Chapter Twelve: This is the Place

"You?"

The person that sat next to Sam was none other than Alethea, the nurse that had accompanied Danny to the Public Swimming Pool to capture the Seal of Long Wang. Of all the people that Sam expected to see when she awoke, this nurse was not one of them. After all, was she not a member of the Blue Bow Army, the very enemy that Sam had been helping Danny resist all this time?

"Please forgive me," apologised the nurse, as she bowed her head.

"Forgive you?" asked Sam in surprise. That was certainly not something she expected to hear, but Sam wondered why the nurse was currently there begging her forgiveness. "Why should I?" she asked tentatively, in the hope that Alethea would explain herself.

Alethea look up at Sam with tear-stained eyes, eyes that were red from crying, eyes that wavered and failed to get a lock on Sam.
"I'm sorry, for everything that's happened," she apologised to Sam. "I… I never thought that it would all come to this. When I first worked for Professor Zeross, everything was so simple. He abhorred violence. He never liked Fordyce and O'Donnell's methods and did his best to keep them in their place."

Sam shook her head.
"I don't understand," she told Alethea. "What are you getting at?"

"Professor Zeross," began Alethea after a deep inhalation, "founded the Blue Bow Army soon after his granddaughter died in a fire on these very grounds. He wanted to control the Forces of Death, so that he could bring his granddaughter back to life. That was the whole point of all this, so that he could save lives by allowing doctors to be able to control Death itself." She shook her head. "But Fordyce, he was a Ghost Eater. He didn't like the thought of Zeross denying him his source of ghosts, of which there are many in this hospital."

"There are many ghosts in hospitals," explained Alethea quietly. "Cemeteries and hospitals are the places to go if you want to consume ghosts. That's where they hang around, you see. The ghosts of people that have died in hospitals and the ghosts of those that have had unfinished business." She swallowed. "This place is built on a disaster where many people died. There's a cemetery nearby and the Maudsley Institute is built on top of the ruins of a school where many children and Professor Zeross' very own granddaughter died."

Sam knew about that. She had heard about the fire. It had been a terrible tragedy, one that was even now affecting Danny. Was this Alex, that Danny wanted to rescue, a former pupil at the school that once stood where the Mental Institute now stood?
"The mental patients," exclaimed Sam suddenly. "They've got ghosts inside them, haven't they?"

Alethea nodded.
"That's right," she told Sam. "There's so many ghosts here, that some have even possessed the patients, giving them split personalities and making it look as if they've gone crazy. But they haven't and Professor Zeross realised that. He designed the Fate Determination Machine, to take control of the Kingdom of Death and to ensure that the ghosts that haunt this place are sent off to the After Life. But Dr. Fordyce didn't want that."

"Fordyce killed Professor Zeross," continued Alethea sadly. "He killed the Professor."

Sam now understood how the Leadership had changed. With Zeross dead, Danny had been free to take control of the Blue Bow Army. Yet, she still couldn't quite understand how the soldiers of the Blue Bow Army, whom must have been loyal to Zeross somehow, would have stomached the regime change.
"I still don't understand," she said sternly. "Something doesn't add up… How did Fordyce get away with it?"

"Things were never like this in the Blue Bow Army before he came along," was Alethea's reply. "When Zeross died, O'Donnell quickly claimed that the Professor had died in an accident and then he put Daniel Fenton in charge. He claimed that Professor Zeross would have wanted the Shou Ge Wang to lead the Blue Bow Army, because both Blue Bow and the Mao Shang shared the same goals." She shook her head. "But this wasn't the real Shou Ge Wang. I know that. This Daniel Fenton was a clone O'Donnell created from a blood sample from the original."

"A clone?" exclaimed Sam in surprise, and with that, her heart began to sink. She thought that by awakening Danny would go back into his body and kick the impostor personality out, yet she had no idea that the body belonged to the impostor himself. "You mean, the Danny that was with you that night… wasn't the real thing?"

Alethea shook his head in reply.
"No," she told Sam. "I have reason to believe that O'Donnell had been planning to seize control of the Blue Bow Army for quite some time now, because only a few hours ago, he had Fordyce disposed of as well. He's now the only one of the original three scientists that worked on the Fate Determination Machine. O'Donnell now has complete control over the Fate Determination Project."

"So why did you wake me up?" asked Sam curiously.

"The Danny Fenton that's in control of the Blue Bow Army is nothing more than a puppet," replied Alethea sternly. "He's nothing more than a puppet and O'Donnell's the one that's pulling the strings. Even so, what the clone did, is unforgivable. He, the clone, he ordered the massacre of the real Danny Fenton's family." She shook her head. "I can't work for an organisation that would do that, that would destroy families like that." She got up from her chair. "I hoped that by waking you up, you'd at least be able to stall for time."

The nurse walked over to the window of the room and leaned on the sill, looking out of it and towards the ivy-covered building that was Arcadia Tower, the heart of the Blue Bow Army and its Fate Determination and Life Ghost Projects.

"The clone has a crush on you," she continued. "If you can keep him distracted for long enough, maybe, just maybe, the Mao Shang will have enough time to storm this place and put an end to O'Donnell's mad plans."

