Author's Note: Due to the recent comments I've been receiving about how much like Harry Potter this story is, let me make something very clear. Harry Potter is definitely NOT one of the sources of inspiration for this story. It never is and never will be. I've never read Harry Potter or seen the movies and I don't intend to. Similarities may be coincidental, because I happen to live in the UK and am most familiar with British private schools. Seeing as some of you have commented on how similar to Harry Potter the school is, I'm thinking that possibly J. K. Rowling's inspiration for Hogwarts was a British private school.

Now, let me state what stories, shows and movies have really influenced this story.
"Anubis Gates" and "Earthquake Weather" by Tim Powers (specifically Earthquake Weather, for if I had never read that story, you would not be reading this fanfic right now).
"Mr. Vampire" (A famous Chinese Vampire movie from Hong Kong).
"Vision of Escaflowne" (Helped me to inspire the character of Professor Zeross).
"Megaman Zero 1"
"Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask"

That's about it, I guess. So, now that that's over with, please enjoy the story.


Chapter Five: The Zephyr Song

Danny closed the metallic door of his locker firmly with a gloved hand.

It felt strange being back at Casper High, after all, his mind was still filled with the fresh memories of being at Streete Court High. He had a hard time accepting that that school was nothing more than a dream-induced fantasy, created by the doctors at Roslyn Hospital to ensure he would never wake up. How could he not believe that Streete Court wasn't real, when all the people had seemed so real to him and Alex…?

The raven-haired youth still had no idea what had happened back there after Alex went berserk. He could merely remember being pushed back and falling from what seemed like an impossibly great high. All Danny could remember was falling for what seemed like the longest time and then opening his eyes to find himself in the act of terminating his friends.

"I don't get it," he muttered to himself.

Surely, he should have been far more resistant to mind control than before, especially after the Incident with Freakshow? Yet, there he was, under the control of one of Maudsley's mental patients and about to slice his friends to tiny pieces. He was just thankful he woke up when he did.

As he turned away from his locker and walked down the cold, empty corridor of the school, Danny couldn't help but wonder about his entire ordeal. Why were the doctors so keen on keeping him unconscious? What were they up to and how come nobody was investigating that Dr. Fordyce for bad medical practice? He couldn't understand any of it and his mind was filled with questions, as he made his way towards the school's front entrance.

"Hey, Danny!" called out Tucker, as he waited there with his trademark large backpack and with so many layers on that he looked as if he had been eating far too much lately. "What took you, man?"

"Sorry, Tuck," apologised Danny, as he closed in on his friend. "Had to pick trash out of my hair thanks to Dash."

"Uh, you missed some there," said Tucker, as he reached up and picked a sweet wrapper out from the jet black strands of Danny's hair. He then tossed it into the bin as if it was some dead rat. "So, you feeling okay?" asked Tucker, as they pushed open the doors of the school and walked out.

Danny sighed.
"Not too bad, Tuck," was his reply. "I'm just… a bit confused."

"Yeah, well you can thank Fordyce for that," said Sam, who had been waiting for them outside, wrapped up in a black jacket and with a lurid green and black striped scarf. "Erm… Danny, you can relax. He's not going to come round with the men in white to spirit you away, y'know."

A big smile spread across Tucker's lips and his green eyes lit up with a spark of mischief that seemed to dance in his pupils.
"Yeah," he agreed, the smile widening across his face until it threatened to engulf his entire face. "We took care of that."

"Huh?" exclaimed Danny.

"Tucker hacked into the hospital computers and changed your records," explained Sam.

"That's right," confirmed Tucker with a nod of his head. "They can't lay a hand on you now, Danny. As far as those records are concerned, you were released just yesterday and you were never transferred to Maudsley."

Danny was about to ask them why they hadn't told him sooner, after all, he had spent most of that day afraid that the hospital would come after him. Yet he thought better of it. They told him in the end, so that was all that mattered. What was a morning and afternoon of worrying? All that mattered was that his friends had saved him from an eternity in that mental institute.

A smile spread across Danny's face at the thought of that.
"I guess you guys have kinda repaid me back for all those times I've saved you, huh?" he commented, before he tripped over a crack in the pavement and landed face first into a puddle.

"You okay, Danny?" asked Sam, as she rushed over to her fallen friend.

