Before Sam or Tucker even had time to respond to Danny's sudden burst, two white circles formed around Danny's mid section and started going in opposite directions. In no time, he turned into his phantom form and immediately flew out of the window with blinding speed and jumped to the backside of the dark cloud.
Even though the cloud itself was supposedly "not-living", it seemed to get surprised with Danny's abrupt change of speed (and form) and his new abilities. However, the cloud took no time just oozing away from the door.
Despite not having any eyes or anything that would enable the cloud to actually see anything, Danny could tell the cloud was looking at him. Suddenly, a bright green laser blast was sent flying from a spot in the cloud and Danny had to rely entirely on reflex to dodge it.
After the cloud tried to blast Danny, Danny had his turn. He fired some ectoplasmic energy at the cloud, only to remember that his blasts couldn't penetrate it. He thought he'd give it a try, but just as he remembered, the cloud didn't seem to be affected by it.
Danny moaned angrily as he saw none of his attacks worked on the cloud at all. Danny resorted to just flying away from the cloud and towards the center of the resort area. Any people who were out were gasping and screaming at the sight of the ghost boy and a giant cloud fighting less than a hundred yards above them.
As Danny and the cloud exchanged blasts, Danny continued to dodge them while the cloud continued to absorb them. Finally, Danny realized that if he would lose, because he couldn't keep up with his fast reflexes forever. In no time, he would become exhausted and be at a huge disadvantage.
As Danny and the cloud continued flying forward and forward taking or dodging blasts, Danny's face showed a clear side of exhaustion. His green eyes seemed to lose a lot of their luster and his white hair was starting to look pretty messy. It seemed with every attempt the cloud made to hit Danny with the blast, the harder it was for Danny to actually dodge it. That was when Danny realized he had one last trick up his sleeve that he hoped would send the cloud flying away.
Danny immediately took in a deep breath and prepared to let it out in one devastating amount that Danny was sure not even that cloud could handle. It was the Ghostly Wail, the move Danny always relied on for a tight situation.
Unfortunately for Danny, this situation was now too tight; he was surrounded by buildings and civilians. If he were to unleash his Ghostly Wail, he would no doubt destroy the buildings and probably kill everyone around. Not only would that make him a menace to the resort, but he would also be a murderer.
Danny deflated when he realized that he shouldn't use his Ghostly Wail, but he was then lucky enough to think of yet another last resort.
"This better work…" Danny moaned to himself as he stared at the cloud as it prepared to fire at him again. "I've been practicing this for a long time, I hope I finally got it…"
Danny closed his eyes and tried his best to focus all his energy and concentrated hard on splitting it. He was hoping to finally be able to duplicate himself. Unfortunately, as always, he was only able to get about half of it out. Most noticeably, he was only able to sprout a second head in the process.
Danny gave up trying when he saw that not only his trick wouldn't work, but also when he saw that the cloud was ready to attack again.
"So, you still wanna fight, huh?" Danny said to the cloud as he dodged another blast. He knew he couldn't take much more, so he decided to just start flying away from the cloud and hope to attack the cloud from a hidden location. That way, maybe he could find a spot where the cloud would be open to attack.
As Danny began flying away, he noticed something very odd in the streets. At a nearly deserted intersection, he saw a machine that had something attached to it. The attachment appeared to be some giant laser seen in movies, with a giant container behind it that was clear but had nothing in it. And there even seemed to be a person standing right by the mysterious device. Danny gasped when he saw who it was. (you might have guessed…"
"Skyler!" Danny yelled when he saw Skyler standing behind the machine with the giant cloud approaching in dangerous pursuit. "When will that guy just stay inside like everyone else? Saving him is going to get more annoying than a troll on the gamefaqs message boards!"
Before Danny could do anything else, Danny saw Skyler turn towards him. Skyler seemed unusually delighted to see Danny (although he didn't know it was Danny-he thought it was just a ghost). Skyler pointed to Danny and yelled, "You there, ghost boy! Come down here, I want you to do a favor for me!"
"I already saved your life once, what else do you want me to do?" Danny mumbled to himself as he flew downwards toward Skyler. When he landed right next to Skyler at the deserted intersection, he crossed his arms and stared at him.
Before Danny could say anything, Skyler jumped in and yelled, "I want you to distract that cloud and get it over here! That way, I can charge up this laser and fire it at that giant cloud!"
"That must be the machine Skyler said he had to get when I talked to him a little while ago," Danny thought to himself. Before he agreed to do what Skyler wanted, Danny wanted to know what it was exactly that Skyler wanted to get done. "Why! Why do you want me to get that thing over here?"
"You see this laser right here?" Skyler said, pointing to the large device he and Danny were standing next to?
"How could I miss it?"
"I want you to distract that cloud and bring it over here!"
"What?" Danny shrieked. "You want me to put my life on the line just so you can fire an ineffective laser at that!"
"You're a ghost! You're already dead, aren't you?"
Danny grit his teeth and clenched his hand into a fist. Not knowing what else to say, he did as Skyler asked. He flew into the air and screamed, "Hey, you big stupid thing! I'm right here? Want to engulf me and keep me inside that black gooey surface tension till I rot?"
