Chapter Four
City Hall
Amity Park
With a burst of speed, Danny took off and flew right into the heart of the green fog. Right away, he could see his suspicions confirmed—the glowing, transparent, green dome surrounding City Hall was gone, and there was sort of an eerie silence as the din from weapon turbines, car sirens, fire hoses, and other familiar sounds of crisis and battle died off, leaving only the intermingled shouts of humans and ghosts alike, and the crackling of the burning trees on either side of the town square.
On the ground below, beyond the statue of himself that sat in the center of the square, he saw the Fright Knight advancing on a cluster of his now-defenseless family and friends. A blast of ice from his hands froze the Fright Knight in place—a stopgap measure at best—and the hasty erection of a few ectoplasmic shields, these based on his own ghost energy rather than his father's technology, protected the humans from the remaining skeleton ghosts.
But Valerie was nowhere in sight. This, he decided, was sort of good news/bad news. While he couldn't locate her to protect her from the failure of her suit and sled, he also didn't see any sign that she'd already crashed. She may well have been above the fog when it hit the town square, but it was spreading, and since she would have no way of suspecting what it would do to her equipment, she wouldn't hesitate to fly back into it to continue her assault on the Fright Knight.
Sure enough, in the relative silence, Danny could hear a lone jet turbine whine somewhere above him. He darted upwards just as Valerie and her sled burst into view through the fog. Increasing his speed, he flew at her, tackling her around the midsection like a defensive end rushing the quarterback, knocking her off her sled before it could lose power and send her plummeting to the street below.
Surprised at the sudden attack from her ally, Valerie cried out. "Hey! Let go of me! What are you doing?"
"Saving your butt before your jet sled fails, that's what."
"Fails? What are you talking about?" Wriggling in Danny's arms slightly, she clicked her heels together. With another roar from its turbines, her sled wheeled around and returned to her. "See, my sled is working fine. Now, let go of me!"
Danny frowned. "Wait. Your sled still works?"
"Of course it works! Why wouldn't it?"
As the sled settled itself under Valerie's feet, Danny let go of her, but stayed close. "This fog Aragon created. It kills technology. Everything's dead—the ghost shield, the ecto-weapons, the police cars, the fire trucks. Even Skulker's suit. So, how is your sled still working?"
Before she could answer, Aragon himself appeared in the fog behind Danny. He whirled around to get off a shot, but Valerie, already facing the right direction, was quicker, pegging him with a blast from her arm-mounted bazooka. It hit him hard enough to hurl him backwards, where he disappeared from view in the fog, although they heard the crash as he landed on the ground below.
Danny's eyes widened. "Your weapons work, too?"
"Well, duh!"
"Valerie, no other form of modern technology is working right now. Something's really weird here."
"It's Hunter. And the suit does run off of ecto-energy."
"So does Skulker's cyber-armor, but it died along with everything else."
She gave him an impatient glower. "Look, Phantom. If no other tech is working, then we're down to you and me against Aragon, the Fright Night, and a couple dozen skeleton ghosts. You wanna sit there yammerin' at me, or do you wanna protect our town?"
She was right, of course, but Danny couldn't help but be concerned. They knew so little about what Technus had done to her when he'd bonded the broken pieces of her old suit to her, creating this new one. "Fine. But I'm not done with this."
"Whatever. Let's just—"
Twin roars interrupted her, the first from the Fright Knight as he finally broke free of the ice Danny had used to restrain him, and the second from Aragon as he flew back into the fog. Danny gritted his teeth. "You keep hammering the Fright Nut, and I'll stay on Scaly."
"What about the skeleton ghosts? Without the shield, they're gonna tear City Hall apart."
"We'll just have to worry about them later." Danny dodged as a blast of flame from Aragon scorched the air between him and Valerie. He shot out with ice, dousing the flame before it could set anything else on fire, as Valerie kicked down on the throttle of her sled and rocketed off toward the Fright Knight. Another blast of ice put out most of the flames on one side of the town square.
Aragon shook his huge, horned head. "I already told you, child. You cannot stop me with mere ice."
"Actually, I think I just did."
"Then, think again!"
Before Danny could react, Aragon twisted in the air, catching Danny in the side of the head with the spiked end of his powerful tail. It cut across his face, burning like acid, and sent him flying back into the statue of himself, where he slammed into the globe held aloft in its right hand. The blow knocked the wind out of him and sent him crashing to the ground. Struggling to get to his feet and catch his breath, he wiped at his burning cheek to find his white glove stained bright green with ectoplasm, the ghost version of blood.