Sam knew that she had to be careful around Danny and had to keep an eye on him. Who knew what drugs Fordyce had pumped into Danny and what side-effects they had? She didn't even know how long they usually lasted in the human body and whether they would last longer in a body that was half-human and half-ghost. Sam just hoped that they didn't do any damage to Danny's young body, but what if they did?

"Yeah, I'm fine," replied Danny, as he got back up to his feet and took off his wet scarf. "A bit wet, but I'm fine." He then dusted himself off as best as a wet person could.

"You sure?" asked Sam concernedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Sam," said Danny irritably, after all, Sam had been asking all last night and all that day. It was beginning to get very annoying. "Look, can we get going now?" he asked, even though they hadn't stopped that long. "I need to get back and change into some dry clothes."

"Sure thing, Danny," replied Tucker. "So, you still up for that study session today?"

Danny was about to ask Tucker what he was talking about, before he suddenly realised that they had a test tomorrow. If they wanted to do well, they would have to study for that. Still, he had only just got out of hospital last night. Surely Mr. Lancer would be understanding enough to give Danny some extra time for studying?
"Yeah, I'm up for it," replied Danny suddenly. "So, how's about coming round to my place?"

"Sounds good," replied Sam. She was far more concerned for Danny and wondered whether she'd spend any time studying at all at his place. Would she end up keeping an eye on him all that time and throughout the night?

Suddenly, Danny shivered and his breath became like mist as if the temperature around him had suddenly dropped.
"Sheesh, it's cold," he commented, as he shivered violently. He felt as if someone was dancing on his grave, as a cold chill ran through his spine and spread through his body until he felt he would get pneumonia.

"It's a ghost, isn't it?" exclaimed Sam.

"Loads of them," replied Danny, as he continued to shiver. He felt as if there was an army of ghosts rampaging through the city and he could sense them all. "There's so many of them."

"Wait!" called out Sam, as she laid a hand on Danny's shoulder. "You can't just go out there. What if it's those doctors from the hospital? What if it's a trap?"

"I can't take that chance, Sam," protested Danny with a shake of his head. "There's so many of them. They might be doing something really bad." He then looked at Sam's hand. "Um… Sam, do you mind?" he asked her, as he felt her fingers digging into him.

Sam suddenly realised that she was practically digging her nails into Danny's flesh.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Danny," she apologised, as she shirked her hand away from him. She then watched as he transformed before her very eyes into his ghost form. "Danny!" she called out, before he could take off. "Be careful, okay? If something happens, call us."

There was a look of concern in Sam's eyes that Danny had never seen before. It was so intense, as of someone who really cared for him. Was that love in her eyes or was it just the concern of a good friend? Danny couldn't tell, but it certainly made him think.
"Don't worry, Sam," he said with a small smile on his lips. "I'll be back," he said, making Sam wince at the cheesiness of the phrase he had chosen.

He then leapt up into the air, taking flight and rising high above the streets of Amity Park. Danny rose high above the rooftops and flew in a westerly direction as quickly as he could. Strange, Danny thought, it's quite windy today. It was making it quite difficult for him to fly and keep his balance, so he became invisible and flew lower, skirting just above the rooftops.

What was going on? It had become unusually cold that day and boilers all over the city had failed to start. Heaters had failed and even stoves had failed to ignite, forcing the cafeteria to serve nothing but salads and cold sandwiches. They had taken classes in the cold, shivering and nearly failing to grasp their writing implements.

Now it was windy beyond belief, adding to the bitter coldness that enveloped the city.

Suddenly, something rose up from the nearby zoo that Danny wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it with his own two eyes. It was a great cyclone, a tornado of wind that rose up from the ground rather than coming down towards the ground as they usually do.

"I bet that's a ghost," said Danny to himself, before he allowed himself an extra burst of speed and rushed in the direction of the tornado.

Only, he didn't get very far before something blasted him in the chest. There was a great explosion and everything suddenly white, before Danny felt he was falling. He tried to stop himself, but he was far too dazed to do anything. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear save for the incessant ringing in his ears and by the time he was aware of where he was in relation to the ground, it was too late.

Danny's teeth jarred as he struck the tarmac with a force that was sure to have broken his bones, if he hadn't been tougher than the average human.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

The white-haired half-ghost suddenly lifted his head. He recognised that voice and that insanely posh British accent! How could he not recognise that voice?
"O'Donnell?" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"I see you remember me," said the raven-haired man, as he stood next to the jeep with his arms folded, looking at Danny through a pair of spectacles, the left-eye of which was tinted red. "Now, may I ask what you're doing out here all alone and out of hospital so soon?" he asked Danny curiously. "Don't you know you shouldn't leave until you get the go ahead from the doctors?"

