Back in Amity Park, the Fenton household was a wreck. Before going off to Delaware, Paranormalics had searched the place top to bottom, looking behind and through everything. Fortunately, they couldn't manage to break into the lab. The Ghost-Zone Portal was left fully functional as always, ready for when Jack came back to try and figure out how it worked. The energy wave from The Endgame was now consuming Amity. The minute it hit The Ghost-Zone Portal, it began to flow into that realm...
---
Skulker sat in his lair, surrounded by cages filled with things rare and unique. One cage sat on the desk in front of him, and he stared into it, a nasty grin on his face.
"Ah," he sighed, "A Nanotyrannus ghost. A little-known cousin of the tyrannosaur. Welcome to your new home," a strange noise distracted him, "What is that?" he ran outside. A strange white glow was approaching fast.
"That light," he squinted, "So dazzling, so...bright," he watched as it passed over and through him, leaving everything with a silver tint. As it touched him, he began to feel strange. It started off as a brief aching throughout his body; he'd been having that problem lately. But he soon knew that it wasn't a brief pain. It intensified, causing sparks to fly out from his armour. It was getting hard to stand and his vision slowly blurred.
"What is this!?" he cried out to no one, dropping to his knees and throwing his hands up to his head. His armour was going crazy, forcing him to lean back as it grew worse. The wave of light continued through The Ghost-Zone, sending all into a panic. The girl desiring to go to the ball became a dragon from the confusion of what it was, her howls echoing all over. Desiree was halted in mid-flight as she searched for one with a great desire. Walker and his ghost-guards dropped where they stood, as did the prisoners. The energy kept on spreading through The Ghost-Zone, seeping through all the cracks in the doors and continuing on Earth.
---
Vlad struggled to make his way over to the package, where the headband still lay.
"Traitors…" he muttered. Why hadn't they let him know when The Endgame would be fired?
"This is what ya' get for bein' evil, don't ya' know?" the ghost of the Dairy King flew down, obviously suffering as much as Vlad.
"It's happening to you too!" the hybrid managed to say.
"Yeah, but I'm just an unfortunate victim of circumstance. You actually deserve..."
"Shut up and get out my..." he couldn't finish his sentence. The pain was too much. He slowly tried to make his way over to the table where the package rested.
---
Danny didn't know if the force of his energy being pulled out of him was as great as the pain of the ghosts The Endgame was poisoning, but he doubted it. The energy was leaving him in sudden bursts and surges, though he could constantly feel something being drained. The next surge happened, sending sparks shooting out from all of the machines.
"Have to get loose..." Danny muttered through clenched teeth, "But how!?" he then remembered, "This thing only runs on ghost power...that's it!" Danny closed his eyes, but with everything being drained out of his body, he could barely focus. As soon as he tried to change back, another surge of life went out from him. He couldn't even form the two blue rings. Only certain strands of his hair went dark.
"Must...change...back," he muttered before a yell was drawn out from him, more energy leaving his body. His eyes closed tighter, his body becoming more tense. Parts of him began to glow blue, peeling away at his ghost form to reveal his normal self beneath. He kept trying, and his efforts managed to lessen the severity of the next loss of power. The sounds caused by all the machines began to die down. Danny kept as focused as he could, slowly coming back to his true self in an unusual but effective manner. Finally, with a sudden burst, he was back to normal, the clamps opening and the rings halting abruptly. Danny collapsed to the floor, coughing and unable to move. The strange glowing energy of The Endgame; at this point having spread into the Midwest and well into the Atlantic; vanished strangely, quickly being sucked back in.
---
"What the heck just happened?" Fountain muttered. The silvery glow that tinted everything just a moment before had vanished, as if sucked back to whence it came. Conrad shrugged and looked back at his men. Some ghosts were unconscious, and all were in no shape to fight, but they would be fine, and were slowly recovering.
"Jack?" he pulled out his walkie-talkie.
"Talk to me, General!"
"Any idea what that light was?"
"Not a clue. Came from a room near us."
"Where's Danny?"
"An ectoplasmic ghost-wall separated us. He said he'd find a way around and we haven't seen him since."
"Find him. Whatever that was, it started to kill off the ghosts in our camp. And keep distracting the soldiers while you're at it. We'll let the ghosts recover and enter the base in..." he checked his watch, "two minutes."
---
"You heard the man!" Jack shouted, "Let's move!" they all ran down the hallway, turning at the first left turn.
---
Danny slowly got up on his knees, still out of breath. He had heard footsteps a few seconds earlier, but they were gone now.
"Sam..." he said to himself between gasps. Bruce wasn't one to waste time from what Danny saw, "I've gotta warn her!" going ghost, he tried to phase through the wall, but slammed into it head-first, collapsing to the ground.
