"Whoa!" Danny gasped. His human form hadn't moved since they separated and he hadn't been out of breath when Phantom was thrown back in, but it felt like he had ran a mile. The sun was almost touching the horizon line and most of the blue was gone from the sky. What little blue remained mingled with the blood-red colour from the sun that was now leaking out into the sky, casting long shadows all over. Despite the magnificent spectacle, Danny was not relaxing, though he did managed to get his breathing back under control.

"Well," he sighed, "at least I'm back…" he turned his head in the direction of the city, and soon felt his jaw drop.

Amity Park had been completely transformed. Modern skylines and townhouses had been overcome by monstrous stone towers and terrifying tangles of steel and granite. Twisted levels of bridges and roads, gnarled signs and lights, and interlocking buildings – as if Hell had erupted through the surface.

"…home?" Danny squeaked, "Where'd the Batman buildings come…" now with the three strange worlds behind him, the incident with the ghost earlier that day came back to him, and he made his deduction.

"The ghost," he muttered to himself, and he quickly went ghost and took off towards the new Amity Park. Within the mess of nightmarish buildings, everything seemed normal – but in reverse. People Danny knew were behaving like the things they most hated – a girl from around the block who hated bugs was charging after a butterfly, Ms. Tetslaff had somehow gotten downtown and was selling violets, and Valerie was now a ghost.

"Danny!" the voice was scarcely above a whisper, but Danny caught and looked down. It was Tucker, and he looked as he always did, though his expression was grim. He was down in an alleyway, with his hand wrapped around the corner of the building and his glasses slightly titled to the side, but he looked all right.

"Tucker!" Danny smiled and dropped down, relieved that his friend had made it through whatever the town had been put through.

"Where have you been, man?" Tucker asked.

"Wish I knew," Danny sighed – he still had no idea where that ghost had sent him, "Where's Sam?" he had noticed she wasn't anywhere to be seen. At that question, Tucker's entire look changed. His eyes became full of fear and his breathing so quiet it was as if it had stopped altogether.

"Tuck," Danny was not starting to worry, "What happened?"

"…Man, I don't even know where to start," Tucker sighed, "That ghost flew into Sam after he cast that weird spell on you, then she started going crazy, then he flew out and went into the city!"

"Why didn't he attack you?"

"'Cause I ran inside before he saw me."

"You left Sam?" Danny roared.

"I ran right back out when he left!" Tucker held his hands up, "Sam turned into some weird girl that looked like Paulina and Ember mixed together. She started throwing blasts at me with her guitar and…"

"Whoa," Danny interrupted, "Hold up. What did you say she turned into?"

"A mix of Ember and Paulina. After a while she started screaming and she…she…well, I think she's gonna live, but…"

"What happened?" Danny demanded. He wasn't liking where this was going, for more reasons than one.

"She just…collapsed. I dunno what was up with her, 'cause no one else was doing it, but she just fell and…she didn't go back to normal, but it was like half-way," Danny looked away from Tucker. He could feel his breathing getting more panicked. He wasn't liking this at all. What had happened over the day was starting to make sense. If he had…he could be jumping to conclusions, but…

Tucker didn't understand what had come over his friend, but it seemed serious. He was about to ask what was going on when he remembered his other piece of bad news.

"That's just the start of it," he said, a hint of apology in his voice, "He started turning the whole city upside down! Ten minutes and all of a sudden we're living in Gotham City! Then Spectra showed up and…"

"Spectra?" Danny shouted. Now he was really nervous – not that Spectra had really returned, but that this would confirm his suspicions.

"Yeah. She flew by a few minutes ago. She looked like she was having trouble flying. She touched down somewhere near Casper High. I've been trying to get to your house without that ghost seeing –" he noticed the look of pure terror on Danny's face, and he could see it wasn't from fear of Spectra herself.

"Dude, you OK?" he asked.

"Tucker," Danny took a deep breath before going on, "that ghost made me go to three worlds. One was exactly like all the stuff Sam's nuts over, then it started burning into a city and a girl exactly like what you said Sam turned into. I accidentally hit her too hard with a blast and she got crushed in a building. The second world was the lab at my house. Some big ghost that looked a little like my dad came out and turned into me. We fought, one of our blasts went into the portal, and someone started screaming…it sounded like my mom. The ghost turned back and I accidentally cut him with a sword. Then the third place…it was like Jazz paradise. Spectra showed up, and I kind of…blew her up or something. I didn't know what was going on but now I…I think…" he couldn't bring himself to finish, but Tucker caught on.

"You mean he put you in their heads when he attacked them?"

"Yeah. Sam, my dad, and Jazz."