"I got discharged," replied Danny, as he leapt sprightly back up to his feet.

"You mean you discharged yourself," retorted O'Donnell calmly, as he unfolded his arms and dusted the sleeves of his dark suit. "I think you should go back, young Mr. Fenton. We can't be too careful now, can we?" He clicked his fingers and several figures rose up out of the ground.

Three figures rose up from the ground and took their positions there, floating above the ground. They had the tails one would expect from a ghost in place of their legs and all five of them were dressed in what looked like the old robes of a Chinese mandarin during the era of the Chinese Empire. All of them had Talismans on their faces, pieces of yellow paper with incantations written on them in what looked like red ink.

Danny sighed.
"Please," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Can't you do better than that?"

"I must say that I didn't expect your friends to be so persistent," commented O'Donnell as if he hadn't heard Danny's question. "You have good friends, Mr. Fenton, however may I suggest that you do not rely on them too much? They are not Mao Shang, unlike us." He smiled. "We are the Exorcists that defend the Living from the actions of the Dead. We are the ones standing on the front line."

A smile spread across O'Donnell's lips and widened.
"When you think about it, we aren't that much different," he told Danny, "now are we?" He chuckled.

"No, we're very different," protested Danny with a shake of his head. "For one, I don't go about drugging young boys." His eyes narrowed. "What are you and Zeross up to?"

There was no reply from O'Donnell. He merely stood there with a stony expression on his face.
"Go!" he commanded and the five ghosts turned tail and flew away from Danny. The smile on his lips reappeared, even wider than before. "I take it that you were heading towards that tornado, young Master Fenton," he said to Danny. "Am I right?"

"What's it to you?" asked Danny.

"Oh, nothing really," said O'Donnell dismissively. "There's no reason really, but I'm sure you'll find out sooner or later, that is, if you survive what I have in store for you." He lifted a whistle to his lips and blew into it with all his might, yet in doing so no sound seemed to come out.

Danny frowned.
"I think that's broken," he told O'Donnell.

Suddenly, the air around them echoed with howls. They were eerie howls and there were many of them. These howls seemed to come from all over the place and seemed so mournful. They sounded far more mournful than the howls of a real dog or even that of a real wolf.

Two dogs suddenly appeared by O'Donnell's side. Each of them were black but seemed to glow with an eerie energy as did their eyes, which glowed a fluorescent green like Danny's. The two ghost dogs, both wolf-like in appearance, growled at Danny, their fur standing on end and a seemingly red fluid dribbling from their black lips. Both lifted their muzzles to the air and then howled again, their howls becoming a deafening roar that seemed loud enough to tear Danny's body apart with sonic energy.

"Looks fine to me," commented O'Donnell, as he crossed his arms behind his back. The smile on his lips widened into a wolfish grin. "Did you know that black dog's blood is a very effective exorcism tool used by the Mao Shang?" asked O'Donnell curiously. "Well, it doesn't matter if you don't. I think you'll soon find out how effective it can really be." He then pointed straight at Danny. "Sic him!" he ordered.

Now Danny really liked dogs, but he couldn't help but not like these ghost dogs that rushed straight at him, foaming blood at their mouths. They lunged straight at him and he became intangible; the two dogs leapt straight through him and landed on the other side. He turned round as they barked, spitting blood at him, which landed on him and started to burn through his black suit.

Danny cried out, as he tried to shake the blood off his arm.
"What is that?" he cried, as he flailed his arms in an attempt to shake the blood off. "Acid?"

"I told you black dog's blood is effective against ghosts," O'Donnell said in that 'I-warned-you' manner. "Obviously, you had to see it first hand before you could believe me." He chuckled. "Yes, Ancient Chinese methods seem quite bizarre and you wouldn't think they'd work at first, but you'd be surprised how good the old methods can be." He walked calmly back towards the jeep, not caring what the dogs were doing to Danny.

O'Donnell reached into the glove compartment and brought out a small burlap sack.
"You should avoid all sorts of things if you're a ghost," he said in that authoritative tone of his, making him sound a lot like Mr. Lancer. "For example, ghosts and the undead really don't like glutinous rice." He fished into the sack and took out a handful of rice grains, before hurling them at Danny.