"Shoulda guessed," he muttered as he got up, rubbing his head. He noticed another control panel like the one by the door outside. Danny hit the green button, and the doors swung open.
"If I wasn't still dazed from being in that thing I would've seen that in the first place," he flew off.
---
Bruce calmly opened a drawer in his desk shortly after the glow from The Endgame vanished. Danny must have been too young and his powers not developed enough. Hopefully his girlfriend, being more unstable once infected again, would prove more adequate as a power source. He grabbed the injection gun, placed it in the inside pocket of his overcoat, and walked out of his office.
---
Jack and the others were about to turn again when Sam signalled for them to stop. Around the corner was a large group of Paranormalics agents, looking around for them.
"What do we do?" Maddie whispered.
"Run?" Tucker asked hopefully.
"BANZAI!!!!" Jack charged into the group of soldiers, the Ghost Gloves charged and ready.
"I guess that answers that question," Jazz sighed.
---
The door to the base blown up by a bomb, the Resistance forces charged into the base. The guards had broken up into small, scattered groups, easily captured or defeated.
"Find the Fentons and their friends!" Conrad shouted to his men as they ran down the halls.
---
Danny could hear the sounds of combat all over the base.
"Looks like Conrad and those guys finally got in here," he said to himself, "I'll take a shortcut to the action," with that, he phased through a wall, and found an interesting room. The headbands that Bruce said protected ghosts from The Endgame were lying all over, on tables or in boxes.
"This might be a good room to remember in case..." he didn't want to think about the next part of the sentence. He flew off again.
---
Some members of the Resistance managed to find Jack and the others just as they were about to lose. The area of combat in which they duelled was right in front of a plain-looking door. Behind it was the darkest room in the entire lair; there was just one single light bulb hanging in the centre of the ceiling. A railing warned those in the room of a steep fall into the area in which all the generators were kept. These were the power source for everything in the compound. Large tunnels let cables from the rooms all over the base into the room. The generators created a quiet whirring sound. It was in this eerily lit room where Bruce was lying in wait for the opportune moment. He had placed the seed into a special cylinder that would fire from the injection gun into the target, and then send the seed into the bloodstream. He opened the slit in the door, looking out. Sam was nearby, in clear view, backing up towards the door. Bruce smirked, pointing the gun outside. A sharp punch to his face was all that prevented him from pulling the trigger. He was blasted into a corner by an energy blast, dropping the gun in the process. Danny shoved him up against the wall further.
"...Impossible," Bruce managed to spit out in disbelief.
"When you were finishing that machine you should've added something to keep me from changing back into a human," Danny said dryly.
"No matter," Bruce said, "Your girlfriend should be too unstable to think of that."
"Conrad and his men are in the base," Danny didn't bother to correct him about Sam, "Your men are being distracted by my family, and you're trapped. You guys can't win."
"It seems you've managed to pull yourself out of hopeless predicaments before; perhaps I shall be able to do the same."
"It's over, Mr. Bruce."
"You know something, Danny?" Bruce's voice seemed almost mocking in tone, "You're absolutely right," he shoved a laser into Danny's left shoulder, firing. Now free, he grabbed the injection gun off the ground and moved over to the door. Danny, seeing what he was about to do, jumped to his feet and knocked Bruce's hand away from the door just as he was about to fire. Bruce stared into space for a moment, then looked down. The cylinder had fired into his arm. He stumbled back in disbelief, his head burning. Indistinct, painful images flashed across his vision, and he began shaking more and more violently as he backed up towards the railing. Danny saw that he showed no signs of stopping.
"Watch out!" it was too late. With a yell, the Paranormalics chief fell down towards the generators, Danny running over to the railing. He hadn't heard a crash and it was too dark to see anything. That changed when something slammed into him, knocking him back. It then fired a flame-like energy blast at him, which burned into his ribs.
"Great," he muttered, getting down on one knee, "Same places I got hit at Halloween," he looked up at the figure who had attacked him. It was Bruce, in the same strange form that Danny had seen Sam take on months ago. His skin was white, his hair green and flame-like, and he wore flowing black robes. The key difference was that Bruce still seemed to be fighting off the loss of all sanity that came with such a form. Danny knew Sam had managed to fight it off once, but he didn't expect that Bruce could right away. Bruce's skin varied from being pure white to gaining back its natural colour for a few moments until finally he gained definite form. His clothes stayed the same, but his skin was its normal colour and his hair blue. He turned to the door, and Danny did the same. Conrad's voice was shouting that they had the soldiers on the run, and the sounds of combat faded away. Smirking, Bruce flew out of the room. Danny followed as fast as he could, but his injuries prevented him from moving very quickly. He just barely managed to catch Bruce turning down the hallway that led to The Endgame when an ectoplasmic wall cut him off from following.
