Before I start Chapter 4, let me thank everyone who has reviewed this story so far. Sailerstar, Serenity, Dani, Lepper, Weirdit and King, thank you so much for taking the time to read and review this. Since you probably don't know, I get most of my motivation to continue writing from reviews, so every time you guys write a review, it encourages me to keep going. Thanks for the reviews and please keep them coming!

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Danny slowly woke up, and he felt something cold and hard on the back of his neck. When he regained his senses, he saw that he was still lying on the floor of his dad's lab. Jack and left the lab, though, so Danny was all alone down there.

After just lying there, doing nothing for a few seconds, Danny finally got up and made a few grunting sounds while he was doing so. He looked around, and the entire lab still seemed normal. The ghost portal still looked operational, so his dad obviously didn't have much success closing it down.

Danny quietly walked up the stairs to the basement and went in to the kitchen. The kitchen was also empty, and he could soon see why. The clock in the basement read 11:30 P.M.

In other words, everyone had gone to bed and left the lights on for Danny in case he woke up in the middle of the night and forgot where he was or needed to find his way back up from the basement.

It was only another minute or so before Danny was up in his room, in his pajamas, and slipping under the covers of his bed. He tried to get to sleep, but it was hard. He assumed it was hard because he had just been knocked unconscious for a long time and had a lot of his energy charged. Maybe some deep thinking would help him get to sleep.

Dad's not really giving up ghost hunting, is he? Danny thought to himself as he lay with his arms bent and the bottom half lay beneath the pillow. He stared up at the ceiling as if he were talking to it. And what about mom? Is she going to give up her ghost hunting ways as well? Why would they do that, just because they learned my secret? I can understand them feeling guilty I guess, but what am I going to do then? Those gadgets and weapons they make are very helpful to me when I'm battling ghosts. If I don't have any new ones, how can I hope to defeat the really nasty ones? And if I need them, shouldn't that only encourage my parents to keep hunting?

A lot of other questions raced through Danny's mind. Questions like, "How is my life going to be different?" or "How are mom and dad's lives going to be different?". Other questions that raced through Danny's head, such as "Should I tell Jazz? She already knows I'm part ghost, so it shouldn't matter too much to her." Another question pulsed through Danny's mind: Should he give up ghost fighting, too? No, that wouldn't work. If his parents quit ghost hunting and he gave up ghosts, who else would there be to hunt? Of course, there would always be the Comptons to help…

But the biggest question in Danny's mind was "What do I do now?". That question was the one that stumped Danny the most, because it was the hardest to answer.

Danny eventually drifted off to sleep with those two questions remaining in his mind. He woke up the next morning, and once again, had no choice but to continue his daily routine and hope that nothing would go wrong that day.

The school day went by very slowly. Even though Danny could concentrate a little more than he could the day before, his mind was still occupied with how his life was going to change now.

After school finally ended, Danny was walking home with Sam and Tucker as always.

"So, Danny, any news on what your parents are going to do?" Sam asked.

"My dad says he's going to give up ghost hunting," Danny said in a sad way. (he never thought he'd hear himself say that sadly)

"No way!" Tucker shrieked. "Isn't that a family tradition or something? What's he going to do then?"

"I have no idea," Danny said. "But I told him it was a dumb idea. As embarrassing as he can be with all those weird ghost inventions, they've turned out to be pretty helpful every now and then. Now he says he's going to finish up one last invention and call it quits."

Sam and Tucker waited for one of them to say something, but it never happened. The walk was pretty quiet until something unexpected happened.

"Ow!" Danny shrieked out of the wild blue. He bent downwards and started clutching at his side, almost like a spear had just been thrown into it.

"Danny, what happened!" Sam asked.

"I…I dunno," Danny confessed. His eyes were squeezed shut, but occasionally opened and closed. He was still clutching his side. "I was just walking and I suddenly felt a stabbing pain. Gahhh…"

"Do you think you pulled something while walking?" Tucker asked.

"No, it was completely random," Danny assured. "I felt like some sort of weapon just hit me. That's all I can really say to describe it."

"You've had a bit of a stressful week," Sam tried to say comfortingly. "Maybe it's just your body wearing down. You should rest when you get home."

Danny just nodded, and even sighed a little while doing so. "I think you guys are right. Oh well, see you tomorrow."

Danny turned away from his friends and started walking in the direction of his own house. He walked in through the door, but didn't say anything, even if someone was around. Now that his secret was out, he felt really uncomfortable being around his parents.

Danny headed up to his room and plopped down on his bed. He was bored, and wasn't in the mood to do anything. He figured he might as well at least try to be productive and get his homework done.

After doing his homework for a while, Danny suddenly froze up. A small gas came from his mouth, and a puff of blue smoke with it. There was obviously a ghost nearby.