He missed but they landed on the ground.

Danny stepped in it and the grains started burning into his white boot. He cried out, as he flew over the grains of glutinous rice and high above the dogs.
"Down, boys! Down!" he shouted at the dogs, as they leapt into the air after him.

A sudden flash of inspiration hit Danny. He quickly kicked out with one foot, the one with the rice grains stuck to it. The ghost boy shoved his foot on to the head of one of the dog ghosts and heard a yelp of pain, as he wiped the grains off of him and on to the dog. He flew back and watched the dog frantically pawing at its head and shaking its head to remove the rice grains, but it was finding it difficult.

The ghost dog howled before it suddenly disintegrated into a green mist that dissipated into the wind.

He then fired an ectoplasmic blast of energy that struck the other ghost dog and sent it flying down to the ground. Danny didn't like to do that to a dog, but he knew he had to. These, after all, were out to get him and he couldn't just stand by and let them tear him to pieces with their blood-stained fangs.

Danny then fired a beam straight at O'Donnell, knocking the sack of glutinous rice out of his hand and making the grains spill across the ground.
"It's chow time, boy," he called out to the dog, as he dived down and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck. Then with all his strength, he threw the dog straight at the rice pooled on to the floor and watched as it disintegrated upon touching it. "Now, it's your turn," he said, as he turned towards O'Donnell.

The man spread his arms out.
"You aren't going to harm a defenceless man, now are you?" asked O'Donnell, as he spread his fingers out and exposed his palms to show that he had nothing in his hands. "And let's not forget I'm wearing glasses. It would be wrong of you to hit someone with glasses, wouldn't it?"

O'Donnell had a point there, Danny had to admit that. He hated it, actually, because he knew that O'Donnell was up to something, but he couldn't do anything without looking a total jerk. What was O'Donnell smiling about?

Suddenly, something hit him in the back of the neck and he fell forwards.

Standing over Danny was a humanoid ghost with two heads, two canine heads that belonged to the ghost dogs that Danny had defeated before. Both heads growled and crimson saliva dribbled from their mouths to splatter on the tarmac near Danny, as the strange canine ghost closed in on Danny.

"Fordyce let you escape, but I shall bring you back to the Hospital," stated O'Donnell smugly. "There, we'll take a sample from you and build an army of you. There's nothing you can do to stop us, Fenton, my boy. There's nothing you can do."

"I beg to differ, old chap," called out a voice mockingly.

The two-headed ghost suddenly howled viciously and thrashed about as rice grains stuck to its body. They burned at it horribly and the ghost started to smoke as the grains stuck to it. Its arms flailed violently as the ghost spun round and tried everything it could to tear the grains off of its body. Then both heads gave one hideous howl of pain before the thing disintegrated into slime that splattered on to the floor wetly.

"Hm, now that I think about it, the blood it oozed should have done compromised its bodily structure too," commented O'Donnell calmly.

"Sam? Tuck?" exclaimed Danny, as he looked up.

The stern expression on Sam's face lightened up, as she looked at her snow-haired friend.
"Hey, you didn't think we'd leave you alone to face against this freak, now did you?" she asked him.

"Yeah, what made you think we'd let you have all the fun?" agreed Tucker with a nod of his head.

"Thanks, guys," thanked Danny sincerely, as he got back up to his feet. "I didn't really need your help back there, but I really appreciated it." He then turned round to face O'Donnell. "So, you give up?" he asked and then a look of surprise spread across his own face. "What are you smiling about?"

O'Donnell looked calmly at the ectoplasm that lay cooling on the floor near Danny and then back up at the three youths before him.
"A ghost resistant to black dog's blood," he murmured quietly under his breath. He chuckled. "You don't know what you're really doing, do you?" he asked them calmly. "Do you even know what you're fighting against and for what cause you're fighting for?"

"Well, at least we're not on your side," protested Tucker angrily.

"Ha!" cried O'Donnell. "Get a sample of that now!" he ordered, before he leapt up into the jeep.

A ghost lunged out from the jeep with a container of some sort and scooped up a huge dollop of the ectoplasm, before it curved back round in its flight and leapt back into the jeep. It dumped the container into O'Donnell's hands, before it flew straight into the jeep and took control of the vehicle.

The tyres screeched and then the jeep drove off, speeding away from them.