Shaking off both the blow and the wound, he launched himself at the dragon once more, this time firing with his ghost ray. It hit Aragon between the eyes, and the dragon reared back, bellowing in either pain or anger—Danny wasn't sure which. Either way, it was only a momentary distraction before he was back for another attack.
Danny went intangible, allowing the dragon to sail through him. Materializing behind him, Danny generated more ectoplasm. His hands glowing green, he let it build up into a ball of energy before he fired it in Aragon's direction, this time aiming not for the dragon himself, but for the thick, gold chain that hung around his neck. If he could just get that amulet off, then Aragon would revert to humanoid form and be all but neutralized as a threat.
Easier said than done, however. The ectoplasm barely scorched the chain, and Aragon wheeled around to face him once more. "Do not think you will be able to remove my amulet so easily, arrogant child. Your human friends are helpless without their precious modern technology, and in my dragon form, I am far too powerful for you to defeat alone!"
Blue flame shot through the fog, slamming into Aragon's flank and sending him crashing to the ground once more. "Good thing he's not alone, then, brother!"
Danny blinked in surprise, then looked up to see a second dragon, this one pale blue with bright green horns and matching green scales down its back.
Even more surprising was that it carried a rider—a female ghost with blue-tinged skin and electric blue hair pulled up into a high ponytail that fanned out like a flame from the top of her head. Her eyes were lined with black swirls that made even the makeup Sam wore for club nights at the Skulk and Lurk seem tame, and she was wearing a skin-tight black halter and leggings that ended in knee-high silver platform boots, with a hot-pink electric guitar slung across her back.
A relieved smile stretched across Danny's face. "Dora! Ember!" Then he schooled his features into a dry grin. "Nice of you to finally join the party."
"Watch the lip, baby pop," the rider, Ember McLean, shot back. "We were kinda busy with some nasty surprises the Fright Knight left for us. And, considering we just saved your butt from being flame-broiled, you should be on your knees thanking us."
Below them, Aragon heaved himself onto all four feet, then launched himself up toward them. "Dorothea! How did you get your amulet back?"
The blue dragon shook her head. "Oh, no. My days of answering to you are over." Her high and slightly nasal voice, no matter how regal her tone, was incongruous with her sharp, reptilian claws and teeth.
"We'll see about that!" Aragon tried to blast her with more fire, but Danny got between them and threw up an ice shield.
With her brother temporarily distracted, Dora flew up over their heads. "Still trying to live in the past, eh, brother? Let's see what we can do about that." And with a great breath, she breathed out more flame of her own, this time aimed at the fog around them. It burned away, allowing the warm summer sun to shine through again. As soon as the fog had cleared, there was a great clatter and whine of weapons, fire engines, and sirens coming back to life.
"Music to my ears." Ember flew up off Dora's back, pulling her guitar off her own. "And speaking of music, now that the power's back on..." She turned a knob on her guitar, then struck a loud, jangling power chord. Pink waves, like visible sound, rocketed outward, slamming into Aragon, sending him hurtling back to the ground once more.
Dora turned to Danny. "We'll take care of my fossil of a brother. Your friends could probably use your help with the Fright Knight."
Danny gritted his teeth. He really wanted to focus on Aragon, payback for what happened to Danielle. But the Fright Knight really was the bigger problem, and Sam's warning for him to fight for the right reasons reverberated through his brain. With a sigh, he agreed to Dora's plan. "He's all yours. Just... kick him extra hard for me, okay?"
Dora bared her teeth in something Danny thought was probably supposed to be a smile of understanding, then she swooped down to where Aragon was struggling to regain his feet.
Danny turned in the opposite direction, where Valerie was keeping the Fright Knight too busy deflecting laser blasts and projectiles from her various sled- or suit-mounted weapons to manage to sink his sword into the ground. Jazz, meanwhile, had used an ecto-foamer to free herself and the other humans from the plasma shields Danny had set up to protect them when their weapons had stopped working.
As soon as Tucker was free, he charged toward City Hall, waving a Fenton Thermos and an Ecto-Blaster over his head. "Oh, no, you don't, you two-bit bags of bones! This is my town!"
"Tucker, wait!" Sam called out after him in vain. "If the Fright Knight uses that sword to suck the whole town into the Ghost Zone or something, a few skeletons in City Hall aren't gonna matter much!"