"The Endgame..." he muttered, "And all the ghosts fighting with us are in the base!" he phased through a nearby wall, now trying to find the group.
---
"Cease fire!" Conrad shouted, "We have them on the run! Let's try and find Bruce and men of higher rank. Until they make a confession we're still viewed as hostile enemies by the nation!" everyone turned to leave when Danny popped out of a wall, sweating heavily and gasping for breath.
"I need every ghost to come with me now!" he said before Conrad could greet him.
"Why?" Tucker asked.
"Now!" Conrad nodded, and all the ghosts flew off with Danny.
---
Bruce locked the door to The Endgame once he was inside the room. He was still fighting off his new form's maniacal urges, but managed to set everything in place on the machine. He strapped his legs in first, and once his arms were in, the rings began to rotate.
---
Danny led all the ghosts into the room where he had found the headbands.
"Put these on!" he said urgently.
"What is the purpose of wearing such headgear?" The Box Ghost asked.
"Just put 'em on!" they started to do so, but not that quickly, "Hurry!" they obliged, but were beginning to become annoyed. Danny just managed to get one on himself when the glowing light from The Endgame passed through the room. All the ghosts were amazed that they didn't begin to get poisoned again.
"Come on," Danny opened the door, and they all flew out to meet back up with Conrad and the humans.
---
"So this is The Endgame," Conrad looked at the circular door in front of them. The glow seemed to come from the room, seeping out through the cracks like vapour.
"It creates energy that poisons whatever it's set to kill," Danny explained, "The Order was gonna use it on humans, and Bruce made it to work on ghosts," he hit the green button on the control panel, but nothing happened, "Bruce must've locked himself in."
"Why?"
"He needs a ghost hybrid to power it. He accidentally infected himself with a ghost-seed," Sam winced at the memories that brought, "and he's probably powering it himself."
"Wait a minute," Jack walked up, "Ghosts are human spirits, correct?"
"Right," Conrad nodded.
"Until we die, our spirits are inside our bodies," Jack went on, starting to pace the floor, "So if that thing is left on for too long, it's not just gonna poison ghosts. It's gonna start..."
"...To kill us," Conrad finished, turning back to the door in disbelief.
"...Whoa," Jazz stared wide-eyed at her father, "Dad, that was a well-thought- out, logical conclusion. And I agree with it!"
"Thank you, Jasmine!" when she saw that no one was looking, she pulled out a tape recorder.
"Note to self," she muttered, "Check files on Dad when you get the chance."
"Danny, did they use you to power it earlier?" Conrad asked.
"...Yeah," Danny sighed, "I got caught."
"So you saw them work the machine."
"Yeah..."
"Do you think you could shut it down?"
"I told you, the door's locked and it's designed so that I can't walk through it while intangible."
"What about the walls?"
"Don't know...there were these large holes in parts of the wall where cables were running out, maybe I can..." Danny tried to phase through the walls, but something kept him from doing so. He tried again, but couldn't do it. He tried it a third time and ended up messing up his bad shoulder even more.
"Looks like Bruce considered the chance that some ghost that was against him could get one of these headbands," Conrad pointed to the device on Danny's head, "They protect you, but keep you from using your powers."
"So I'll have to take it off and go in," Danny muttered.
"Is that safe?" Sam asked.
"The energy doesn't effect the room," Danny said.
"Then you'll have to do it," Conrad said.
"Now hold on..." Maddie started.
"Mrs. Fenton, the entire planet is at stake here," Conrad turned to her, "I have complete faith in your son's abilities."
"Ditto," Tucker smiled before taking The Box Ghost aside, "Any of those headband things left? Y'know, in case he doesn't do it and they work on humans?"
"There are a few left for usage," he said, "I am The Bo..."
"Alright, that's all I needed to know!"
"We'll try and find the sergeant or one of Bruce's officers while you handle the situation in there," Conrad nodded to the door, "Good luck."
"You too," Conrad and all the forces ran off...except one. Sam seemed reluctant to move. She felt extremely nervous for Danny, in a way she never had before.
"You OK?" she pointed at his ribs and shoulder.
"Yeah," Danny said, "Look...in case...something goes wrong in there," he pointed back towards the door, "...in case these work on people," he tossed her the headband, and immediately started feeling the effects of The Endgame. He still managed to smile at Sam, who returned it (though hers seemed more nervous).
"Good luck," she said, "You can do it," Danny turned, flew into the wall, followed a tunnel, and emerged inside The Endgame, jumping to the floor.