Sam couldn't believe what she had just heard. Was Alethea serious? If so, that meant she had contact with the Mao Shang, but even so…
"You must be kidding," protested Sam. "This is a hospital! You can't just launch an invasion like that!"

"The Mao Shang are few in numbers," was Alethea's reply. "Besides, they will be attacking Arcadia Tower. There are no patients there. They'll enter and destroy the Fate Determination Machine." She turned to face Sam. "Will you help us?" she asked Sam curiously. "Will you distract the clone long enough for the Mao Shang to get through?"

Thoughts of Danny entered Sam's mind, as she sat there on the bed. She knew that Danny, the real Danny, had to return to the world of the living too. If for no one else, Sam had to stall for him.
"What other choice do I have?" asked Sam.

"Here, get dressed," said Alethea, as she flung the black-haired girl some clothes. "I'll take you to the back entrance and we can take the service elevator up to the Observation Deck."


O'Donnell looked up at the display of the Fate Determination Machine, which now showed a clear picture of a typical developed world city bustling with people.
"Look at them," he said to the Danny Clone. "The people of the Developed Nations, of the Rich Nations, are nothing more than pigs. They grow fat and complacent, whilst their poorer counterparts kill each other for food and water." He smiled. "There is too much waste in human society. The rich are swine and the poor are savages. Not a single one of them is worth the dirt they walk on."

He reached out and laid a hand on the Clone's shoulders.
"Soon, though," he continued, "the Life Ghost… Sorry, I mean, Life Eater, shall rise. We shall purge this world of the unworthy and reset it!"

"W-W-Wipe the slate c-clean?" exclaimed the Clone.

"That's right," agreed O'Donnell with a mad glint in his eyes and a nod of his head. "We shall wipe it clean and start all over again. Humans and animals, the living and the dead, mortals and ghosts, all shall be wiped out of existence with the rise of the Life Eater!" The grin on his face widened into a mad smile. "What a wonderful future it will be," he exclaimed. "A future with no living creature is a future with no hatred, no pain and no suffering! The Great Dream of Peace shall finally be achieved!"

The image on the display suddenly altered to that of the Fenton Ghost RV, looking battered and worse for wear, pulling up to the entrance of Arcadia Tower.

"W-W-What is this?" exclaimed the Clone in surprise. "I thought I-I ordered their d-d-destruction." He rose from his seat. "H-How is it p-p-possible that they s-s-survived the a-attack?" he wondered out loud.

"It does not matter now," said O'Donnell with a shake of his head. "They are too late. The Life Eater is already complete. Amity Park is in ruins. The Mao Shang have been defeated and wiped out. What can these fools do?" He turned to face the Clone. "Although, it wouldn't harm to set Security on them," he added. "I'm sure that the new and improved Michael Fordyce, that you suggested, will come in handy." O'Donnell reached out and then pressed a button on the arm of the Clone's chair.


The scene that greeted them was one of complete destruction. It looked as if a war had hit the inside of Arcadia Tower. Wires hung loosely and dangerously from the ceiling and rubble lay discarded on the floor. Pipes lay exposed and some were broken, pouring water or some unidentifiable liquid on to the floor, and all around was the remains of ectoplasm and wrecked circuitry, and the smell of ozone and even raw sewage.

"I don't like this," said Jack Fenton, as he stalked across the rubble.

"That makes two of us," whispered Tucker quietly, as he stepped over a discarded security guard's hat and then a discarded boot. He suddenly looked up, afraid that he would find a dead body amongst the rubble.

The group had passed through several disabled traps within the Tower, most of which had seemed quite deadly. There was the section of corridor, on which was once a conveyer belt that had led to a set of rather nasty looking spiked rollers designed to liquefy anything that got caught in them. It was clear that that section had had been designed for the sole purpose of capturing any invading soldiers, making it difficult for them to struggle forward, especially from the look of the gun nests on the other side.

Jazz knew that the defences also had a terrifying psychological aspect to it. From the ruins of the trap, she could tell that any invading soldiers would be under gun fire with no place to hide on a conveyer belt that made it difficult for them to move towards the other side of the corridor, where the gun nests were inconveniently located, and if they stopped in their tracks the conveyer belt would move them closer towards the rollers where they would be mashed to a pulp.

The girl wondered how many people had been killed in the attack on the Blue Bow Army's Headquarters. She didn't like to think about it.

"Look out!" cried Jack, before he dived towards his wife, pushing her out of the way of an energy blast that would have struck her in the chest.

Valerie quickly spun round and saw a few faceless ghosts floating behind her. She quickly opened fire on them with her new rifle, a present given to her by the Fenton Family. The energy blast from her rifle quickly caught the ghosts and peeled the outer ectoplasmic layer from them, stripping them off the ectoplasm that made them what they were, to leave the bare skeletal frame and wires that collapsed to the floor and broke into pieces.

"Thanks, honey," said Maddie with a faint smile on her face. "That was a close one."

"It'll take more than that to get the drop on me," announced Jack proudly, as he helped his wife back up to her feet.

