less than twelve fighters on his side.

Brave front, he thought, brave front. Can't let the others know his own doubts.

As Wulf pulled apart the last dimensional scrim Danny finally could see into the master chamber. Wulf had found a back wall, like he had asked. Through the portal they could see scores and scores of guards filling the main hall, all facing towards the front doors. The three Commandants could be seen at their chairs, waiting for something to happen.

"Man, that's a lot of guards," Johnny 13 whispered.

"Yeah, but they're too close together. They'll get into each other's way when they have to fight." Danny answered.

That gave him an idea. He flew over to where Cujo was cheerfully tearing the uniform off one of the downed guards. Danny took it from his enormous jaws, slapping the beast friendily on the neck. He tied the shredded uniform in a knot and called for the dog to follow. As they got to the portal the other ghosts readily gave way to the monster dog.

In front of the portal Danny teased Cujo for a moment with the knotted up uniform before throwing it far into the Commandant's command chamber. "Fetch!" Danny said and slapped the dog on its rump. With a joyful bark the eight foot tall dog bounded into the room. Guards were scattered like ninepins when the got into the dog's way.

"Let go!" Danny yelled and charged into the room. "Remember don't look the Commandants in the eye!"

He formed a large shield of ectoplasm and sweep around the room, knocking over more guards, clipping the ones trying to get up. The other had spread out as they crossed over into the Command hall and were engaged with the guards on a more one-to-one basis. Johnny 13, though remembered their purpose and was heading straight for the trio of chairs the Commandants were sitting in. His shadow split off and swooped after one while Johnny hurled himself at another.

"Gotcha, you bast-" his scream was cut off abruptly as Johnny stiffened and fell just in front of the Commandant. His shadow screamed as well, plowed through the Commandant, throwing him from his chair. Then Johnny's shadow raced back to the paralyzed ghost and fused with his body.

Danny, staring at their feet, tried to drive through them with his shield but the chairs were built with elaborate backs and wooden sides and bolted tightly to the floor. His shield caught on the chair and sent him tumbled through the air before cracking up against a wall. He rolled up into the air again, charging the commandants, this time hurling balls of flaming ectoplasm at them. He rocketed over their heads, turning around as fast as he could. While looking at them only from the corner of his eye he could tell that his fireballs had bounced off them harmlessly.

He came in from above for another attack. While two of the Commandants were scrambling for shelter under the table in front of their chairs, the third turned to stare in Danny's direction. Danny turned his eyes away as fast as he could but apparently it wasn't fast enough. He felt his arms and legs grow stiff and heavy. He fought hard to break the spell of status. But while he could sort of move his arms it was like they had fallen asleep; they are hard to manage, hard to force them to do what he wanted.

He flew past the Commandant's dais of Authority and smacked into the ceiling before falling to the floor. Guards were scrambling to surround him when a sharp musical blast sent them tumbling.

"He's my sock money," Ember cried, "Hands off!"

She turned towards the Commandants and began playing a fast-paced melody on her guitar. Her fingers blurred as they plucked at the strings. "Don't try your games on me!" she shouted, "I'm the master of hypnosis around here! People hear my songs and they can't stop chanting my name. Say it!"

The guards slowly began chanting "Ember! Ember!" Danny was surprised that Ember had any kind of power over other ghosts. He had thought her crowd controlling power worked only on humans. Maybe the chanting of her name over here in the Ghost Zone didn't give her special powers but she did have the guards stopped in their tracks.

She slide into another melody, one with a pronounced one-two-three beat. Slowly the guards started a shambling dance to the beat. Danny found that as the Commandants attention focused on Ember his paralysis was wearing off. He forced himself off the floor and on to his feet. He stagged towards the center of the room where the Commandant's dais rose. He flicked his eyes back and forth around the room, avoiding the dangerous eye-contact with the giant eyes of the renegade Observants.

As he neared their dais he knew he only had one shot at ending this. He'd already learned that they were invulnerable to average ectoplasmic fire. He would have to hit them with something much harder. Something that was sure to take them out. There was only one trick left in his arsenal that could do that.

He paused about fifteen feet from the chairs and took a breath. He reached deep inside himself and found the power. Then he opened his mouth and whispered a light wavering "O-o-o"

But the song, the wail that poured out of his mouth hit with a power of a sledge hammer. The heavy table in front of the Commandants went sailing over their heads. The chairs they were seated in rocked and creaked before collapsing into a storm of shards and kindling. The Commandants were hauled into the air, bounced off the ceiling which shook and trembled like a canvas sheet instead of the wood like structure it was. The Commandants fell to the floor, were picked up again and dashed against the back wall of the room. The wall shuddered and collapsed on them. The ceiling started to fall but was caught in the force of the Wail and was blown far into the sky.

The Ghostly Wail trailed off. It had only lasted a few seconds but had utterly devastated the Command Center of the Order. Ghosts who had been near the direction of Danny's Ghostly Wail were collapsed on the floor. A few had even popped like balloons and disappeared, the wail too much for their ectoplasmic forms to resist. Danny swayed for an instant then fell to the floor as rings of light sprouted from his body, traveled the length of his form, transforming him from Danny Phantom to Danny Fenton.

