Phinal Round: 1st Place Match
"Ah, if only Mads were here to see this." Jack Fenton wiped a tear of joy from his eye as the Janitorial Squad power washed the arena. "Any chance you'll do reruns?"
"Uh…"
"Let's just say 'no,'" Vic answered for Tali.
"Sounds good to me." They nodded. "I just wasn't sure if he meant on video, or in person."
"Oh. Well in that case, I can send him home with the security footage. Might keep him entertained enough to stay out of our business."
"Great idea as always, Vic."
The phinal phighters phloated out into the ring below.
“Wait a second.” Danny frowned, squinting at one of the phighters. “Is that… Dash?”
“Dash Backstreet? That football player my son’s buddies with?” Jack nearly jumped out of his seat, but Vic and Lexx managed to hold him down. “Let me at ‘im! There’s no way I’m letting my son go to school with a ghost!”
“So Phantom Planet wasn’t canon after all. Cool.” Tali nodded. They weren’t concerned about Jack right now; Lexx and Vic were applying Denny’s maple syrup to the back of his jumpsuit, which would keep him stuck in his seat even without them restraining him. “And no, that’s not Dash Baxter. That’s Angie Constellaj, one of our two phinalists. She/her for the good ghost, please.”
Angie spun her football on the tip of her finger and winked.
“No such thing as a good ghost,” Jack muttered, but Tali ignored him.
“And our other phinalist is the effervescent Ray (Ghostsray), formerly known as Void. Let’s give them both an explosive welcome!”
Ray tipped their green baseball cap as confetti cannons went off around the arena. The hat filled up with the confetti, which was in the shape of tiny Danno faces. The paper Dannos scattered in Ray’s hair when they put the hat back on. Luckily, Jack was too far away to notice that the faces were modeled after his son.
“Will one of our phighters get torn apart, molecule by molecule? Will Constellaj’s football protect her through the final highs and lows of the Phandom Phight Club? Will Ray’s love-and-gun combo shoot its way into our hearts? Will I ever get to finish playing Xenoblade? There’s only one way to find out!” Tali let out an earsplitting DOOT on their kazoo. “Let the Immortal Kombat begin!”
The speakers began playing a mashup of the Mortal Kombat and Danny Phantom theme songs. It didn’t distract Constellaj, who hurled her football with practiced precision.
“Touchdown!” she shouted as it struck home in Ray’s shoulder.
Ray skidded back, pulling the football free. They bandaged the ectoplasm-leaking wound with their purple scarf.
“I’ve been around this block before.” Ray grinned, cocking their gun. “It’s gonna take more than that to knock me out!”
A pink blast erupted from their gun, which Angie dodged by falling to the ground and beginning to do pushups.
“You think she’s taking the kinning too far?” Danny asked.
Tali shrugged. “Whatever keeps her alive—well, dead, I guess—out there is fine by me.”
And it did. While Ray was busy being impressed at Angie’s physical strength, she leapt to her feet.
“Baxter Beam Attack!” she shouted, firing a ray that obliterated Ray.
“But… the power of love…!” Ray gasped, trying to fight back with their own lovebeam.
“Guess you should’ve loved winning more.” Angie grinned.
With an explosion that smelled mostly of old gym socks, Ray was blasted against the pavement. (Not torn apart molecule by molecule, thankfully. It would be difficult to give the 2nd place trophy to someone who’d been vaporized.)
“And with that, we have our winner!” Tali called through the megaphone. “Ray is unable to battle! Congratulations to Angie Constellaj, the winner of our 2023 Phandom Phight Club!”
Amid cheers and shots, the spectators stormed the arena, as if they’d just finished a particularly tense football game. Angie crowdsurfed over the top of them, basking in the victory.
“I hope everyone had a great time,” Tali said, though even through the megaphone they doubted the excited crowd was listening. “Special thanks to Vic and Lexx, who handled just about everything while I was at ghost college. The Phight couldn’t have happened without their hard work. And thanks to everyone who voted and participated in any other way! We hope you’ll stop by the Denny’s for post-Phight refreshments—pancakes that probably won’t have any hairs in them.”
“No promises,” Vic added with a grin.
“If that happens, we’ll throw in a ghegg as emotional compensation,” Lexx chimed in.
“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Tali agreed. “Thanks for coming everyone, and see you on the other side!”