"He's getting away!" cried Tucker.

"No! Really?" exclaimed Danny sarcastically.

"Uh… guys, is it just me or is that tornado getting closer?" asked Sam, as she looked up.

Danny turned his head and then saw the tornado that had started off its life somewhere near or in the zoo. It was twirling a path towards them, picking up everything in its path and sucking it up before throwing it through the air.
"Stand back!" he called out to his friends, before he became intangible and flew straight towards the tornado.

"Danny!" shouted out Tucker. "Where you going, man?"

"Danny, come back!" cried Sam over the roar of the winds, but her words fell on deaf ears.

There was something strange about that whirlwind and Danny knew it all too well. He still felt cold, as he flew towards it and his breath was still getting all misty. Danny knew that it wasn't because of the coldness of the air either. It was a ghost and he could sense it and he knew that it was inside that tornado, in the Eye of the Storm and it was causing the winds that were whirled round it.

He closed his eyes instinctively, as he flew through the tornado and into its heart.

When Danny opened his eyes he saw something prowling around the ground at the bottom of the funnel of circulating wind. It was white and stripy and…
"A tiger?" exclaimed Danny in surprise. "First it was ghost dogs and now a ghost tiger? Is this Ghost Zoo Day or something?" He sighed and then dived down towards the ghost, with Fenton Flask in hand.

The ghost seemed to be preoccupied with causing the winds that whirled round it violently. If he got close enough and activated the Fenton Thermos then there would be no need for him to even fight it. All he'd do was suck up the ghost and then he would be able to throw it back into the Ghost Zone.

Danny flew silently over head and then slowly lowered himself over the ghost tiger. He knew he had to be careful so as to not disturb the air and he knew he had to act quickly. If the ghost tiger caught a whiff of his scent, it would surely retaliate. So he lowered himself inch by inch and slowly twisted the cap off the Fenton Thermos. He then pressed the button and a beam of energy pulsed out of the Thermos, nearly propelling him backwards.

There was suddenly a roar from the tiger and before Danny knew what happened, he was flung through the air.

"Okay, so maybe this is going to be more difficult than I thought it would be," commented Danny.


"Tell me again why we rushed after Danny," gasped Tucker between gasps for air, he then looked behind them and saw the tornado rushing straight towards them, tearing up tarmac as it did so.

The reason was simple. Sam had been concerned for Danny's safety, so they had gone running after him in the direction they had last seen him going in. She had been concerned that Danny would get into trouble and might need rescuing from whatever trap it was that he had fallen into. The fact that they had fallen into one themselves seemed quite ironic.

"Shut up," snapped Sam angrily.


"I wondered where you guys went to," commented Danny, as he floated there in front of the three ghosts that floated around the ghost tiger. They were the very same ones that O'Donnell had summoned earlier and seemed to be guarding the ghost tiger. He wiped the blood away from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, before saying, "So, what have you been up to, huh?"

There was no reply and Danny didn't expect any.
"No, no, you don't have to say a thing," he said in reply to their silence. "Just take it easy and let me take you back to the Ghost Zone!" With those last words, he aimed the Fenton Thermos at the ghosts and pressed a button.

The ghost tiger split into three and its components each fused with one of the strange ghosts that O'Donnell had summoned. In that split second, they fled and the beam from the Fenton Thermos struck solid concrete.

One of the ghosts appeared behind Danny. It still had the yellow talisman stuck to its forehead but now its chest was a great huge fan and the blades started whirling round, whipping up a wind that blew Danny through the air. Another ghost then appeared and its arms were like lightning conductors, which it aimed at Danny, before firing bolts of electricity at him.

Danny cried out in agony as the electricity surged through his body, making every muscle in every limb convulse.

The ghost on the other side suddenly swivelled its upper body round, but keeping its head facing Danny. The blades of the fan built into its body now started up a powerful suction that drew Danny closer towards the great sharp rotating edges. It was a powerful suction force that felt like a black hole and the closer got, the more powerful it got. Danny even felt as if he was being slowly stretched by the force of the ghost's suction and as if he would get torn apart even before he hit the blades of the fan.

"No!" cried Danny pathetically, as he whirled round. "No, I won't lose to you!" He then fired a powerful ectoplasmic beam of energy straight at the centre of the ghost, that smashed into the blades, tearing them apart.

Danny smiled.

