The fortress was looming in the abyss that was the Ghost Zone. Vundeter was pulling Danny into the fortress of the Maldums, with Danny's heart racing. He didn't like Raschenda or Vundeter, nor did he trust them. And he especially did not want to fight side by side them in a war against other ghosts. Unfortunately for Danny, if he wanted to get his powers back, this was the only way he could.
"Now," Raschenda said. "You must go and search for the powers that were stolen from you. Vundeter and I shall fight off any ghosts that come in your way."
Raschenda's voice was really getting to Danny. It sounded like it belonged to a female henchman in a James Bond movie. Heck, Raschenda even looked like a female henchman in a James Bond movie, despite the pale green skin, the piercing white eyes and the fact that she was wearing armor and not revealing clothing.
"All right," Danny said. He gulped and went into the main hall of the fortress. The entire place looked like a giant haunted house. There were long dark hallways that were erringly empty. Danny's footsteps made echoing noises as he walked across the marble floor. There was barely any light in the place, and yet Danny could see around clearly. There were barely any rooms, except for an elevator that seemed to go upwards into the fort.
Danny and the two ghosts following him were ready to step into the elevator until they heard someone scream from behind, "Intruders! Freeze where you are!"
The three turned around in shock to see that there were over fifteen ghosts staring at them, all of them having great amounts of energy being stored and charged in their hands. They could fire that energy at any opportunity they wanted.
Danny didn't hesitate. He picked up a ghost grenade out of his pocket and threw it at the ghosts. It immediately exploded, causing a massive explosion of green fire. The ghosts that got hit started screaming in pain and slowly fell to the ground.
Danny looked around and saw one ghost ready to punch him in the face as hard as he could, but Raschenda fired a blast of energy out of her hands and knocked that ghost to the side. Danny gave her a quick nod, saying "Thanks."
The fight raged on with more and more ghosts firing blasts of green energy at Danny and the other ghosts, with several blasts coming literally within an inch of hitting Danny. Danny finally had enough of it and pulled out the proton laser that Vundeter had shown to him before they left.
Danny fired the proton laser and a thick beam of red light came firing out of the weapon. It hit a ghost and immediately put a hole right where Danny hit him. The ghost screamed in pain and fell to the ground and didn't get up.
"Nice work of that laser," said Vundeter as he picked up an enemy ghost and threw it on top of another enemy ghost. Vundeter looked just like a medieval knight, but without a sword or helmet. His white slits for eyes seemed to strike fear into the hearts of all the ghosts that confronted him, along with his thick armor and strong build.
"Thanks," Danny said, continuing to fire it at all the other ghosts that he could without accidentally blasting Raschenda or Vundeter. That laser was going to make the fight an easy win for him and the two other ghosts until he saw that the laser ran out of energy and would need to be recharged.
But it didn't matter. Raschenda grabbed the last enemy ghost and fired some of her ectoplasma energy at its face and defeated it. She threw it to the side.
Breathing heavily, Danny, Vundeter and Raschenda looked around at the room. After the quick battle they had just fought, they saw the bodies of all the ghosts lying helplessly on the floor.
"Not a bad exercise," Danny said, putting his hand onto his forehead.
"No time for that now," Vundeter said. "We still haven't accomplished what we came here to do. Let's get to that elevator now and look on all the different levels of this fortress for your powers, Danny."
"Right," Danny said, forming a fist in mid air.
Armed with all the weapons Vundeter had shown him, Danny tried walking over to the elevator as quietly as he could. He opened the door to it and went from floor to floor. After several tries, Danny was finally on the top floor with Raschenda and Vundeter right behind him. Danny's heart was pounding so hard now, thinking Raschenda and Vundeter were about to lead him into a trap that could cost him his life.
The elevator opened on the very top floor. The hallway was very narrow with nothing on the sidewalls. The long hallway ended in a massive room, where two ghosts were standing at a giant computer.
"Why is it taking so long?" one of the ghosts standing at the computer said. He was hooked up to some wires coming from the machine and he seemed to be waiting for the other ghost to do a procedure with the controls to the computer.
Danny couldn't see what either of the ghosts looked like. They were both in front of a large see-through capsule with a green liquid glowing from inside of it. From the angle he was looking at the ghosts, Danny couldn't say for sure what they looked like, as he only saw a silhouette. He could only see that the two ghosts looked just like humans, but obviously with some thick armor on.
"My lord, I apologize for this," said the ghost at the controls, the one who wasn't hooked up to all the machines.
"That must be them," Raschenda whispered. She put out her hand and fired an energy blast at the container. The container smashed to pieces and the green liquid from inside poured out onto the floor.