"Those pictures are starting to creep me out," muttered Tucker, as he looked at the wall. He knew they were pictures of Danny, the New Blue Bow Leader, but the way the eyes on each picture seemed to stare out at him, as if each one was alive… The grim expression on Danny's lips, the cold stare, all of it served to get on Tucker's nerves, to increase the fear in his heart.

Maddie suddenly saw something. She saw the eyes on all the portraits glowing.
"Duck!" she cried, before lasers flew from the eyes of each portrait.

The lasers flew straight from the eyeholes of each portrait, striking the eyeholes of the other picture opposite. They were carefully designed so as to hit any soldier in the head, killing them instantly. Yet the lasers didn't move one bit. They remained level, maintained by the machinery behind the opposite portraits. There was a clear psychological aspect to it, in the fact that surviving soldiers would be the ones already on the floor and there they would have the perfect view point of seeing their colleagues drop down dead. From then on, they were forced to crawl onwards, through the remains of those they had fought and of their colleagues.

"Let's get a move on before anything else happens," suggested Valerie, before she led the way, crawling along the floor.

They soon came upon a great octagonal-shaped room with bare metallic walls and a grand moat surrounding the wall filled with vicious looking spikes, each stained in something that looked suspiciously like blood. It wasn't exactly the most inviting of rooms, but they had to enter it. They had climbed through the Tower, knocking off any of the A-Ghosts that had attempted to attack them and this was the only route through the Tower left to them. They had to continue. It was their duty to continue.

"Ah, my back!" complained Jack, as he straightened upwards. He never thought that he would have to crawl for so long through the corridors of Arcadia Tower. He had always imagined it to be a glorious invasion, them storming the place and having a running battle against the ghost army of the Blue Bow.

Suddenly, there was a great whirring sound. The bridges that spanned the moat suddenly retracted, leaving them stranded on the isolated platform.

"A trap!" exclaimed Valerie, as she looked around her suspiciously.

There was a giggle and then a clichéd puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared, they could clearly see a table in front of them, draped in a yellow cloth and someone was standing behind it with three candles positioned on the left, right and in front of him. There were great huge yellow banners behind the man and the table, all marked with Chinese characters in bright red ink. The three candles were all red, the middle one longer than the others, and both had rectangular pieces of yellow paper plastered on them, each with a Chinese incantation written on them in red ink, the same incantation that was marked on the banners.

Tucker gulped nervously. He recognised the masked man behind the table.
"Blind Gerald?" exclaimed Tucker in disbelief. Sure, the mask was slightly different, an eye had been painted on the mask over where the left eyehole should have been, but there were still no eyeholes carved into the mask, which was one solid mask with a Chinese character painted on it in red ink.

"This is not a place f-for the likes of y-y-you," stuttered Blind Gerald. "Y-You will regret c-c-coming here. With M-Master Phantom and… the L-L-Life Ghost, the New W-World is… is… is… r-ready to b-begin." Then with a flourish of his hands, he burnt two Chinese Talismans and hurled them into the air.

The flaming pieces of paper fluttered to the ground before they suddenly turned into great plumes of smoke that rose upwards and took form. The first one took on the form of a strange ghost with a head like an upside-down bucket with eyes and a mouth cut out of the metal. Fires raged within its head making the eyes and the mouth glow a bright red and the bottom half of its body was like that of a genie's, only made with smoke instead of anything supernatural and smoke billowed out of its right arm, which was like a flamethrower.

The second ghost that formed from the Talisman's had the bottom half of the previous ghost, but the top half of a white tiger with green stripes instead of black. It roared once, as did its fiery companion, before it rushed straight at Tucker and company.


Danny walked carefully across the rubble.

This was the same place as in his dreams. It was the burnt out ruins of Streete Court School, the Boarding School that Professor Zeross had once run. This was the place where Alex had died. This was the place where countless others had died in the smoke and the flames. This was the rubble that had existed for many years, before the Blue Bow Army came and built the Maudsley Institute on top of the ruins, fashioning the Institute such that it looked like an exact duplicate of the school as it had once been before the fire.

The white-haired youth, for he had transformed into his ghost form, picked his way across a fallen marble statue, charred black with soot. He knew it would have been easier for him to fly over, but if he did that, he had a feeling that he would miss something. Danny didn't want that. What he wanted was to do a thorough search of this ghostly plain, this purgatory that he was sure Alex haunted.

Some walls still had paintings hanging on them, now partially charred and destroyed. It didn't matter what they had been in the past. Now they were blackened with eyes still staring facelessly from them. Personal belongings were scattered through the rubble, most charred or damp, smelling of charcoal. Everything smelt of charcoal, of damp charcoal and a rotting, decaying aroma filled the air, accompanying the stillness of the ruins.

In front a wooden beam, black and looking fragile, lay across his path, forming some sort of triangular archway. It wasn't much of an obstacle, but rather than going through it, he ducked underneath it as if his powers of intangibility never existed.

"Ghost Eater."

The young Daniel Fenton looked around him worriedly with glowing green eyes. There was no one around to be seen, yet he could have sworn that he had heard someone. He wondered about the words he had just heard. Ghost Eater. Only now did he know what they meant, only now did he know what horror that the words conveyed. To actively consume ghosts and absorb them, to digest their personalities.