Danny sprung up from his bed and screamed his battle cry. "I'm going ghost!"

Just like before, a white circle appeared around Danny's section and instantly split itself into two parts, each one started to flow across a vertical half of his body. When both circles completed their path, Danny had now transformed and was about to take on his first ghost fight since his parents learned of his dark secret.

Danny flew out of the window and started hovering a few feet above the ground. He looked for the ghost that was just setting off his ghost sense. Finally, he turned around and saw the problem.

"Oh no," Danny moaned, but not in a sad or worried moan. This moan was much more exasperated. "Why do you keep showing up in my life!"

It was the fancy ghost that was indirectly responsible for Danny getting grounded for breaking his curfew, but he was also the reason Danny's parents learned his secret.

The ghost chuckled, then charged up a ball of ectoplasma energy in his hand and prepared to fire it at Danny. Danny ducked out of the way just in time and the energy went flying harmlessly passed them.

"Seriously," Danny said a short while after recovering from the dodge. "You keep coming here and making my life harder than you already have. Man, you're gonna be a in a lot of trouble. No more!"

Danny fired his own blast of energy as hard and as fast as he could, but the ghost seemed to be much quicker than Danny anticipated and was able to dodge the blast as well.

"Ah, we both seem to be blessed with extraordinary speed," the fancy ghost said. "Then this will be quite an interesting little gathering."

"Quit talking fancy," Danny said. "Jazz watching the BBC channel gives me enough of that!"

The two were about to start really fighting each other and trying their best to kill the other, but they both heard a door opening a few yards away. Both ghosts looked at where the sound was coming.

"Ah, two ghosts! That was more than I could have ever hoped for! Cheerio, both of you!" screamed someone. It was Mr. Compton, and he had what looked like a very sophisticated-looking piece of ghost hunting equipment in his hand. It looked like a Fenton Bazooka, but much smaller and lighter-looking. Danny was now worried, knowing he'd have to dodge both the mysterious ghost's blasts and his new neighbor's ghost weapon as well.

The mysterious, fancy ghost, seeing that now he was in a bit of a jam as well, retreated as fast as he could. He flew off so fast Danny couldn't see him, and when Danny turned his attention back to Mr. Compton, he turned around just in time to see a blast from Mr. Compton's bazooka hit him right in the face.

Danny got knocked backwards by the blast and was smashed back into the side of his house. He moaned a little, but something happened a moment or two afterwards that surprised him. Danny heard the fancy ghost, but he was also screaming in great pain.

Mr. Compton heard the other ghost scream, and thinking he had beaten Danny enough, ran off to where the fancy ghost's scream was coming from so he could blast that ghost, too.

"Ah ha!" Mr. Compton yelled after looking around. "There you are!"

"Guess he found that weird, rich-talking ghost," Danny said to himself as he was still recovering from the pain he was in from Mr. Compton's blast. "Man, that guy knows how to make some strong weapons! I'd better watch out for him."

Danny reverted back to his human form when he was sure Mr. Compton wasn't looking and ran back into his house. He was breathing heavy after that short fight.

"Okay, this is getting bad," Danny said. "That weird ghost with the eyeglass is probably just going to keep coming up to me and bugging me, so it looks like I'm going to have to have the Fenton Thermos ready at all times. But then again, I also need to watch out for Mr. Compton. He doesn't seem to be very merciful when it comes to ghost hunting."

Now, Danny's problems were getting a little more serious. It had been two nights since Danny first met the mysterious ghost that talked with a funny, yet fancy accent. Danny had encountered the ghost three times now, and it didn't look like the ghost was ready to stop any time soon. Luckily for Danny, Mr. Compton looked like he would be able to keep that weird ghost on the run for a while.

But that was a double-edged sword. Now Danny knew that Mr. Compton wasn't merciful towards ghosts, and it looked like while Danny was in his ghost form, Mr. Compton would be a great threat.

Just as Danny was trying to figure out how to keep his cover from both obstacles, he suddenly felt like someone dropped a wrecking ball on his back. He screamed in pain and then dropped to the ground, moaning in pain. He could barely move; the pain was practically as bad, if anything, worse than the blast he had suffered from Mr. Compton's bazooka.

After a little while, the pain subsided and Danny began crawling up. This was a third problem that he had to add to his plate. In addition to keeping himself safe from the weird ghost and Mr. Compton, Danny now also had to figure out why he kept feeling these weird bursts of pain. He thought that it could have been a possibility that he pulled something when his side started aching earlier that day (just as Tucker suggested), but now he was sure the back pain and the side pain were somehow related.

"This is really weird," Danny said. "Who's that weird ghost? And how do I get Mr. Compton to stop attacking me while at the same time not telling him I'm a ghost. And why do I keep feeling these random pains in my side or back!"

The answers would soon come.