The cloud obviously didn't seem to have any effect, but the cloud started steering towards Danny anyway. Danny's green eyes widened in fear as he saw the intimidating black, swirling pile of vapor slowly ooze toward him. Suddenly, without warning, the cloud fired a green laser at Danny.
Danny went intangible just in time as the dense green light phased right through him. Danny went tangible again and kept trying to lead it closer and closer to Skyler. Finally, Skyler yelled, "Move out of the way!"
Danny turned around and saw Skyler violently waving his hand, signaling Danny to get away from the dark cloud A.S.A.P.
When Danny soared out of the way, Skyler screamed, "Hold on!" He pushed a button on the machine and it started roaring. Just then, Danny mumbled something to himself in midair.
"Oh no, does Skyler really know what he's doing? What if that laser thing ends up blowing the cloud up and it splatters everywhere? Or something else like that?"
Danny's eyes widened in hope that Skyler wasn't about to go destroying the cloud and causing a huge problem. His heart stopped beating when he saw a giant, deep green light come flying out of the cannon of the laser.
Danny watched as the laser hit a patch of the giant black cloud. A mixture of green and black started swirling around at the point of the laser's impact on the cloud, and that part of the cloud even seemed to start melting. As the "gooified" part of the cloud became clearer, it actually started traveling down the laser and back towards Skyler on the ground.
Floating from the air, Danny almost wanted to look away. As the mixture of gaseous and liquid material from the cloud started floating down on top of the laser towards Skyler, Danny wanted nothing more than to smash the entire machine so no one around would get hurt. But fear and complete shock in seeing a cloud use a laser beam to come down the same way a magnetic train would move along the tracks took away all his reflexes, temporarily.
When the cloud finally hit the bottom of the laser beam, it actually seemed to get sucked inside the laser cannon. Danny didn't know what Skyler wanted to do, but Skyler seemed to be getting very excited about what was happening.
Danny, even though he was pretty high above the ground, could see the once empty container behind the laser began filling up. It was filling up the black, gaseous looking substance that was making up the cloud. Danny watched with his mouth wide open as the container continued filling up.
When the container was just about full of the gas, Skyler slammed a button down on the machine and the laser instantly disappeared as he hit it. Skyler turned the laser off and now had an entire container full of the mysterious material that made up the menacing cloud.
Skyler began snickering to himself as he began wheeling the laser off, never taking his eyes off the container. Danny watched in silent fear as Skyler began walking away from the cloud as if he had done nothing.
"Okay, something is really not right here," Danny said. He began swooping down towards the ground and quietly started following Skyler as he took the laser away from the streets. It wasn't long before Danny saw where Skyler was taking the laser: to his lab.
Danny continued to quietly pursuit Skyler until they reached the laboratory. Danny went intangible and went through all the walls and doors that Skyler did without being noticed.
Skyler finally reached the end of the hall to a giant experimenting room. Danny went in, and he almost passed out just from walking in, having to smell chemicals still floating around in the air from past experiments.
The room had a lot of shelves lying against the walls with literally hundreds of chemical bottles or samples on them. There was a lot of computer equipment for studying or for analyzing. Danny stared as he saw all the hi-tech equipment; he had never seen anything like it before.
Skyler's footsteps echoed as he walked over the tiled floor while taking the container of the cloud specimen from the laser over to a table in the center of the room. He gently set the container down on the table, and then quickly started walking to a drawer over by the shelves. He pulled out what looked like empty vaccines-the kind doctors give when they give a patient a shot.
Danny was very worried about what Skyler was going to do with the empty needles, since that's all that he seemed to be getting. Just as he walked back to the table, Danny made himself tangible again, therefore making him clearly visible.
"And just what do you think you're doing, doctor Skyler?" Danny asked in an interrogative manner.
Skyler almost dropped all of the needles due to surprise. As soon as he saw it was Danny, he seemed relieved but very annoyed.
"What are you doing here?" Skyler replied, not answering Danny's question.
"Why did you want me to distract that giant cloud so you could fire the laser at it?" Danny demanded. "And is that really some stuff from the cloud in that container?" Danny pointed to the sealed container of swirling black gas Skyler had placed on the table.
"Yes, that is an actual specimen of the cloud," Skyler answered. "And firing that laser at it helped me get that sample."
"Why would you want a sample of that thing, anyway?" Danny said, not really understanding Skyler's intentions.
"Well, that cloud obviously cannot be destroyed by anything we know of so far," Skyler said. "I hope that by studying this sample of the cloud's gases, I can find a reactant to it that will cause it to pop…like a big balloon."
"You don't need to put it in little-kid-words, I can understand it fine. So, you wanted me to risk my life just so you could collect a sample and study it, hoping that you could find some weakness or anything like that in that giant cloud?"
"Exactly!"
Danny still didn't like where Skyler was taking this, but he didn't think he had a choice. Danny went intangible and flew through the roof and outside. He began flying away and back towards his hotel. As he flew away, he looked back at the lab and said, "I'll be watching you."