"Master Phantom…"

Danny whirled round. There was no one there.

"Life Ghost…"

That time the voice seemed to come from behind him. Danny whirled round again, only to be greeted by thin air. He spun round, looking around him, at the rubble around him, the imaginary rubble in this lonely purgatory. The half-ghost, Shou Ge Wang, Harvest King, he knew that someone was there with him. He knew that not only was someone out there, but that that someone was not friendly. Not only was it not friendly, but it was actively hiding from him, as if it knew that he could harm it.

"The New World…" whispered the voice.

"Show yourself!" shouted Danny, as he rotated around in one spot slowly, his eyes scanning his surroundings.

"It's ready," concluded the voice.

Then there was silence.

Danny held his breath. He listened. Young Daniel Fenton listened to the silence around him. His muscles were tense. He was prepared. He was ready to spring into action should the need arrive and he knew that the need would arrive. It was all matter of time, though. The creature, the entity that he was sure that was stalking him even now, would have to strike sooner or later. He would not let it give him the element of surprise. When it did strike, he would be ready for it.

A scream echoed around Danny before a section of the wall caved in.

Hands reached out and clawed at Danny, only to go through thin air.

Fordyce glared at Danny sightlessly. The right side of his face was completely covered in some bizarre white membrane, leaving only his left eye free, an eye that seemed clouded over as if a transparent white film had been laid on top of it. The man seemed to be bleeding all over and crimson dribbled from his mouth, as he glared at Danny with white eyes. He looked as if two people were holding on to him and the heads on either side of him lifted upwards to glare at Danny with the same white eyes that Fordyce had.

"I-I-I am Ceres," announced the left head.

"I am D-Dyer," announced the right head.

"I a-am F-F-Forsythe," announced the middle head and the middle head grinned with stained teeth, as did the other heads.

"W-We are Fordyce," said all three heads simultaneously, before each one grinned inanely. "The G-Greatest Thing e-e-ever will soon awaken… M-M-Master Phantom… f-forever!"

Danny regarded Fordyce with an expression that was part horror and part pity. He couldn't understand how Fordyce had gotten into this position, but he had somewhat of a clue. What he couldn't be sure of was which one was the original personality that the body once belonged to. Was it Ceres, Dyer or Forsythe? Which was the original man and which were the ghosts that he had consumed, the ghosts that had attributed to the personality that had kept him unconscious when he was first admitted to the hospital?

A frown appeared on Danny's face. Why hadn't Fordyce rushed at him? He looked more closely at the doctor and suddenly realised the reason, but when he did, it was far too late.

Hands suddenly burst out of the ground. A myriad of hands burst out of the hand and grabbed Danny by the legs. These were attached to bodies on which were faces that were as decayed as that of Fordyce's three heads. These were the other ghost personalities that Fordyce had consumed, the other ghost personalities that he had digested and absorbed into the whole and they were all connected to Fordyce, whom was rooted to the ground and to the myriads of personalities that even now clawed at Danny and attempted to pull him closer.

"No!" screamed Danny, as he struggled to break from the hundreds of hands that pulled him further down into the writhing mass of flesh underneath, closer towards the chomping jaws. "Let go of me!" he shouted. "Let go!" He concentrated plasma energy into his hands, as he attempted to fly away from the clawing hands, before firing them down at the souls that attempted to pull him into the mass that was Fordyce. He fired a plasma blast straight into the mass of arms and hands.

Danny rose higher above them. He looked down at the writhing mass and at the screaming faces.

Was that the right thing to do? After all, these were souls that Fordyce had consumed. They were not in control of their destinies. Fordyce was. Surely, as Shou Ge Wang, it was his duty to liberate them and set them free? It was his duty to open their way to the After Life. Fighting against them wasn't what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to help them. He was supposed to defend them.

"D-Die!" groaned Fordyce and the other entities that he was made out of said the same word. "D-Die!"

A great column of arms and heads suddenly rose up after Danny and a hand grabbed him. He looked down and saw the decaying hand that held on to him. Danny could see the other of Fordyce's personalities clambering over each other in an attempt to get to him first. He shook himself, flying in random patterns in an attempt to shake them off, but they held on so tightly, so tightly he couldn't break free from them.
"Get off me!" he cried. "Fordyce!" he screamed, before firing a blast of energy straight at the main body made up of Forsythe, Dyer and Ceres.

A wall of ghost personalities, all consumed by the main personality, suddenly rose upwards and formed a shield against Danny's attack.

Danny swore under his breath. He had never liked Fordyce ever since he learnt of what the doctor had been doing to him in the hospital. This just made Fordyce seem even more cowardly and disgusting than before. To sacrifice a few external ghost personalities, personalities that should have been independent and free from Fordyce, was just despicable. He wanted to wipe that smug smirk off Fordyce's faces. He wanted to give Fordyce what was coming to him, but how could he, if all these ghost personalities were getting in the way.

"Carve… Carve out…"

"Stop it!" Danny shouted at the multiple ghosts that now seemed to be Fordyce's puppets, extensions of his conscience. "You don't have to be a part of him!" he cried.

"Name of our ruler."

