Nothing. The shocking part was that he found nothing in the bathroom that could have possibly caused the explosion and the fire.
"All right, I'm getting out of here before I turn into a flambe," Danny said. He flew his way out of the fiery bathroom. Looking at his jumpsuit, he couldn't tell whether or not the thick wet spots on it were from body sweat or from the overhead emergency sprinklers. Danny ran under one to cool himself off from the intense heat he just had to endure.
Later that afternoon, Danny ran home and found his parents sitting in the living room, slumped over the sofa like rag dolls. Danny supposed that they had nothing to do now that they had forsaken their ghost hunting ways.
"Mom, dad, the weirdest thing happened at school today!" Danny reported. "I was going into the bathroom, and just as I was about to walk in, this giant thing of fire just blew out of the bathroom and nearly toasted me!"
"Wait, there was a fire in your school?" Jack said, standing up. "Are you all right? Is Jazz all right! What happened!"
"Jazz, calm down," Maddie said in a soothing voice. "If the fire was near the boys' bathroom, I'm sure Jazz was very far away from it."
Jack slowly quieted down as Danny continued. "Anyway, it was weird because I went into my ghost form to check it out, but there was no sign of anything in there."
"What!" Jack yelled. "You actually went in while the bathroom was on fire!"
"Chill out, dad," Danny pleaded, "I've done more dangerous stuff. Anyway, I just thought you should know."
After telling his parents, Danny went up into his room to do his homework. He worked on it for about half an hour before he finished. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Danny dropped his homework on the floor to his room and went over to the TV. He hooked his Playstation 2 up and started playing one of his games.
As Danny continued playing, he heard the telephone ring. He quickly paused the game and got up, then walked to the nearest phone around.
"Hello?" he politely answered.
"Danny?" asked the person on the other line.
Danny groaned and had a look of frustration on. "Mr. Compton! All right, you have ten seconds to tell me why you called before I hang up, and three just passed."
Compton started chuckling to himself. "Danny, I have something I would like to ask of you?"
"You mean like a favor? What's the word…um…NO!"
"It's not a favor, ghost boy!" Compton yelled through the phone. "It's a request. I want you to come into the Ghost Zone later tonight at around midnight and meet me in front of Horrick's mansion. There are some things we need to discuss."
"Why do we need to meet there?" Danny yelled. "Why don't you just talk to my parents about this!"
"Because your parents won't help. It has to be you, Danny. Now, you can come tonight, or you can not come and have me tell everyone at school your secret."
Danny scoffed. "No one would believe you. They'd think you're a nutcase who's trying to make me look bad."
"Can you afford to take that chance?" Compton said. He hung up after that remark.
Danny slammed the phone on the hook and sulked about what just happened. He thought about what he should do. Compton was actually right at the end: would Danny want to risk Compton telling everyone at school about his secret?
"Maybe I should go," Danny thought to himself. "What can Compton possibly do? I know for a fact he WOULD tell everyone at school I was a ghost if I didn't meet him tonight, and he MIGHT tell people I'm a ghost if I go, so I might as well just go. Besides, if he gives me any trouble, I'll knock him out. It's that simple."
Night came soon, and everyone in the house was sleeping soundly. That is, everyone except for Danny. He forced himself to stay awake until his bedroom clock said it was midnight.
When that time finally came, Danny slowly crept out of his bed and snuck down the stairs into his basement. The stairs made eerie creaking sounds, a few of them even made Danny's heart jump a little.
In the middle of the night, the basement not only seemed very empty and lifeless, but also very creepy. It was scary to know that there were tools for hunting ghosts in that very room in the dark.
Danny slowly walked over to the turned off ghost portal. He picked up the giant plug that powered the device and forced it into an outlet. As that happened, the portal started making loud noises as it fired up. Moments later, a swirling green spiral was visible in the portal. The portal was now active.
Transforming into his ghost half, Danny flew inside the portal and headed for Horrick's mansion, not knowing what to expect. The long path to the mansion seemed very disturbing for some reason, but Danny knew there was nothing to worry about.
The long flight ended when Danny saw the giant house floating in an isolated place. He knew this was the place due to the giant forest that loomed behind the house. By going into that forest, you would be just begging to get lost.
Right at the front door to the mansion was Mr. Compton. His face seemed to light up a little bit when he saw Danny coming.
Compton seemed different. Danny figured it was because he looked like he was wearing a giant piece of metal. When he looked at it, Danny couldn't shake the feeling that he saw what Compton was wearing before. He quickly shrugged it off as he went and flew right in front of his enemy.
"All right Mr. Compton, here I am," Danny resented. "Now what do you want?"
"Danny, I see you've made the right decision," Compton said with an evil expression over his round face.
"Just cut to the chase, what is it?" Danny yelled. "And if you try anything funny, I've got some punches with your name written all over'em!"
Compton didn't seem to be intimidated by this at all. "Danny, there is but one thing I want you to do. I want you to surrender your ghost powers."
Danny let out a loud laugh. "You think I should give up all my powers and strengths just because you said so? Forget it!"
"No," Compton calmly replied, starting to sound much more serious. "But I think you should do it because Horrick said so."
