"Let her go!" Danny cried from below and flew up to Ariel. He pushed the ghosts back and caught Ariel in his arms. Vlad just laughed as more ghosts flew at the ghost boy. Danny screamed in pain as he took every shot that was for Ariel.
"Daniel, why do you do this to yourself? It's completely hopeless, and yet you still struggle." Vlad frowned at Danny as he started to fall from the sky.
"No!" Jason cried as he watched his hero become weak and powerless.
Danny changed back in the air and hit the ground. Ariel was on top of him. She opened her eyes to see Danny's closed. She sat up through a massive headache and looked around. She felt her mind swimming as she changed. The ringing began, but she had to change to save Jason. She pushed herself more and was able to change, but it was an exhausting challenge.
She tried to wake Danny, but he wouldn't get up. She felt the anger surround her as she looked to the man who had taken out her friend, stolen her siblings, and killed thousands of people and enslaved so many more. She could feel the wind changing around her as she screamed out. The glass broke on the windows as her ghostly wail made Ember let go of Jason and let him drop from the sky. Ariel caught him and hugged him dearly. She grabbed Skye, and after feeling the zap from the belt, she felt awake. She had an idea. She told Skye to hug Danny while Vlad was still trying to figure out what happened.
Skye picked Jason up as Skye hugged Danny. Danny woke up immediately, but couldn't get Skye to stop hugging him. Ariel had to call Skye off and turn off the belt. Danny picked her up and started flying somewhere safe. Ariel followed, but they were being followed. Skye flew over up to Danny and pointed behind her. He saw the army of ghosts too and started flying faster. Ariel flew faster too, but they weren't fast enough.
The ghosts caught up to them and surrounded them completely. Ariel held on to Jason tighter as some of them left their position to attack, they would only attack three at a time at the most. Ariel dodged them and tried to hit them, it wasn't hard to miss. Ariel held on to Skye as Danny focused on one beam and fired, they followed the beam out of the circle, but the ghosts regrouped and surrounded them.
"There's no way out!" Ariel cried.
"There's one way! Remember in issue number 153, Danny took his friends to the ghost world!" Jason exclaimed. "We could run in there and they would follow us so we trap them there!"
"Only one problem," Skye sighed, "we don't have a ghost portal."
"You know about that?" Jason asked.
Ariel and Danny looked at each other. Ariel smiled, "We may not have one, but Plasmius does."
"I'm not going to let you go through with that! It took me seven years to find my friends the last time I went in there. It's not going to happen again." Danny moved in front of Ariel.
"We have to, and that's final." Ariel glared at Danny. There was no other way, but the probability of that plan working was extremely low. Ariel knew it was her last chance to get rid of these ghosts forever, and she was not going to miss that chance because some boy told her it was dangerous.
"No!" Danny shouted as he held back the tears that flooded his eyes.
"We have to! Think about all those lives those ghosts have taken! Don't you care that they'll take more to get their army stronger?" Ariel cried.
"No! I care about here and now, and I'm going to let you risk being trapped in the ghost zone!" Danny remembered the hopelessness he felt as he denied her access to the portal.
Ariel suddenly handed Skye and Jason to Danny and flew to the wall of the wide circle. None of the ghosts were moving, but Ariel didn't care. She put up her arms and flew through the wall, knocking back one of the ghosts and letting it fall to the ground. Danny followed. He tried to catch her, but he couldn't move fast enough with the kids. Skye started crying and Jason was holding on tightly to Danny.
Ariel wiped away the tears that blocked her vision. She almost flew directly into Plasmius, but he grabbed her arm and made her stop. She fought against his grip, but couldn't get free. She was crying when she saw Danny coming. Ariel tried to get a hold of herself, but couldn't. She tried to phase through Plasmius' hand, but instead changed into her human form. She felt too weak to change back and stopped fighting. She wiped away her tears again as Plasmius moved towards his mansion.
Ariel let herself be flown there and she was laid down on a bed to rest. She wanted to wipe away her tears, but she was too tired to move her hand. She closed her blurry eyes and fell asleep on the bed with Plasmius sitting next to her.