The half-ghost closed his eyes, ignoring the emotionless chants of the many ghosts that made up Fordyce. He knew that he had to concentrate his energy and work on breaking free. If he didn't, he would end up being consumed by Fordyce. He would end up being a part of Fordyce and what then? Would Fordyce end up with his powers? Would Fordyce become the Shou Ge Wang by association and if so, what would that mean?

"Phantom! Phantom! Phantom!" chanted the many personalities of Fordyce.

"Stop it!" screamed Danny, before he broke free with a great burst of ghostly energy that radiated from his body. He watched as the multiple arms and faces were sent falling back down to the floor.

Fordyce suddenly rose up on a wave of bodies, bodies that represented the spiritual manifestation of all the ghosts he had consumed. All three of his heads gazed at Danny, a smug smile on the lips of each of the three entities that made up Fordyce. The main body, Forsythe, raised his hand and a huge geyser of arms and faces rose up towards Danny.
"Consume," groaned Fordyce in a voice that made it sound as if he had several holes in his throat. "Consume."

The column of arms and faces missed Danny, as he flew away from them and straight at Fordyce.

Arms reached out and Fordyce grabbed Danny, before opening all three mouths hideously and a raspy groan oozed out of his mouth. His grip tightened on Danny, as he leaned in to take a great bite out of him…


The tiger ghost writhed in agony before it disintegrated into a wisp of smoke that carried off into the air.

Blind Gerald burnt another Talisman and threw it to the ground silently. He watched sightlessly as the flames took shape and took on the form of the Water Ghost that Valerie had fought earlier that day.

"These guys just keep on coming," sighed Valerie.

"He can't keep conjuring ghosts up forever," said Jack in reply. "Keep fighting! He'll tire out soon."


Alethea pressed frantically on the elevator button. It was no use. She sighed angrily and then tried pressing a button underneath the one she had been so frantically pushing before. There was a sudden jolt and the elevator started rising. She sighed again.
"I knew it," she exhaled exasperatedly. "They've sealed off the Upper Floors. The only way to the Fenton Clone is through the Red Zone."

"The Red Zone?" exclaimed Sam curiously.

"It's the most heavily defended part of this tower," was Alethea's reply, "and even then, you can only get into the Bottom Floor of the Central Instrument Room." She thought carefully. "Just being in the same room, though, I think that might do the trick," she said calmly. "But… I don't know whether we'll be able to stall for long enough."

Sam thought quietly about what she had to do. She had to distract the Danny Clone and keep him occupied long enough until help arrived to finally thwart the Blue Bow Army. It wasn't going to be easy and she didn't like the idea of being with this Clone. Just knowing that the Clone only looked like Danny and only had the most superficial of Danny's memories, just knowing that made Sam feel uneasy. Just knowing that the impostor had a crush on her made her feel sick. She felt that she was somehow betraying Danny by befriending the Clone, even if she didn't really mean any of it.

"Well, I have to do this, don't I?" retorted Sam calmly. "There's no other choice."

"We can't let the Clone or O'Donnell escape," stated Alethea sternly. "If we keep them distracted for long enough, they'll still be here when the Mao Shang arrive."

Suddenly, the service elevator jerked to a halt.

The doors slid open.

"What?" exclaimed Alethea, before she edged towards the door. "This can't be! This… this is the Top Floor!" She couldn't understand it. She could have sworn she pressed a button that corresponded to the floor that was five floors below the Observation Deck.

"Hello there, ladies," greeted a familiar old voice, a heavily accented voice that could only belong to one person.

Sam frowned and then her jaw dropped in amazement.
"Suimsalp?" she exclaimed in disbelief. "You're…? You're all right?"

There was a smile on the old man's face, as he stood there.
"I've never felt better," he told Sam. "See? I'm not some old codger. I can take good care of myself." And he certainly looked quite healthy, despite having been blasted in the chest by the Danny Clone and falling into the water, apparently never to surface. "So, have you two come to put an end to the traitor's reign of terror?" he asked.

Sam shook her head. She knew what the old man was talking about and she felt that she had to set the record straight to him.
"That's not the real Harvest King," she told Suimsalp. "He's an impostor."

"An impostor, you say?" exclaimed Suimsalp in surprise, as he turned to look down the corridor. "Impossible! I would have known. Still… If you say so…" He looked up and then down the corridor. "Well, it does not matter whether he's an impostor or not," he said with a shake of his head. "Either way, we've got to stop him in his tracks. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah," replied Sam with a nod of her head.

A laugh soon echoed all around the corridor. It was a menacing laugh, tinged with a slight hint of madness. It was not the typical super villain laugh that one comes to expect from super villains. It wasn't even the stereotypical laugh of a madman. This laugh was one of genuine insanity with a flavour of pure rage behind it. This laugh was a bone-chilling laugh that made the blood run cold. They all turned round.

O'Donnell stood not too far down in the corridor, his arms crossed behind his back, a few blood stains splattered on his white lab coat and a horrific, insane smile splattered on his lips. In the harsh light of the corridor, the right lens of his glasses seemed opaquely white compared unlike the left lens, which was red and see through, allowing them to finally see that there was no eye there.
"Alethea, why did you bring these people here?" he asked her curiously. "Don't you value the Ideals of Master Phantom?"