"Wait. Time out. Why would Jazz turn into Spectra?" something about that didn't add up to Tucker.

"Probably 'cause she ruined her speech," Danny brushed the comment off, "I don't know what that would do to them outside, but I think I might have…I…" he couldn't stand it any longer. He had to figure out what had happened! And, without the slightest warning to Tucker, he took off for FentonWorks. Even with the new buildings he could figure out which part of Amity he was in, and his house was closer than Casper High. Not even thinking to go intangible, he instead flew all around the new towers, pillars, and bridge supports, heading straight for home.

He found the row of townhouses that led to his brownstone were one of the few places in the city that still looked normal. The very top of the satellite had been knocked off due to a bridge support shooting up nearby, but Danny didn't catch that. He immediately threw the door open and ran inside, not even thinking to go back into human form.

"Dad?" he shouted. No answer. Now he was really nervous, "Dad?" still no answer. His breathing getting heavier by the minute, he ran downstairs into the lab. What he saw almost made him scream like a madman.

His dad lay in a fetal position on the floor, as still as a rock. His breathing was barely audible, and breaths were few and far between. Big black blotches covered his face and clothes, and they weren't just black in colour. The streaks of black on his clothes were made up of the outfit of the ghost that had attacked Danny in the lab before, and the streak of black on his face covered his mouth, giving him the fangs. His jump suit had a razor-thin tear going all the way around it in the middle, though there was no actual wound.

Danny felt himself shaking, and he had to stumble a bit to keep himself up on his feet. No…he didn't…he couldn't have…

"Dad!" he took a few steps toward his father, and, after a bit of hesitation, gently shook him, trying to get him to move. For a moment, he seemed to stir, but soon he was back in a fetal position, just barely breathing. Danny pulled back as a shiver ran down his spine. He dreaded what the answer would be, but there was something else he had to find out. He slowly turned his head to the right.

The lab tables and their instruments had been reduced to wreckage and scraps, scorch marks covering the walls they once stood against. In the midst of all the rubble was his mother, her blue hazmat suit scorched from the spectral blast that must have shot out of Jack. Her breathing was a bit better off than Jack's, and she seemed like she'd be fine. That didn't give Danny any comfort, though; if he had done that to his dad from a cut…

"Jazz…Sam…" he felt himself gulp, the air feeling icy cold as it jumped down his throat. Going intangible, he quickly flew out of the house and sped as fast as he could toward Casper High.

The school had been turned into a horrible-looking building, with twisted sides like those of Expressionist paintings and bars on the windows. Danny wasn't too fond of school or the best student, but seeing it like this…it was a torture chamber. He didn't need to go inside for the nightmare to get any worse. Most of the students were out on the grounds. For some reason or other, no one had gone home yet. Everyone was acting in ways that they despised. Dash was wandering around, a wimpy nerd. Lancer was riding around the track field on a computer chair, howling like a lunatic and squirting tempera paint from a small tube all over the field. Paulina was sitting off in a corner at the benches, dressed up like a Goth girl and sulking.

A few feet off from the benches, in the field around the school, Danny caught sight of Jazz, sprawled out on the ground. She looked like she had been hit with some huge blast; her clothes were filthy, her sleeves and pants were torn at her elbows and knees, and she had several large marks on her face. Her feet had no shoes. They were pitch-black, and swept up into an almost-dead flame. Like Spectra's tail.

Danny immediately dropped down and ran over to her. Unlike Jack, he couldn't hear her breathing and she showed no signs of life. He gently lifted her head off the ground and shook her shoulders slightly. Nothing happened. He checked her pulse; it was faint, but it still registered. Danny breathed a sigh of relief and gently set Jazz's head back down. There was one more person he needed to check on.

Over on the other side of the benches, by a tree, was Sam. Her position against the tree made it seem as though she'd been slammed up against it with something heavy in her lap. Blotches of white covered her face, and some of her clothing matched the girl's from before. He could hear her breathing through painful moans. Danny tried moving forward to make sure she was all right, but he found he couldn't bring himself to move any closer. How could he have done this?

He was barely aware of Tucker running up. He had guessed that this was where Danny was headed, and he had pieced together the rest of what that ghost must have done. He had seen what had happened, but the look on Danny's face sent chills down his spine.

"Danny…" he stared, "I –"

"Tucker," Danny cut him off, his voice so deadly serious that Tucker's chills were increased tenfold, "where's the ghost?"

"Down by the Nasty Burger. Why?"

"Run to my house and get some of my parent's weapons. Come back here. I'll get that ghost down here one way or another," Danny's words there were so cold that Tucker now began to visibly shiver.