That was when the third ghost reappeared. It hovered near the damaged fan ghost, before it circled it three times and then became invisible.

The smile on Danny's face disappeared as he watched the blades repair themselves, as if the fan ghost had never been hit by his beam. This was going to require some more strategy on his part. He wondered. Was it possible for him to suck up the individual ghosts?

Suddenly, he felt arms wrap around him. He looked behind him but saw nothing. Was it the invisible ghost that had healed the fan ghost? He could see nothing behind him and ahead of him… Ah, ahead of him he could see the other two ghosts advancing on him menacingly, the one with the electrodes for arms sparking viciously and the one with the fan in its chest slowly spinning those fan blades.

The sharpness of those blades reminded him of a blender. He wondered. Did the ghost intend to liquefy him in those sharp blades? Did it intend to suck him in and then catch him in those rotating blades. Between the two of them, they could make a mean Roast Minced Danny.

"Let go!" cried Danny, as he struggled against the invisible arms of the ghost that held him from behind. At least, it felt as if he was being held from behind, as he could feel the cold body of the ghost behind him. He wondered. "I said, Let go!" he shouted again, before throwing his head back with as much force as he could muster. He winced as his skull connected with the invisible skull of the ghost behind him.

Yet the grip did not loosen. It still held on to him tight.

Wait a second! What was he doing?

Danny remembered the Fenton Thermos still in his hands. He uncapped it and shoved against the ghost behind him.
"Bye, bye!" he said, before he pressed a button on the side of the cylindrical ghost container. He held it down firmly and heard a screech from behind and felt the ghost's grip on him loosen; and though he couldn't see it, he was sure that the ghost was being sucked into the Thermos.

"All right! Who's next?" exclaimed Danny, as he aimed the Thermos in front of him. He pressed the button again and beam of energy shot out of the opening.

The ghosts spread out, letting the beam pass right by them. The lightning ghost aimed one of its electrodes at Danny and then fired a bolt of electricity that smacked the Fenton Thermos straight out of the ghost boy's hands. It then charged up its electrodes, causing a huge spark from between its electrodes that seemed as bright and vivid as a fireworks display. The ghost let out a crackling sizzle, before it charged straight at Danny.

Yet Danny had already fallen into a dive, as he flew after the Fenton Thermos. He didn't notice the lightning ghost diving down after him with sparking electrodes. He didn't care. All that mattered was reaching the Fenton Thermos before it hit the tarmac below and shattered into a million pieces, releasing the ghost he had managed to capture.

And just as he was about to reach out to grab the Fenton Thermos, the lightning ghost struck him in the back, sending surges of electricity through his muscles and nerves.

Danny cried out as the lightning ghost's attack seemingly paralysed him. It felt as if thousands of volts raced through him and in the end the pain of the convulsing muscles, the pain caused by electricity surging through the nerves linked to pain receptors, all that pain made him black out and he fell along with the Fenton Thermos down towards the tarmac below.

Finally, after a long time, gravity reminded Danny of the natural laws. It pulled him down along with the Fenton Thermos. He fell like a rock. He was as conscious as a rock. With his eyes closed, he did not see the ground rush up towards him. He did not feel the wind rush past him. He did not even sense the other two ghosts diving down after him, like vultures racing towards a dead carcass. Danny didn't know and he continued to fall.

Suddenly, Danny's eyes snapped open and he saw the tarmac rushing up towards him. He quickly lashed out and grabbed the Fenton Thermos, before turning round and aiming it straight at the ghosts that came straight at him. Danny saw the ghosts hurtling straight towards him and when they were in the line of fire, he pressed the button on the side of the cylindrical ghost container, releasing a beam of energy that flew through the air and caught the two of them in its wake.

He stopped an inch above the tarmac, as he held the Fenton Thermos and kept the finger on the button. If he had regained consciousness only a split second later, he would have hit it with a force that would surely have put him back in hospital and more than likely, the same hospital he had only escaped from the night before.

"Come on," he muttered, as he watched the ghosts struggling to break free. "Just a little bit more."

Then with dual screams, the ghosts dissipated into smoke that spiralled into the Fenton Thermos.

Danny quickly capped the Fenton Thermos and then let himself fall the last inch back down towards the ground, as the tornado around him dissipated and litter started to fall back down from the sky.

