Danny stared, partly filled with fear, partly filled with anger. And for whatever reason, part of him was filled with guts and the urge to push the limits. The latter feeling was the one that eventually won over.
Danny's nervous eyes suddenly hardened and became full of rage and determination. Clenching his fists, he tightened his grip on the glowing vial in his hand. He stared at Vundeter with eyes that were saying, "you don't want to mess with me".
"I'm not going to tell you again," Vundeter said in a low, angry voice. There was a few seconds of silence before he suddenly raged "DROP THE VIAL!"
Despite the fact that snap from Vundeter scared the living daylights out of Danny, Danny still kept that determined look on his face. Slowly, he raised the vial to his face.
"Oh, you mean this vial?" Danny said in an aggressive voice. He opened the vial and drank down all the liquid in it in one gulp. Instantly, Danny saw lights bursting from him and he felt his strength suddenly increasing. He felt much stronger and more powerful now. In fact, he felt almost as powerful as he felt before he lost his powers.
What's with this, Danny thought to himself as he felt himself getting powered up after drinking the vial. If I still only have two-thirds of my powers, why do I feel like I'm just as powerful as I did before I lost my powers to begin with? I guess I forgot how powerful I was…
After those thoughts raced through Danny's head, Danny's expression turned nasty. He held the vial over the edge of the floating platform, never taking his eyes off Vundeter. Vundeter looked ready to kill Danny from anger and rage.
Without saying a word, Danny simply dropped the vial. He watched it fall hundreds of feet to the ground, until he eventually heard it smash to pieces at the bottom of the base.
"There, I dropped it," Danny said, smiling and crossing his arms.
Vundeter screamed in rage, then, without warning, he leapt into the air and started charging at Danny has fast as he could. He was going to smash into Danny head-on with such force that Danny would be knocked off the platform and fall to the bottom of the base.
Danny gasped, then used his sharpest reflex to go intangible. He turned intangible just as Vundeter would have struck him. After Vundeter halted in motion as he passed through Danny, he sharply turned around and looked ready to strike him again.
"Oh boy," Danny said. "Something tells me this guy wants a fight."
As Vundeter came charging back, Danny once again went intangible and felt nothing as Vundeter passed right through him. After Vundeter went through him a second time, Danny turned ghost and started hovering in the air.
"Sorry, did I make you angry?" Danny said as he started floating, clenching his fists while staring Vundeter straight in the eyes.
Vundeter didn't say anything. He just put his hands out and fired a blast of energy at Danny. Danny's quick reflexes didn't let him down, as he was able to dodge the blast just in time.
"I'll take that as a yes," Danny said, trying to keep himself moving so Vundeter couldn't land an accurate shot on him.
For what seemed like forever, Vundeter fired blast after blast of energy at Danny, and Danny continued to dodge them just by a hair. After a while, Danny finally realized that he couldn't keep this up.
"I'm not going to live if I only keep dodging his blasts," Danny said. "If I want to get away from this guy, I'm going to have to show him some resistance. I hope that vial gave me some of my offensive powers back."
Danny put out his hands and attempted to fire some ghostly energy at Vundeter. To Danny's relief, it worked. Vundeter was caught off guard when Danny's blast sent him flying back against a wall.
"Weren't expecting that, were ya?" Danny said, hovering in mid air and crossing his arms. However, Danny saw that Vundeter made a very fast recovery and was up and fighting again in no time.
"You're ghost blast is more powerful than Raschenda or I thought," Vundeter mumbled.
"You're a lot stronger than I thought too," Danny said, trying his best to stay on his guard. He didn't want Vundeter to pull any sneak attacks while they were talking. "Much stronger than when I had to fight you a while ago, at least."
Vundeter sneered. "You think I was actually trying to fight you that time?" Vundeter said in a surprised manner. "If I really tried to fight you, then you would become mince meat within minutes, and Raschenda would have my head for it!"
Saying this, Vundeter fired another blast of energy at Danny, but Danny was still alert enough to dodge it.
"You'd better be nice," Danny warned. "You'd hate for that Raschenda lady to find out you're actually trying to hurt me now, wouldn't you?"
Vundeter seemed to get annoyed with this, and then lunged at Danny again. This time, Danny didn't go intangible, but instead ducked out of the way. Vundeter, being completely carried by momentum as he launched himself at Danny, smashed into the wall head-first when Danny ducked out of his path.
After recovering from smashing his head into the wall, Vundeter saw Danny hovering beneath the platform, so he was now floating above the high drop to the bottom of the base.
Vundeter charged down after him, and the two ghosts starting getting into a physical fistfight in midair. They both took turns throwing their hardest punches, along with blocking their opponent's blows as well.