"Don't you give me that BS," protested Alethea angrily. "I know you're the one pulling his strings."

"Oh, is that so?" exclaimed O'Donnell in mock surprise. He sighed and shook his head. "So I assume that you will not be around to watch when I unleash the Life Eater?" He brought his right hand out from behind his back and clicked his fingers.

Something appeared beside O'Donnell, floating there and staring at them with its single eye. It was a single eye in a sphere of what seemed like black shadows. This was the very thing that had fled Spectra's body before it had disintegrated. It belonged to O'Donnell. It was his and it was the very thing that had been controlling Dr. Spectra and making her bend to O'Donnell's will. This thing, this Eye, it floated there before it shuddered and took the shape of Dr. Spectra, except that in the place of a face, there was just the one, single eye staring at them.

O'Donnell chuckled.
"I'll leave you alone with my Familiar," he said calmly, as he turned his back on them. "Kill them," he said, as he began walking down the corridor. "Don't let them reach the Observation Deck. Kill them all."


The shot Valerie fired, shredded the Water Ghost like wind shreds wet tissue paper.

Blind Gerald screamed something intelligible, before he leapt away from the table. He landed in front of Valerie and hit her with the back of his wooden sword with such force that he nearly knocked her straight off her feet. Then in one swift movement, he swung the sharp edge of the wooden sword at the ghost hunter. He missed, as Valerie rolled out of the way. He cried angrily and spun round, the metallic fibrils from his best whirling round dangerously, their sharp edges flying through the air.

The way those metallic wires seemed to flail made it seem almost as if they were living extensions of Blind Gerald. Valerie couldn't understand how it was possible, as she dodged the sharp edges of Blind Gerald's wires. She back-flipped and dodged the wires, all whilst avoiding those short, sharp thrusts of Blind Gerald's wooden sword. Though it was made of wood, it looked potentially sharp and Valerie didn't want to end up on the wrong end of it.

Valerie couldn't understand it. This man had no eyeholes in his mask. He couldn't see her, yet he still managed to fight with the accuracy of a man that could see. His arms were a flurry and his sharp wooden sword missed her not by inches, but by mere millimetres, so precise was his thrusts and swings. She was doing her very best to keep up, to be able to dodge his attacks, but it didn't seem to be enough.

Without warning, Jack suddenly rushed Blind Gerald and crashed into him, knocking him over with the strength of a quarterback.

Yet it would seem that Blind Gerald was part cat, as he landed back on his feet, despite being flipped off them. He slipped into a defensive stance and waited. It was not clear what he was waiting for, as he stood there. He just waited there, as if waiting for them to attack. Blind Gerald stood there, like a coiled spring, ready to leap into action, the wires from his belt, like spider legs, touching the ground as if to provide him with support.

"This guy is nuts," exclaimed Jack. "He can't take us all on by himself."

"I-I do n-not need to," was Blind Gerald's reply.

"M-Master Phantom… Life E-Eater… N-N-New World… will s-start," came a muffled chanting that seemed to come from outside.

Ghosts started to rise up from the floor, each of them with rectangular pieces of yellow paper inscribed with Chinese characters draped over their left eyes. There was Johnny 13, Nicolai Technus, the Lunch Lady, Skulker, the Box Ghost, Desiree, Ember, Walker and even Spectra was amongst them. All of them had a dead look in their left eyes and looked as limp as wet paper dolls, as they rose up out of the ground. And all of them were stuttering and all of them were chanting the same thing, as if they were in some sort of trance, as if they being controlled by someone else.

"So many ghosts," murmured Maddie.

Jazz didn't say a thing. She didn't even move. She had noticed something. It seemed strange to her how the candles on the table seemed to flare so brightly with every ghost that was conjured up. She wondered. Would Blind Gerald's hold over the ghosts disappear if she somehow snuffed them out? She had to try, but what she needed was some kind of distraction. What she needed was…
"Tucker," she called out to Danny's best friend. "I need you to cause a distraction," she told him.

"Me?" exclaimed Tucker. "Why me?"

"Hey, judging from how Danny never gets any work done when you're around, I think you're the most distracting person here," was Jazz's reply. She then turned to watch the incoming ghosts that were even now joining Blind Gerald in the fight against her parents and Valerie. "Look, just distract them any way you can," she said. "The more distracted they are, the better I can snuff out those candles of his. I bet they're what's helping him control all those ghosts."

Tucker thought of all the things he could do. There were none that he liked. All involved putting himself in danger. Yet, there was something else that he could do… He just wasn't sure whether it was the right thing to do.
"Okay," he said, "but you'd better cover your ears." He then started singing.

The plan was simple. Tucker had heard that blind people's other senses usually get sharper in an attempt to make up for their lack of sight. If that was so, then Blind Gerald's hearing would make him vulnerable to any off-key singing on Tucker's behalf. And let's face it, all of Tucker's singing was off key.

Still, Tucker never thought that the chamber they were in would have such great acoustics. His singing echoed all around them and even the ghosts were covering their ears and writhing on the floor in agony. He noticed that even Blind Gerald was writhing on the floor in agony, clutching at his ears but to no avail. Tucker wondered whether his singing would end up echoing within Blind Gerald's mask, especially how Blind Gerald's voice itself seemed to echo within that mask.