He sighed, as he looked skywards as he lay on the ground. Danny didn't know why, but this latest ghost fight seemed to take it out of him more than any of the others he had ever experienced. There was something about it, something about these ghosts that seemed insanely powerful, despite the fact that they had only hit him a few times, despite the fact that he had managed to trap them so easily.

There was a power in them that he didn't quite understand and he knew that it had something to do with O'Donnell. What had that man said before he left? Something about a ghost that was resistant to black dog's blood? He wondered and his brow furrowed. Danny was on the verge of realising something. Was it possible that O'Donnell and his colleagues were engineering artificial ghosts?

"Nah," Danny said to himself, as he sat up. "It couldn't be," he said as he shook his head. "What would they do with artificial ghosts, anyway?" He then thought a little bit more. "Still," he said to himself, "perhaps I should look into it."

"Danny!"

"Danny, you okay, man?"

Sam and Tucker. He didn't even have to turn round to know that it was them. After all, Danny knew them quite well by their voices.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, without even turning round to look at them. He was too preoccupied with the thoughts of the doctors at Roslyn Hospital and wondering what they could be up to, and why they wanted him out of the way.

Danny turned round.
"Sam," began Danny, "would you mind if I stay at your place tonight?"


It was dark as the old man walked through the streets with only his handbag and a small carryall.

Even in Amity Park, there were unsavoury neighbourhoods and this was one of them. This was no place for an unarmed senior citizen to venture at such a late and dark night like this. There wasn't a single night that didn't pass without some poor lady being robbed at gunpoint or worse, though thankfully Amity Park's seedy neighbourhoods was nothing compared to those of other cities in the same State.

And as the old man walked along the sidewalk, he failed to somehow notice the man creeping up behind her. He somehow failed to realise that she was being stalked by one of those petty thugs, the sort that usually steal their guns from people's homes, only to use on other victims.

"Excuse me, sir."

"Yes?" exclaimed the old man, as he turned round and in doing so, he quickly lashed out and knocked the gun straight out of the man's hand. He looked down at the gun, as he said, "I hope you weren't going to use that to rob me."

The thug cried out, as he whipped a knife out of his pocket and then broke his nose against the palm of the old man's hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he apologised. "Are you all right?"

He failed to get an answer, as the man, clutching at his bleeding nose, ran away. The old man watched as he ran off like a man being chased by hungry wolves and then shrugged to himself. He turned round and then started walking down the street calmly. After all, there was no point in any more delays, now were there?

The old man had an appointment to keep here in Amity Park and he intended to keep it.


Professor Zeross sighed as he looked up at the concave, circular mirror above him and the coloured mist that swirled on its surface or in its surface.
"Something is wrong," he said quietly, but even though he did so, his voice seemed to echo around him like the Voice of God Himself. He reached up to his beard and started running his hand through it, along the strands of hair entwined with ivy. "There is a disturbance. I can see it. But what could be causing this? What could be the cause of all this interference?"

The old man remained silent for a while, before he turned his gaze towards Dr. Fordyce.
"Could it be?" he asked the bald doctor. "Could it be that the Harvest King is no longer unconscious, Michael?" He quivered, before he said, "I am right, aren't I, Michael. The Harvest King is conscious and wreaking havoc with our signal."

"Well," began Fordyce and then he trailed off. "I'm 'fraid so, Sifu. See, his friends didn't take too kindly to him being cooped up like that. No, sir. They busted him out just last night."

"And why was I not informed of this?" asked Zeross curiously.

Fordyce didn't reply for a while. He was thinking things through carefully and planning things. Somehow, he knew he could profit from this disaster, but he wasn't sure how. There had to be a way though. How could he turn the situation to his own advantage?

"Well, Alex didn't want to trouble you, y'see," was Fordyce's reply. "He said he'd have it all under control soon enough with his Life Ghost."

One white eyebrow rose upwards quizzically.
"Is that so?" asked Zeross calmly. "If our plan is to work, he had better be right. For far too long has the Realm of Death been under the control of the Shi Ti'en Yen Wang. They decree who dies and by what manner, making us doctors helpless in the process." He shook his head irritably, as he said loudly, "Well no more! We shall seize control of Feng Du, the Kingdom of Death, and we shall decide who dies and by what means!"

Zeross quivered almost as if he was feeling cold.
"Find the young Harvest King, Michael," he told Fordyce. "Find him and put him under, like we planned. After all, we must be on the safe side as well, mustn't we?"