The two ghosts turned around, and Danny saw they both looked almost exactly like Raschenda and Vundeter, with the exception that the ghosts Danny saw by the computer looked bigger and meaner.
"You!" said the ghost hooked up the machine. "How did you get in here? Well, so much for those guards! Fine then, I guess this will be a quick and easy assassination of the enemy army's leader!"
The ghost that was hooked up to the machine held out his hand and started forming a ball of energy in it, until he looked at Danny.
"What?…you got in here, too!" the ghost hooked up to the machine said. He ripped all the cables and wires off of him and pulled out a small capsule and started sucking up all the green fluid that poured out of the container when Raschenda smashed it into the capsule. It was almost all gone before the ghost yelled "What! The capsule is full?"
Apparently, the capsule the ghost was sucking all the fluid up into was full to capacity. He wasn't too pleased with this, and yelled at the ghost at the controls "Cobaark! Finish off these miserable beings…especially the boy!"
The ghost hooked up to the machines took the capsule and turned invisible, and then immediately flew out of the room.
"So, I see you Escerons are as stubborn as ever," said Cobaark, the ghost at the computer. He had thick armor on but didn't seem to have a weapon. He had a helmet with intimidating red eyes staring out. "Well, no more! I'm going to finish you off once and for all, Raschenda and Vundeter!"
"Go ahead and try!" Vundeter challenged.
Cobaark immediately started charging, but Raschenda held out her hand and an invisible force field threw Cobaark back.
Vundeter added onto this by charging up a ball of green fire in his hands and prepared to launch it at Cobaark. Cobaark, lying on the ground, saw what was coming and rolled out of the way of the fire just in time. He sprung up in the air and countered Vundeter's attack with a green fireball of his own.
Vundeter got hit in the chest by this blow and was smashed against the wall. Cobaark was ready to launch another blast of fire at Vundeter, this time, a fatal one, until Raschenda came up from behind and grabbed Cobaark and lifted him up in the air, ready to strangle him to death.
Cobaark finally gave one solid kick and it smashed Raschenda's jaw. She dropped Cobaark and fell on the ground.
Now, Vundeter and Raschenda were lying helplessly on the ground with Cobaark approaching them. He started to form more energy in his hand, ready to blast the two ghosts to pieces.
Danny, not being able to do anything (he ran out of grenades and his laser needed to be charged) stared in horror, knowing that soon, his life would be over as well. He looked at Raschenda but didn't see fear in her eyes. She looked back at Danny, but then glanced over at the liquid lying on the floor that escaped from the container when Raschenda broke it.
"You want me to drink that?" Danny said with a confused and unhappy look on his face. "Wait a minute! Is that my power in liquid form?"
"We can only hope," Raschenda mumbled as Cobaark continued to charge up a fatal blast of fire to launch at both Raschenda and Vundeter at the same time.
Danny's mouth was vibrating violently, then ran over to the liquid lying on the ground and picked it up. It was surprisingly thick, almost as if it were solid. Danny tried swallowing as much of the fluid as he could. He certainly didn't feel any different after drinking it.
"Well, here's my last hope," Danny said after he swallowed the liquid. "I'm going ghost!"
As Danny shouted his battle cry once again, a white circle formed around his mid section. The circle split into two smaller circles, one traveling up his body while the other traveled downwards. As the white circles moved, the areas it passed changed Danny's clothes into a black jumpsuit. His black hair turned a piercing shade of white and his blue eyes turned green. At least, that was what he was hoping would happen.
And to Danny's surprise, it did.
Danny had finally successfully transformed into his ghost half. He wanted to celebrate, but he had to stop Cobaark. He prepared to launch some of his own ectoplasma at Cobaark, but he couldn't.
"What?" Danny said. "I can go ghost now, but where are my offensive powers? Uh-oh."
Danny saw that Cobaark was almost done charging his lethal blast of energy to finish Raschenda and Vundeter, and not one of Danny's powers was working. Until, by some miracle, Danny figured out he could at least go invisible. He turned invisible and flew over to Cobaark. Just as he was ready to fire the blast, Danny rammed Cobaark as hard as he could and completely ruined Cobaark's attack. The fire from his hand was released and harmlessly hit a wall.
Cobaark gasped and immediately flew off. Danny lowered himself to the ground and transformed back into his human self.
"I see you got your powers back," Raschenda said in an almost sneaky way. "Good work."
"Yeah, I guess that weird stuff WAS my power," Danny said. "But I can't perform any special attacks. I can only go invisible."
"That was only a small amount of your power you got back," Raschenda explained. "Myrus flew off with the rest."
"Myrus?" Danny said. "Who's Myrus?"
"It doesn't matter," Vundeter said. "I'll explain to you on the way back to your home."
"Well guys," Danny said. "What say we ditch this place?"