Danny was breathing as he watched Skyler continue to fly off. He had now fought Skyler an uncountable amount of times, and he was just about sick of it. The masked man, on the other hand, seemed quite interested in their opponent.
"Who was that?" the masked person asked.
"The guy we just fought?" Danny asked.
The masked man nodded.
"That's Skyler. He said he used to be a professor at M.I.T. and graduated for Oxford and Harvard."
"Do you know him personally?" the masked man asked.
Danny shook his head. "No. I know that because I went to a show he was putting on at a museum a few days ago, before the dark cloud appeared and before he went insane."
"Before he went insane?" the masked man asked. "Are you saying there was a time when he was a normal human being?"
"Yeah. When the dark cloud appeared in the sky, he acted like he wanted me to help him destroy it."
"He knew you, then?" the masked man asked.
Danny didn't like how this guy continuously was asking questions. Danny didn't want to give away too much, revealing that he was really a fourteen-year old boy that had a split identity. After all, the masked man could mean nothing but trouble. But then again, maybe it would be helpful if the masked man knew Danny's true identity. After all, he definitely didn't seem bad.
"No, he didn't know me," Danny replied. "I was flying around, trying to destroy the cloud, and after seeing I didn't have much luck with it, he said he wanted to try to help. He pulled out a giant laser and fired it at the cloud, and he could apparently take a sample of it. Now that Skyler had a sample of the cloud, he took it back to his laboratory and hoped to study it and find a weakness to it."
"Did exposure to the cloud's gases cause him to turn mutated?"
"No. As it turns out, he really wanted to discover the true potential of humans, so he instead took a needle and injected the matter from the cloud into himself. Since then, he's only become more and more powerful."
"I see," the masked person said. "So are you saying he got to be that powerful because of injecting himself with material from the cloud?"
"Yeah. At least, I'm pretty sure that's why he's so powerful."
"Well, this could be both good news and bad news," the masked figure said. "It's good news because I now know a way to weaken Bhyrun and decrease his power to the extent where it would be a fair fight between you and him."
"And what's the bad news?" Danny nervously asked.
"Well, now that Bhyrun is inside Skyler, a lot of Bhyrun's power is actually in Skyler right now. Do you understand what I mean?"
"No. Not really."
The masked man groaned at having to explain it. "By injecting part of Bhyrun into himself, Skyler now actually has a lot of Bhyrun's powers. So now Bhyrun has power in two places, which could prove to be a disadvantage for us."
"I don't get it," Danny said. "Just how exactly do we make Bhyrun's power drop so he isn't so much of a problem."
The masked man sighed. "We're going to have to kill Skyler. Since Skyler has a lot of Bhyrun's powers, all those powers would go away if he died."
"I don't know," Danny nervously said. "I'm not big on the idea of taking somebody's life. Isn't there any other way we could get rid of Bhyrun's power without killing Skyler?"
"Well, we could always force him to give those powers up."
"How are we supposed to do that?"
"I don't know. That could be a huge difficulty if you don't want to kill him."
"We'll find a way," Danny promised. "There has to be a way we can get rid of that portion of Bhyrun's power without killing Skyler."
"If you say so," the masked man said. "All right, if we're going to get rid of Bhyrun's power without killing Skyler, we're going to have to do some research or some spying. You any good at that, kid?"
"I'm not bad," Danny said with a smile on his face. "And if anything ever happens, I can always go intangible and get out without any problems."
"That's good, because we're going to have to be doing a lot of spying if we want to figure out a way to get rid of Bhyrun's power inside of Skyler without actually killing Skyler."
"Sounds great," Danny said. "When do we start?"
"I'd say now," the masked figure said.
Just as the two were about to leave, a loud roaring sound was heard from behind. Danny and the masked man turned around and saw a giant red monster standing right there.
"Oh, great," Danny complained. "More delays? All right, with you by my side, this thing should go down pretty easily."
The two of them immediately ran in and started charging at the monster. Danny started by firing a bolt of ghostly ectoplasma at the monster, and he succeeded in knocking it off balance.
The monster tumbled to the ground, and in no time, the masked man ran up to the monster and tried sticking his sword through the monster. However, the monster was able to roll out of the way just in time, and it was back on its feet.
But just as the monster was ready to launch another attack, the masked figure ran over to it and kicked it in the face as hard as he could. The monster got knocked back, but still was standing. When the masked man tried kicking the monster again, the monster grabbed the masked person's leg and lifted him up into the air. When the monster had a firm grip, it threw the masked man into the air as hard as it could.