After fighting for several minutes, Danny finally got the upper hand and gave Vundeter the hardest uppercut he could muster. Vundeter was launched with so much force he hit the ceiling to the base. Danny took this opportunity to escape as fast as he could.
Vundeter looked down and saw Danny flying away. He instantly started firing more blasts of energy at Danny as Danny flew down the empty shaft to the base. Danny moved from side to side, missing all the blasts Vundeter sent flying down at him.
Just as Danny was about to ram into the floor of the base, he made a ninety-degree turn and started flying parallel to the floor. Vundeter made a few last effort shots to hit Danny with his blasts of energy, but with Danny flying just inches above the ground and Vundeter hovering hundreds of feet in the air (just below the ceiling) he had no hopes of hitting Danny. Vundeter watched in frustration as he saw Danny fly out the door to the base.
Danny escaped the Esceron base unharmed. In fact, he came out better than how he entered. When he entered the Esceron base, he didn't have any offensive powers, but now he had more powers to defend himself instead of just blocks and barriers, or going invisible and intangible.
As Danny flew out of the base, he suddenly stopped and turned back. He stared at the Esceron base for a few seconds before eventually saying, "looks like a pretty big base. I'd better destroy it."
Danny took the deepest breath he could, and then started wailing the way one would imagine a stereotypical ghost wail. He was hoping that his powerful ghost wail would erupt from his mouth and tear the base to shreds, but he had no luck.
"Darn!" Danny said. "I guess that vial didn't have the powers to my ghostly wail in it. Oh well, the Maldums have the last one-third of my power, I can get it from them when I return to the base."
In no time at all, Danny arrived back at the Maldum base, where Myrus seemed to be expecting him.
"Well, Danny, how did your first mission go?" Myrus asked with a creepy smile on his face, crossing his arms.
"Well, I got some good news and some bad news," Danny replied, turning back into his human form.
Although he didn't say anything, Myrus stared at Danny with eyes full of fascination.
"The good news is that I got some of my powers back and I really put a beating on that Vundeter dude. He won't have the guts to mess with me again for a while."
"I see," Myrus said. "And the bad news?"
"The bad news is that I didn't get any information about what the Escerons are plotting. I looked around, but I didn't find where any of their plans were."
Myrus seemed really disappointed by this, but he didn't say anything. He just turned around walked back into his base. Danny started following him, thinking that he should. Danny followed Myrus through the complex Maldum base, until Myrus was in the room where Cobaark was still working at the computer.
"Lord Myrus," Cobaark said as Myrus walked in. "How did the Ghost Boy succeed in his first mission. How did you do, Danny?"
Saying this, Cobaark turned his head toward Danny. Myrus' expression turned surprised, then turned around. He wasn't expecting to see Danny there.
"Danny?" Myrus said. "I didn't tell you to follow me here, did I?" Myrus said. "Well, no matter. You can go home now and play some of those video games. Or sleep. Or do anything."
"Uh…okay. Sorry," Danny said, starting to turn around.
As Danny was walking out the door, he heard Myrus start talking to Cobaark.
"Cobaark, you and I need to analyze this situation and plan our next move," Myrus said.
Gaining interest, Danny stopped and turned around. He saw Cobaark get up from the computer and nod in agreement. He saw the two ghosts walk off, their capes flowing in the air as they walked to another room. It was like Myrus had even forgotten Danny was there.
Danny didn't think he should go follow them, but he saw that Cobaark left the computer on when he got up to go strategize with Myrus. With curiosity taking over Danny's mind, he went over to the computer to see what Cobaark was doing.
On the computer screen, Danny saw in big letters ENDOPLASMIC MOLECULAR VAPORIZING PROJECT (EMVP) Danny tried looking at what the computer screen said, but all Danny saw was a bunch of letters and numbers used to make complex formulas that Danny had no idea of what was being stated in them.
"Pfft, how do these ghosts understand this stuff?" Danny said, looking at the screen. He was about to get up and go home until he saw a window at the bottom of the screen. Danny curiously slumped back into the chair and clicked on the window, opening it.
Once the window opened,
Danny saw a page that read:
PLANS FOR WAR.
Considering the fact he thought he was on the Maldum's side, Danny thought he had every right to look at the battle plans. As soon as the window opened, another window popped up that said WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOOK AT THE PLAN FROM PHASE ONE, followed by a YES and NO button right below it.
Danny clicked on the YES button, hoping to see what the Maldum's earliest plans were and if there was anyway he could help. When he saw what the Maldum's early plans were, Danny was in a complete state of shock. He couldn't believe what he saw Myrus and Cobaark's plans were.