Danny's eyes widened and he passed his glance to the front doors of the mansion. The front door opened, and from the inside walked out Horrick. Danny gasped to see him.
Horrick looked exactly as he should. His ghostly green skin now looked very charred and burnt. He had several blisters all over his hands, and he had a scar or two on his face. His teeth now looked very stained, some of the tips of them even being charred and burned off.
Horrick didn't say anything to Danny. Instead, he backed back into his house and closed the door without turning around. Danny watched in complete silence as the door closed.
"Horrick tells me you can either surrender your powers, or you can die," Compton threatened. "I think the right answer is fairly obvious, but it's your decision."
Danny was snarling under his breath for the longest time, not taking his eyes of Compton once. Finally, he screamed out. "No way!"
Compton's look seemed to get angrier and more aware of what was going on, but he didn't say a word.
"You and Horrick don't scare me! Why don't you both just go away and live the rest of your lives away from me! You can bug me until you've had enough of getting your butts beat, but you're not getting my powers!"
"So be it," Compton said in a low voice. He pressed a button on his metal suit and wings sprouted from the back of it. The wings were also made of metal and looked long. Jets were on the undersides of them, propelling Compton to fly away quickly.
Danny suddenly remembered where he saw that suit before. When Compton was setting him up to be captured by inviting Danny over his house, Danny saw the very same ghost hunting suit in Compton's ghost-hunting room. Danny had no idea what kind of powers or attacks that suit was capable of.
When Compton was out of sight and he was sure Horrick wasn't coming out of his house, Danny turned around and flew back to the portal. He was now nervous after finding out Horrick was alive, and he knew Compton was going to be a bit of a threat now with that ghost hunting suit. Danny could tell that suit was much more powerful than anything his parents could have come up with.
Danny flew back through the portal and shut it. He then changed out of his ghost form and then went back to bed. He was now wide awake and his brain was busy trying to go over everything that just happened, making it even harder for him to sleep.
The next day at school, Danny was trying to figure out what his next move should be. It wasn't long before he was interrupted, though.
"Hey Danny," one student said as they were walking through the halls, "are you, like, part ghost or something?"
"No!" Danny yelled, accidentally causing a little bit of suspicion upon himself.
"That's not what I heard," said another student as she also walked over to Danny. "I heard you're really a ghost!"
Several other students walked over to Danny and started crowding around him. He finally had enough of it and screamed, "Who told you I was part ghost!"
"Some guy with a British accent," one student replied. A chorus of "yeah's" started filling up the halls, indicating that they had also heard about it from the same source.
"Compton…" Danny coldly muttered under his breath. "No, I'm not a ghost!" He walked quickly over to a locker and started pounding his fist on it. "See? My hand's not going through it. There, you see? Not a ghost!"
Danny stormed away from the entire crowd, which had now grown to be pretty silent as whispering amongst themselves about what to believe. Danny, on the other hand, just wanted to ignore it and try to continue through his day without worrying about it too much.
Of course, easier said than done. As Danny went from one class to another, he kept getting asked by more people if the "rumor" spreading around the school about him was true. Since he came from a family of ghost hunters, some people were more convinced that it was true. Some found it even less possible to believe. But either way, they wouldn't leave him alone about it for most of the day.
Lunch time finally rolled by. Danny, Sam and Tucker were sitting at the table, and they noticed that there was something wrong with Danny. He seemed much more moody than normal, and they wanted to know why.
"Say Danny, what's eating ya?" Tuck asked after Danny went almost the entire period without saying a word.
"Yeah, you look like something's wrong," Sam added.
Danny dropped his fork and took a deep sigh. He looked up at his two friends and gave both of them brief stares before he started talking.
"A few days ago we got these new neighbors, the Comptons," Danny started. "To make a long story short, Compton figured out I was part ghost and now he's working together with some other ghost. And I think Compton just told a lot of people in school today my secret."
"That's ridiculous," Sam said. "Why would a grown man come in here and tell everyone you're part ghost?"
"He wanted me to surrender my powers," Danny answered. "This is probably his little version of revenge for me not giving my ghost strengths up."
"Well, if he really did it, you should go over his house and pound him!" Tucker suggested, punching mid air.
"Tucker!" Sam yelled.
"No, Tuck's right," Danny glumly agreed. "Compton's not learning his lesson by me just sitting here and letting him tell a lot of people my secret. I'm going to have to do something that will make him regret all the trouble he's put me through."
"So what are you gonna do, beat him up after school?" Sam asked.
"After school?" Danny said. "Why wait? I'm going to go deal with him right now."
When lunch ended, everyone started marching out of the cafeteria and off to their next class. But when no one was looking, he gave a quick signal to Sam and Tucker. He asked them to tell all his teachers that he was out sick that day, and they agreed to cover for him.
Now Danny was alone in a corner of the hall after sneaking out of the clump of people heading out of the cafeteria.
"That Compton guy is going to pay for telling everyone my secret!" Danny threatened to himself.
He morphed into his ghost half a second later. He made himself go intangible and flew through the roof of the school.
It was a weird feeling of freedom, to be out of school even if there were classes going on. As Danny hovered a few feet above the roof of the school, he looked around and saw the nearly empty streets all around.
"All right," Danny said. "Watch out, Compton! Here I come!"
