Danny's life seemed to be getting more and more back to normal. School the next day didn't seem to be so bad or as long as the previous few days had been. (Although he still found himself wanting to fall asleep in most of the classes he was in) But now, he was once again ready to pass through the halls and do his daily routine like always and not have to pay attention to do it at all.
When school ended, he was walking home, as always. He was able to relax a little more, now that he knew who the ghost was that was causing him all that trouble and that he would soon be getting his revenge on him. But he was also happy that his family knew about his secret, and he thought that would make his ghost hunting life much easier.
Danny was listening to the sounds of the birds chirping, the wind softly blowing and his feet tapping on the pavement as he walked home. He was feeling a lot better for some reason, even though there were going to be a lot of challenges that lay ahead of him.
When he was only a minute or so from his house, Danny's mouth opened and out popped a thin cloud of blue smoke. There was a ghost nearby, and he had to do something about it. He dropped his backpack to the ground as he morphed into his ghostly alter-ego.
After Danny had completely transformed, he looked around, searching for the ghost that just set off his ghost sense. Finally, he saw a stereotypical green blob pop up from under the sidewalk and get ready to attack him.
Danny actually smiled when he saw this ghost. "Hmmm, you look about as easy to beat up as a two year old in a wheelchair," he taunted.
The random ghost actually seemed to get a little upset by Danny's sarcastic remarks. It started firing up a ball of energy in his hand, and prepared to fire it at Danny. In just a second or two, the energy was released and headed right for him.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" shouted a familiar voice. Suddenly, something jumped right in front of Danny and took the blast for him.
"Aria?" Danny asked.
Indeed, Aria had just jumped right in front of Danny and took the blast so he wouldn't feel it. She moaned in pain for a few seconds, and while she was recovering from the blast, Danny fired two blasts from his hand back-to-back and scared the ghost away.
"Hey, you all right?" Danny asked, looking down at Aria. He bent down on one knee as he stared at Aria lying on the ground in a bit of pain.
"I'm fine," Aria said, breathing heavily. She looked up with Danny, acting like she was very badly hurt.
"Hold on, I gotcha," Danny moaned as he pulled Aria up from the ground.
"Thanks," Aria said with a smile on her face.
"Look, I'd love to stay and chat, but I got some homework to do, all right?" Danny asked. He ran over to his backpack and made him and his backpack go intangible, therefore invisible. He flew up into his house and into his room.
Once Danny was in his room, he changed back into his human form and started digging out all his books and worksheets that he had to work on. After a minute or so, he had started on his homework and took it seriously, but did a bit of rushing to finish it.
About thirty minutes later, Danny was done. He was alone in his room with no homework to do, and no ghosts to battle.
"Whew, this is nice!" Danny said, realizing that he had time to himself for once. He ran over to his Playstation and popped in Call of Duty 2. After blowing away a few enemies on the game, he was rudely interrupted.
He opened his mouth and another stream of blue mist poured from it. He went into his ghost form and prepared to brace himself for an upcoming attack. But, to his surprise, it wasn't a hostile ghost.
"Aria!" Danny yelled, staring at the window. "What are you doing here?"
Aria seemed disgusted. Her hair flowed as she took fast glances around the room, seemingly getting angrier and angrier at Danny with everything she saw.
"I ask for your help to bring Count Xissil Van Horrick to the ground, and I see you playing video games! Don't you care about the Ghost Zone?" she yelled.
Uh, not really, Danny thought to himself. It's that place that's giving me all the problems I have now.
"Um, of course I do!" Danny lied with a fake smile.
"Excellent," Aria said, folding her arms. "Well then, shall we get going?"
"Wait, where are we going?"
"Why, we're going to train, of course," Aria replied.
Danny really wasn't sure what Aria was getting at, but he decided to go with her, since she seemed to know what she was doing. She took Danny by the arm and flew them down into his basement. Once there, she instructed Danny to open up the Ghost Portal. Danny obeyed and pressed a series of buttons until the metal doors opened, revealing a swirling green circle capable of transporting someone to that other dimension.
Once inside, Aria turned around to look at Danny. "It's going to be a bit of a flight, so stay on your guard and pay attention."
"Wait, what do you mean 'a little bit of a flight'?" Danny asked.
"Well, we need to find somewhere where Van Horrick won't find us, won't we?" Aria said to Danny as if she expected to him to know it.
"Uh, yeah, I guess," Danny said, taking a quick glance away from Aria. "All right, did you have somewhere in mind?"
"As a matter of fact, I did!" Aria brightly said, smiling. She turned around and waved for Danny to follow her.
A short while later, Danny was following Aria down a seemingly endless path into the Ghost Zone. While Aria seemed to know perfectly well where she was going, Danny felt a little nervous about it. He felt like this route seemed familiar, and in a bad way. Still, Aria seemed fairly confident, and that was enough for him.
After what seemed like a very long time, Aria finally led Danny to a vacant area in the ghost zone that was occupied by absolutely nothing. There was just open space, and no one else was there besides Danny and Aria.