Danny brought himself up to hover above her. "No, he's right. You, Jazz, and the parents should go help Tucker mop up the rest of the skeleton warriors. The ghosts are dealing with Aragon, and Hunter and I can handle the Fright Knight."
Sam frowned. "Are you sure? He almost got that sword into the ground twice."
"Don't worry. I've got an idea. Just go keep Mayor Foley from getting himself assassinated, 'kay?"
She nodded, and Danny was off again, looping around the ongoing battle between the black-armored ghost and the red-armored human. Valerie, barely sparing a glance his way, huffed out through her helmet, "Is ghost fighting... a spectator sport now... or are you gonna... lend me... a hand?"
"I've got your back, Hunter," Danny said, pulling up short behind her as he let his core temperature drop.
She ducked beneath a swipe of the Fright Knight's blade, then directed a ray of pink plasma at him from a weapon mounted on her left arm. He deflected it with his sword, sending it back in her direction and forcing her to dodge once more. "Today?"
"Keep your suit on." Danny took a deep breath, then released a blue bolt of ice out through his fingertips. Directing it to the ground beneath the Fright Knight's feet, he created a slick frost. The Fright Knight lost his footing, landing with a thud on his back, but Danny didn't stop. He kept pouring frozen energy into the ground, letting it spread through the soil all around them.
While he kept at his assault on the ground, the Fright Knight righted himself, then floated into the air. "Foolish child. I am a ghost. Slippery ground will not stop me."
To prove his point, he flew at him, his sword aimed at Danny's heart. Danny redirected the ice from his right hand to form a shield before returning to the task at hand. When the Fright Knight's sword glanced off the shield, Valerie added in a blast of her own, pegging the armored ghost in the back and knocking him onto the now-frozen pavement. He slid several yards before regaining control of himself, then he was up in the air and charging them once more.
This time, it was Valerie who made a shield out of her pink ectoplasm, but the Fright Knight stopped short and, instead of directing his attack at them, raised his sword high over his head then, with two hands on its hilt, plunged it down toward the earth.
"In the name of my lord and liege, Vlad Plasmius, I—" He stopped short when the point of his blade, rather than sinking into the ground, barely chipped at the frozen soil.
Danny finally stopped his assault and crossed his arms in front of his chest as he hovered a few feet in the air. "Frozen ground's a little hard on the old sword, eh Fright Nut?"
"But my blade cuts through anything. It's a ghost sword!"
"And this is ghost ice."
While the Fright Knight was distracted, Valerie took another shot at him with a weapon Danny didn't even recognize, which hovered over her left shoulder. As the Fright Knight fell backwards once more, another figure slammed down beside him—a man clothed in a purple tunic and black cape with pale blue skin, a hooked nose, long, stringy gray hair, and red eyes. Behind him, Dora landed on her two hind feet, a satisfied smile on her dragon face, and a green amulet on a gold chain dangling from the claws of her right forefoot. Skulker, back in his cyber-armor once more, floated alongside Ember behind the great, blue dragon.
Without even raising himself from the ground, the Fright Knight let out a shrill whistle. A loud whinny came in response, and the Nightmare charged between Danny and Valerie, knocking them both aside. The armored ghost mounted his steed quickly, dragging the stringy-haired man with him and laying him prone across the horse's rump. "This is your fault, Aragon! You were supposed to keep the humans from using their weapons!"
"I warned you that if my sister got her amulet back, she would counteract my powers. You said she and the minstrel ghost had been dealt with!"
The Fright Knight didn't respond, but kicked his horse, sending her galloping upwards, flapping her great, black, bat-like wings. Danny, Valerie, and Skulker rose up after them to give chase, but they disappeared in a swirl of purple smoke.
A moment later, three skeleton ghosts came racing out of City Hall and down the steps, only to run into the ghost shield, which prevented them from getting out just as well as it prevented them from getting in. Six humans came charging after them, Danny's dad in the lead. He nailed one of the three skeletons with his Bazooka, blasting it into fragments.
Jazz got the second one with a Jack o' nine tails, a whip-like device with several claw-ended tendrils and an image of their father's face in the middle. The tendrils wrapped around the ghost, shattering it. Sam blasted the third with a Fenton Wrist Ray, then sucked it, along with the loose bones from the other two skeletons, into a Fenton Thermos.
Behind them, Tucker appeared in the doorway of City Hall, his legs slightly spread and his hands on his hips in a classic Superman pose. "I told you, nobody takes City Hall on my watch. This is Mayor Foley's town!"
