The freezing-cold portal deep within the Ruins had spat him out in front of a giant skeleton. The Ruinsletters streaming in his vision, the skeleton crouched, ready to pounce.
Danny threw himself into action, jumping to the side and transforming in one motion. Then he stopped, crashing into a wall, clutching his head. The room spun. A pain behind his eyes flared angrily. Frantically, he spun his head around, gasping through the additional pain, squinting through blurry vision. The skeleton still crouched, looking toward where Danny had appeared.
It wasn't moving. It was a display. The accursed green letters and orange dots and purple stars had caused some sort of optical illusion.
"That's not ideal," Danny said to himself. "But… I think I'm in the Museum." For he was. Frost licked up the walls. He kicked up snow as he left the empty building. And what he descried was heart-wrenching.
Amity Park was a desolate wasteland. A ghost town.
The overcast sky pelted the earth with hail.
The roads were flooded with snow; the snow froze solid.
Ice ran up and down the buildings, rooves groaning under the weight of the snowfall.
Almost every window Danny saw was broken, curtains and blinds blowing in the subzero wind.
. * . * .
Wisconsin, alternatively, was a fiery hell.
All at once when they left the comparatively cool basement of the University of Wisconsin-Madison the heatwave struck.
Sam hissed like a vampire seeing the sun (only half-jokingly). Paulina fainted straight out.
"I swear I just felt all moisture leave my body," said Tucker, hands on his knees.
Vlad took point. "Let's hurry before we give ourselves heat stroke."
Dash hauled Paulina onto his shoulder. Then they braced themselves and ventured once more into the fire that was Wisconson.
They marched to the sound of thousands of cicadas screaming their heads off. The pavement was so hot, their shoes stuck to the cement.
As if the heat wasn't enough, a Plasmius clone was back. Before they even saw him, he had snatched from Vlad the Crown of Fire, laughing madly.
"Vlad!" shouted Sam, as she and Tucker approached him, shoulders squared. "What's the meaning of this?"
Dash and Valerie stepped between them and Vlad. "Mayor Masters isn't all=powerful, nerds. He can't stop a ghost all the time!" Sam and Tucker leveled Vlad with a pair of glares.
Vlad raised an eyebrow at them, as if to say, Tit for tat, blow for blow. And they stopped, for they almost revealed to Dash of all people Vlad's secret identity. As per Vlad's blackmail scheme, they couldn't leak Plasmius without Vlad proclaiming Danny's own secret.
At an impasse, Tucker and Sam most certainly did not pout. They stewed in anger and helplessness and paranoia at what Vlad wanted with the Crown.
. * . * .
"Dad! I can't breathe!"
"Oh! Sorry, Jazzy-pants."
Maddie addressed the crowd of Nocturn's victims. "Everyone, you're in the Ghost Zone, home of the ectoplasmic scum we call ghosts. If you'll follow us in an orderly fashion, we can all get out of here in one piece!"