"All right," Aria said in clever-sounding voice, "let's see what you've got."
"Wait, you don't want me to fight you, do you?" Danny asked, his green eyes widening with confusion and concern at the same time.
"No," Aria calmly replied, with another small smile starting to spread across her pale face. "I merely want to see what special skills you have that you think can beat Van Horrick."
"But you've seen me fight!" Danny yelled, opening his hands at his side. "Don't you think that's enough?"
"No, I want to know what you can really do," Aria said. As she said this, a nervous expression crossed her face.
"Eh, all right?" Danny said in a questioning way, not really having anything to say that would disagree with her."
Danny immediately started showing her all of his moves, starting with simple things like firing ectoplasmic blasts of energy out of his hands.
"Impressive," Aria said, nodding her head as she watched Danny fire his energy. "Anything else you can do with that?"
"Well, I can charge them up into little balls and throw them," Danny said, not really thinking it was critical that Aria knew that.
"Anything else?"
"Well, I can duplicate myself," Danny said. He concentrated all of his energy and tried to split himself into two. After struggling with it for a while, a second copy of him from the midsection and up popped out of his side. "Check that: can kind of duplicate myself," he moaned, allowing the failed duplicate to disappear in a puff of smoke.
"Is that all?"
"No, there's more. I can go intangible and invisible!" A smile spread across Danny's face while he said that.
While he continued showing Aria all of his basic moves, a few thoughts started creeping into his head. There's something weird about this part of the Ghost Zone. I feel like I've been down here before, but not in this particular area. Yeah, it's isolated, but I get the feeling I'm not alone. I mean, besides Aria. What's so weird about this?
"Are there any other special powers of yours?" Aria asked.
"Um…let me think," Danny said, trying to think of everything great he could do. "Oh yeah, I got one more! Watch out!"
Danny turned away from Aria, not wanting to hurt her. While he turned away, he took in a giant gulp of air and let it out. As he let it out, massive seismic waves started coming from his mouth while a stereotypical ghostly cry was heard throughout the ghost zone. The waves were so powerful that they had the capability of destroying buildings around him.
Aria seemed surprised and stunned by this, almost worried. She was breathless for a moment before finally speaking. "Wh…what was that?"
"That was my ghostly wail," Danny said proudly. "It gives me the ability to blow away anything that gets in my way."
Aria now seemed worried about it. It took a while before her being nervous subsided.
"Don't worry, I won't use it on you," Danny promised. "I only use it on ghosts that really push my buttons."
Aria smiled after she heard Danny say that. "All right, then," she said. "Well, I guess you were right and I was wrong. You do seem to have the power to take on Van Horrick in a battle."
"Told ya I would!" Danny smiled, putting his hands on his hips. "Anything else you doubt about me?"
"No," Aria said, sounding as if she was actually embarrassed. "But you must remember: Count Xissil Van Horrick is still a very powerful ghost. Just because you have impressive powers does not mean Van Horrick will be a pushover.
"I know," Danny said. "Well, is that all?"
"Well, now I know what powers you have," Aria said, "but now I think you need to practice them."
"Practice them? What do you mean?"
"You need to train your powers and make them stronger for when you battle Van Horrick."
"Why?" Danny whined. "I'm stronger than any King of England wannabe."
"We're talking about a ghost that no one around has the courage to take on," Aria said sorrowfully.
There are people around here?, Danny asked himself as Aria told him that. It didn't look like there were a lot of ghosts in this part of the Ghost Zone.
"Yeah, so?"
"So, he must be really strong if no one wants to confront him!" Aria yelled. She suddenly seemed to be getting annoyed. "Don't you think we should at least practice your skills a little more?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess," Danny said. He was really confused now, and anyone could tell it just by looking at him. He found it strange that he was in a completely abandoned area with a ghost he met only a few days before who insisted he should practice his moves and make himself stronger in order to fight a ghost he had never met before, and the ghost was just some snobby European sounding guy who physically looked like an upperclassmen in England during the middle ages but sounded more like a Transylvanian vampire. That all sounded weird when put together.
Danny started by charging up some of his energy and firing it. Aria said it seemed to be working and insisted that Danny go as fast as he could. After firing several blasts of energy, Danny found he was getting tired.
"All right, is there any point to this?" Danny yelled, starting to get annoyed with Aria. "Is there any reason you want me to waste all my energy firing at nothing!"
"I want to see how fast you can fire to see if you have what it takes to beat Van Horrick in speed!"
"But…"
"Come on, Danny!" Aria yelled, now with some distress in her voice. "We're talking about one of the nastiest people around here, and you could be the only one who has the power to stop him! Don't you think it's worth it to spend some extra time making sure you can take him!"
"I'm telling you, I could beat that old man with one hand tied behind my back!" Danny insisted.
"Well, we'll just have to see about that, won't we!" Aria yelled, sounding as angry and frustrated as Danny was. "Now keep practicing!"
Danny groaned, and continued doing his best to fire his strongest attacks in the shortest amounts of time possible.