The Thunderer pulled himself from off the floor where he had fallen and raced over to the collapsed wall. Throwing aside some timbers he pulled from the rubble one of the Commandants. He raised his baton and brought it down smartly on the creature's head. Dropping the body to the floor he searched for the next and did the same to it, and again to the last of the leaders of the Order.

Through the broken wall could be seen the thousands of the Order standing in crowded rows outside, nervous, uncertain, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Ember was kneeling by Danny's side, slapping his face. "Hey, Kid," she was saying "what the hell did you do?"

After a moment Danny woke up and pushed her hand away. As he struggled into a sitting position he asked, "Did we get them?"

"Looks like it," Ember told him.

"Then where's Clockwork?" Danny asked.

Ember was about to ask 'who' when a cloud appeared in the middle of what remained of the Order's Command Center. The cloud resolved into the face of a clock. It's hands raced around the dial until they had returned to their original twelve o'clock position, The face of the clock swung open and Clockwork, currently looking like a one-eyed old man, stepped through. He stepped aside and a dozen members of the Council of Observants marched through. Meanwhile Jazz was landing the Specter Speed which had come in through the missing roof. Danny wondered why she hadn't come through the clock-face portal but then with Clockwork few things made much sense.

"You're late," Danny told the ghost of Time. "I expected you ten seconds ago."

"I expected to find you on your feet by now," Clockwork, regressed to the shape of an infant, snapped back.

Danny watched as the twelve Observants approached their renegade members. Six of them split off and watched as the other six snapped oddly shapes shackles around their hands and feet. A sack was pulled over their single, enormous eye. Danny surmised the Observants were just as susceptible to the their own hypnosis power as anyone else.

Then two to a renegade the six Observants dragged their prisoners back to the clock-face portal, followed by the other Observents, who must have been there to observe the arrest.

As they disappeared into the portal Clockwork turned to Danny. "Through they will not speak it, the Council of Observants are very grateful for your work today, Daniel Fenton. Should you ever need it, you hold a debt of favor from them."

"You mean, you don't know if I'll need it." Danny asked. Since Clockwork claimed to know the future as well as the past and present it seemed strange that he should say 'if' instead of 'when.'

"What I know I'm not allowed to share," he said with a smile then stepped into the clock-face portal. With a nod he stepped back and the portal disappeared.

"What was that all about?" Jazz asked, finally picking her away through the rubble of the destroyed room.

"Who knows. I'm tired. Let's go home."

Before he could take a step through something nudged him in the back. turning he saw Cujo, all eight feet of him, with the knotted up uniform in his mouth. The dog dropped it at Danny's feet and ran his enormous wet tongue over Danny's face. Jazz laughed sympathetically. "At this rate you'll never get rid of him," she said.

"I always wanted a pet."

"You can't keep him at home. How would you explain it to Dad?"

"What, that I have a dog?"

"Who's a ghost!"

"Oh, yeah, that. Well, he'll just have to stay in the ghost zone."

"Do you really think he'll stay?"

"Of course." Danny chucked his dog under the chin and called him a good boy. After a moment he realized he was surrounded by ghosts. His gang, some of the guards they had beat up and some of the guards from outside. "What happens now?" one of the guards from the crowds outside asked.

What indeed. Danny had never thought that far ahead. But his answer was pretty clear. He walked to the front doors and pushed them open. He was surprised the doors opened without the entire wall falling down. He was on a small porch a few steps off the ground. A sea of people stood before him, staring. After a moment they quieted and waiting for Danny to speak.

"The Order is no more. The Commandants, criminals from the society of Observants, have been arrested and taken away for punishment. You are free to pursue a life of your own!"

There was a low murmur following that. While Danny couldn't make out what individuals were saying he got the impression that many were not at all excited about living life on their own. He held up his hands and waited for the crowd to quiet.

"You have fifteen minutes to collect your possession, after which time this camp will be leveled. Anyone remaining here will be leveled as well. That is all."

The crowd stood there for another moment murmuring. When it was obvious that no one was moving, Danny raised his voice and hollered, "Move it, people," and blasted the side of the building. Part of the roof collapsed on the ground. People moved away from the debris at first, then slowly kept going. When it looked like they were all going Danny went inside to talk with his sister. He thanked her for send the members of PET'EM, told his army of malcontents to get going as well, before sending The Thunderer to let the guards they had waylaid earlier loose so they could escape before Danny destroyed the camp.

Jazz flew the members of PET'EM back to their refugee camp in the Speeder. It was a cramped voyage until Danny was able to convince Cujo to become a puppy.

As the Speeder slipped through the Ghost Zone Portal back into their world and slipped into its place on the holding rack Danny fought off yawn after yawn. "Jazz," he said as she was shutting down the engine and instruments on the Speeder, "I'm going to bed and sleep till Sunday."

He almost fell in bed in his cloths but found strength enough to put on his pajamas first. Instantly he was in a deep sleep. Only to awake hours later when something heavy settled on his bed. He sat up wondering what strange bedfellow this would be. He was half afraid that he might find Ember McLain next to him. But it wasn't the ghost rock and roller. At the foot of his bed - laying on the floor actually - with only his head on the bed was Cujo. Danny lay back with a sigh. Come morning he was going to have to take the demon dog back to the Ghost Zone and teach him some more about the meaning of the word 'stay', but for now it just felt kind of nice to have a pet - his own pet - sleep at the foot of his bed.