Seeing her chance, Valerie quickly rushed Blind Gerald.

Seeing her chance, Jazz rushed at the table.

With one blow, Valerie smashed Blind Gerald's mask.

With one blow, Jazz smashed the candles.

The ghosts dissipated and Blind Gerald fell unconscious.


Fordyce roared in pain, as his main body reared backwards.

Before Danny could fire another blast, hands suddenly grabbed his arms. He tried to struggle against them, but found himself unable to. Becoming intangible, becoming solid, nothing worked. The different ghost personalities, all part of Fordyce, were ensnaring Danny. Hands grabbed his limbs, his neck, his torso, his face, covering his mouth and his nose and the fingers were clawing at him. They grabbed him tightly, the fingers digging into his flesh but thankfully not puncturing it. Faces rose upwards and mouths chomped on thin air, closing in on him.

Slowly, Danny's thoughts began to disappear into a black haze and his vision started to blur.


Sam threw the glutinous rice grains into the Familiar's Eye.

It screamed in agony, writhing as it burnt. Blinded by the rice against its eyeball, the creature didn't see Suimsalp rush up towards it with a wooden sword. The thing didn't see Suimsalp plunge the sword deep into its body and by then it was too late. The creature writhed and then it dissipated into thin air.

"That was much easier than I thought it would be," said Sam calmly.

"Yes, it was," agreed Suimsalp a slow nod of his head. "Almost too easy."

That comment made Sam look around her cautiously. She herself had a sneaking suspicion that the Familiar had been far too easy to defeat. Did O'Donnell really expect that wimp of a ghost to defeat them, or was it keeping them occupied whilst he schemed to get rid of them by some other means? Sam didn't like it one bit. She didn't like the situation at all.

"Let's get going," she said sternly.


"H-Here they come," sighed the Danny Clone. "They swarm towards m-me like r-r-rats." His right hand clenched into a fist tightly. "D-Dr. O'Donnell, what should I d-do?"

A smile spread across O'Donnell's face.
"You are the prototype Life Ghost," he told the Danny Clone. "You have its powers. You can defeat them easily."

The Danny Clone sighed, as he pressed a button and the entire chair he sat in swivelled round to face the entrance to the Observation Deck. He knew O'Donnell was right. The Danny Clone knew that he was far superior to the miserable vermin that were going to appear soon. What could they do against him? He was Danny Phantom, the most powerful of all living beings. He was Shou Ge Wang. He was the prototype Life Ghost. There was nothing he couldn't do.

The doors suddenly slammed open.

"S-S-S-Sam?" exclaimed the Clone in surprise. He had not expected her to be up on the Observation Deck. In fact, he had not even expected her to be conscious. "S-Sam," he sighed in a loving tone of voice. He then frowned, a frown that dissipated into a strange pained expression, before becoming a frown again. "I d-don't understand," he then said in a confused tone of voice. "How is it p-possible? Who w-woke you up?" The Clone shook his head sadly. "S-Sam, you shouldn't be here."

Sam walked ahead of Alethea and Suimsalp, not caring for her own safety.
"What makes you say that?" she asked the Clone, knowing that she had to put him off guard. "Well, Danny?"

"I'm so sorry," apologised the Clone. "I'm so sorry, S-S-Sam, for what I did to you."

A frown appeared on Sam's face. Was it just her or was the Clone's stuttering getting less frequent? She shook her head and tried to clear that thought out of her mind. It was one she didn't want. It was one she didn't need. What she needed was to concentrate on keeping the Danny Clone occupied.
"Why did you do it?" she asked him. "Why did you do it, Danny? How could you do something like to the person you love?"

"You know h-h-how I f-f-feel?" asked the Clone in surprise.

"I've known for a long time, Danny," said Sam calmly, as she tried her best to look love struck. "And… I feel the same way too."

"You d-d-do?" exclaimed the Clone.

"Yeah," replied Sam mock-bashfully.

O'Donnell suddenly stepped forward.
"Silence, girl!" he shouted at her. "You will not speak to Master Phantom like that!" He then turned to face the Danny Clone. "I'm so sorry, Master Phantom. I had no idea that the Manson girl would be so impudent to you." He then turned back to face Sam momentarily, before turning back round to face the Danny Clone. "Do not listen to her," he told the Clone calmly. "She is only trying to deceive you. She would blind you to the truth and make you stray away from your ideals."

"Danny, don't listen to him!" shouted Sam loudly. "I love you!" she lied to him.

The expression that spread across the Clone's face was a mixture of shock and of great relief. The Clone had never expected Sam to return his love, after he thought back to all his previous encounters with her. He never expected the love to be real, the love that they had denied so many times. The Clone had always thought those times were real, that Sam's denials were real.

A smile spread across the Clone's lips.
"And I l-l-love you too, S-Sam," he stuttered.

A plasma blast suddenly flew through the air and struck the Clone in the face, knocking the Clone's head backwards.

Valerie lowered the rifle.
"That'll teach you to mess with me," she told the clone.