The man behind the mask went flying into the air, and it looked like he would fall to the ground very hard and break a few bones, possibly die. When Danny saw the masked man start falling, he flew up into the air and caught him in mid-fall. Danny gently lowered the masked person and himself back onto the ground.
"Thank you," the masked figure said, then immediately returned to fighting.
Danny didn't waste any time either. He fired a blast of energy at the monster as soon as the masked man began charging, and the energy hit the monster right in the middle of his demonic-looking face.
The dark red monster got knocked back, and just as it was about to make a counterattack, the masked figure ran over to it and struck the monster over the head with his sword.
The monster fell to the ground in pain, as well as with a fairly huge gash across its head. Thick, dark red blood was pouring out of the monster's head as Danny ran over to it. He fired one last bit of green energy into the monster's gash and kept firing it in there for a long time.
Finally, the monster's head burst from all the energy Danny fired into the open wound. Monster blood splurted everywhere, as well as chunks of the monster's head.
Danny made a grossed out face when he saw the gruesome fate of that monster, but he was soon all smiles.
"We did it," Danny said with a smile on his face, breathing heavy for a little while. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"
"No, it wasn't," the masked person said. He tried to act like what just happened to the demonic, red looking monster didn't bother him, but Danny could tell that he was grossed out by it.
"Well, now all we gotta do is do some research, find Skyler, and force him to give up his powers," Danny said. He immediately began walking away down the deserted road, now messy with the monster's thick blood all over it.
"But it still bothers me…" the masked person said. "What exactly was that monster, and how did it get here?"
Danny's smile immediately went away and a huge look of concern passed over his face.
Oh, no, Danny thought to himself after the masked man asked that question. Don't tell me…if it was, I'll never forgive myself!
"Uh...funny you should mention it," Danny said with a nervous, yet upset smile on his face. "You know, I might actually know what that monster was."
"Really?" the man asked with excitement rising in his normally calm voice.
"I'm pretty sure I know," Danny said.
Just as Danny was about to say what he thought the monster they just killed was, another roaring sound was heard. The roaring caused both of them to jump, and when they turned around, there was another one of the monsters they had just fought staring at them, ready for a fight.
"Yes, I think I know what it is," Danny moped.
"Tell me afterwards!" the masked figure commanded. "For now, let's destroy this one, too!"
"I'm not sure you want to do that," Danny warned.
But it was too late. The masked man was already right in front of the monster, swinging his sword at the creature's face as he tried his best to wipe its existence from the earth. Danny groaned, then went in and started attacking the monster as weakly as he possibly could.
Sadly for Danny, it was no use. No matter what he said, he didn't think the masked man would lighten up on the monster, even if he knew the monster was what Danny thought it was.
Watching the vicious battle take place, Danny nervously grit his teeth together and started fiercely rubbing his hand through his bright-white hair. He didn't want to have to fight the monster, knowing of the disastrous results that could happen if his thought on what he was attacking was correct.
Danny just watched the fight play out until the masked man got struck in the stomach by the monster's fist, and he was knocked to the ground, unable to get up for a while. The monster showed the masked man its sharp claws, and then raised them up in the air, getting ready to slice the masked person into several pieces.
It was now or never. Danny had to determine which life had more value. Thinking out of instinct and trying to protect his new ally, he fired a blast of green ectoplasma at the monster, just as it was about to pierce its claws right through the masked man's skin.
The monster was knocked onto the ground after Danny blasted it, and the masked man got up less than a second later. In one swift motion, he stuck his sword through the monster's torso and yanked it out as hard as he could. There was thick blood all over the sword, but the masked man didn't seem to care.
Danny was staring at the now dead monster as it began to disappear. He almost felt like crying, due to how much he feared his premonition on what the monster really was, was indeed correct.
Danny slowly walked over to the monster as it continued disappearing, and just as he was about to say something to the masked man, Danny thought he heard a small chuckle. He looked up to the masked man and gave him that "did-you-hear-that" look.
Silence. The two continued to stare at each other for a while until the laugh again.
"Do you hear that?" the masked figure asked.
Danny nodded his head. He was glad to know he wasn't hearing things. The laughing got louder and louder, until the two could clearly hear where it was coming from. It was coming from behind them, and the laugh got louder and more malicious.
Danny was now very nervous. He thought killing the monsters was now a very bad idea, and now that two monsters were dead, he heard evil laughing from behind. An all-too familiar laugh.