"AAAAAAAAA!" Danny screamed in pain as five bolts of ectoplasmic energy hit him, almost causing him to black out. He shook his head, dazed, and looked back at the soldiers, and Hortensia who now stood beside them.

"Hmm," she said carefully, "You must be strong indeed if you are still conscious after that." Still slightly dazed, Danny glared at her.

"You cheated," he mumbled. She rolled her eyes.

"I didn't get where I am today by playing fair," she turned her back on him and floated behind her soldiers.

"I'll beat you anyways," Danny said, standing up. She reached the end of the line, with her back to all others present in the room.

"I'm sure you w–" Several soft popping noises caused her to turn around. "My soldiers!" She hissed. Danny blew the green steam coming from his fingers like a gun. Her smile returned suddenly.

"How cute," she mocked, "He thinks he's won just because he got rid of my soldiers." She held up a dull green disk. "But you see, all they need is about 15 minutes and a little juice to make them good as new." Danny looked at the picture of five soldiers on the front of the disk, his confidence fading rapidly.

'Not good,' he bit his lip and thought as she grabbed a handful of disks off of her belt.

"Catch!" She yelled gleefully and threw the disksat him. Three ghosts appeared in puffs of smoke. The first looked like a thief as she worea mask only showing her eyes, the second was a hunch-backed, drooling, and all around creepy-looking ghost, and the third was the hag he'd fought earlier. Danny's resolve hardened, and he launched himself into the fight.

It wasn't hard to take them out, although he couldn't tell why. Basically, the first time hehitthemthey disappeared. She kept throwing more and more at him, and he kept taking them out. Finally, with a sizzle, he took out the last one he could see. Hortensia floated where she had stayed the entire time, watching the fight with her fists clenched.

"You're good," she growled, "Very good."

"Good enought to take you!" Danny pointed at her and grinned, taking out the thermos and pointed it at her. She laughed and reached in back of her. Danny pulled off the lid as she took out yet another glowing disk.

"But how long do you think you can keep this up?" She grinned, easily dodghing the beam of light from the thermos.

"As long as I have to," Danny replied. She laughed, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. 'Hmm,' Danny thought, 'If she gets those from her belt, maybe that's the target I should be aiming for.' He took a deep breath. For the first time in over a week, he actually felt his energy draining. Not surprising seeing he had just fought around 20 different ghosts, no matter how easy they were to beat.

He backed away as she threw the disk at him.

"Meet the twins," she said. "Two of my strongest." Two girls appeared in front of him, identical twins, except for the different markings on their faces, and their cream and black clothes were inverted on the other.

"Hi," Danny said, making like he was going to shoot them. They immediately went into a defensive position, holding the spears they had appeared with in front of them.Danny only grinned attheir surprise as heinstead, aimed between them, and shot. They ducked easily, and the blast went directly towards Hortensia's belt.

"What?" she said as a look of horror crossed her face. "NO!" She tried to dodge, but the blast hit true, and a light flashed. The only thing Danny remembered after that is being thrown through the air by the energy from the blast. After several minutes, he was able to shake offthe fuzzy, unfocused state he'd fallen into, andhe looked around at the seemingly dim room.His heartsank when he saw all three ghosts situated above him.

'It didn't work!' He thought desperately. 'What can I...' his thoughts faded off as two large rings of light appeared around his waist. Desperation quickly turned into panic as his ghost body was replaced with living flesh.

"Great," he muttered bitterly.Ironeycouldn't discribe the situation more accurately.Of course it would be his luck to change back into a human at the moment when his ghost powerswould save his life. The tips of the twin's spearssuddenlyended up inches from his body,shovedthreateninglyat hischest by his captors. The black tattoos on the girls faces began to glow green, their eyes gleaming with anticipation.

'Definitely not good,' he thought to himself.