"Sam!" cried Tucker with great relief.

"Tuck?"

"Oh, that was a b-bad mistake," growled the Danny Clone angrily, as he leaned forward to show that Valerie's blast had done nothing to harm him. "D-Do you know w-what you are d-d-doing… doing?" He rose up from his chair and floated away from it and down towards them, until his feet were only half a metre away from the metallic floor. "H-How dare you help the c-cause of the F-Forces of Evil?" he asked them angrily. "Humanity is a p-p-plague. G-Ghosts are a p-p-plague. They m-must all be exterminated."

O'Donnell laughed.
"That is right, sir," he said, saying the last word with bitter sarcasm. "Now what will you do?"

"I w-will teach these v-v-vermin a lesson," was the Clone's reply, before he tore his cloak off. He then fired a green plasma bolt at Danny's parents.


Danny fired a green plasma bolt at Fordyce.

There was a scream and suddenly Danny felt the grip of the arms loosen. He tore free from the limbs of the different personalities and flew away from them.
"You're going down, Fordyce!" he shouted at the three-headed monstrosity that spiritually represented the corrupt doctor. "I won't let you keep these ghosts from passing on to the other side!" He then flew straight down towards Fordyce.

Arms burst out of the ground and reached out for him. He dodged them all, weaving in and out of the rising bodies.

Ectoplasmic energy charged up and built up within his right hand, as he flew straight at Fordyce. He could have fired it straight at Fordyce, but he knew that would have been pointless. After all, Fordyce could just put up some other ghost personalities to shield himself with. No, Danny knew he had to be close up in order to blasts Fordyce and to do that, he would have to dodge all these different personalities, all of whom were trying to devour him and make him a part of Fordyce.


Valerie blocked the Clone's attack, before she opened fire on him. She sent plasma bolts flying at him, but he became intangible and they all flew through him. Seeing this, Valerie knew that she had to do something to see him. She quickly brought out a pair of what looked like night-vision goggles and put them on, and instantly, the Clone became visible to her again and in that instant, she saw the Clone's fist hurtle straight towards her head.

It was too fast. Valerie couldn't get out of the way in time.

"Danny! Stop it!" cried Tucker and Jazz almost simultaneously.

"Danny?" exclaimed Jack and Maddie simultaneously.

"That's not Danny," protested Sam quickly, before they could let spill any of her best friend's secrets. "It's a clone of him that's been given ghost powers."

O'Donnell laughed.
"Ah, but not just any ghost's powers," he said in an attempt to correct Sam. "He has been infused with the Power of the Life Eater, a human-ghost hybrid that I've been working on for all these years. It is the Power of a God!"

"Yeah, well he ain't so tough!" cried Valerie in reply, before firing another blast at the Danny Clone.

This time, she had fired something that would hit the Danny Clone regardless of whether he was intangible or not. So it collided with him and he became tangible once more and was flung backwards by the force of the blast, but not before countering with a blast of energy of his own.

Valerie dodged it and dived out of the way. She then opened fire, only for her shot to rebound against an ectoplasmic shield. Valerie swore under her breath, before she rushed straight at the Danny Clone. She dodged a few of his shots before she flung a punch at the Danny Clone's face and missed as he became intangible. Her fist went straight through thin-air as the Clone tried to go straight through her, only to rebound and fall backwards.
"Ha, you're not going to try and take over my body," she told him.

"G-Go and d-d-die," retorted the Danny Clone before he blasted Valerie in the chest with a full force plasma bolt.


More arms burst out of the ground and more of the personalities that Fordyce devoured attempted to grab him.

Yet Danny flew round them easily. He then rushed Fordyce and was about to hit the ghost, when one of Fordyce's hands reached out and grabbed Danny. Two wrapped around his throat and the other two grabbed his arms, holding them back and away from him. He tried to struggle, but Fordyce was far too strong and was easily overpowering him.

"Y-You shouldn't h-h-have c-come here," said Fordyce. "Y-Your precious A-Alex isn't here. Alex… Alex is… is in the human w-world with O'Donnell." He smiled inanely. "Now w-we eat you."

"You like eating ghosts?" Danny managed to ask through his constricted throat. "Eat this!" he cried, before he finally tore his arm out of Fordyce's grasp and punched his central head, before letting rip with a blast of ectoplasmic energy that blew Fordyce apart, sending ectoplasm flying through the air.

Fordyce staggered backwards, a gaping hole in his body, dripping green ectoplasm. All three heads wheezed terribly, as the entities of Forsythe, Dyer and Ceres began to disintegrate.
"What?" exclaimed all three heads in unison. "What are we doing here? What are we? How…?" Then all three mouths opened in a silent scream before Fordyce disintegrated into nothing.

Breathing heavily, Danny sighed as he floated down to the floor. He could see the ghosts rising upwards before his very eyes like steam. They seemed so blurred though and he seemed so tired. A part of him wanted to be with them, wanted to go with them to their destiny. A part of him knew that he had to return to the human world, but a part of him, the tired part of him, the part of him that seemed so strong thanks to his fatigue, desired to go with the other ghosts. He wanted to just leave his cares behind and go with them to the other side.

And Danny collapsed on the floor.