Danny was now in a lot of trouble. He was powerless, and because of that, he was also scared. Yes, he may have won the battle against Compton, but Compton's final act of life was to do Horrick's duties, which was to steal Danny's ghost powers.
Now Horrick had Danny's power, and there was no telling what was going to happen now. Was Horrick going to use the powers to enhance himself? Most likely. Now what could Danny do? He could still head down to Horrick's mansion to steal his powers back.
But there was so much risk in that plan. Not only did Danny no longer have his powers, but his parents still had not made any new ghost hunting equipment and had since thrown all of it away. Things looked pretty bleak.
Sighing more depressed than he ever had before, Danny sat down on the ground and cuddled up into a ball. "What am I going to do?" he kept asking himself out loud. Since there was no one around, he didn't mind talking to himself. "I can't just go marching into Horrick's mansion. I'll be lucky if I come out with all ten fingers if I try that."
The air around him seemed quiet and peaceful, allowing him to relax a little more. He was scrambling his brain to think of how he could sneak into Horrick's mansion and get his ghostly defenses back, but he knew it wasn't going to be that easy. The most logical thought would be to turn to another ghost hunter.
But who could he turn to? His parents didn't have any more equipment for him to use, and Mrs. Compton definitely wasn't going to let him have any. He hit a dead end no matter which way he went.
Now, Danny had another decision to make: where would he go now? He couldn't go back to school without getting caught, and he couldn't go home. He decided it would be best to go hide somewhere hidden where he could relax and think about his next move.
Ultimately, Danny went to the stream where he had slept a few nights earlier. He came up with a few ideas there, but decided to stay there until school was over and he would get home at his normal time. That entire time of staying at the stream he didn't think of anything.
When the time finally came for Danny to go back home, he ran as fast as he could. He was worried about what he was going to do, and they were the only adults he felt comfortable talking to.
"Mom! Dad!" Danny yelled, bursting through the doors to his home. He looked a little worn out from the running he just did, but somehow found a way to ignore it.
"Danny? What's wrong?" Maddie asked.
"Remember that Horrick guy who captured you guys and Sam and Tucker and Jazz?" Danny asked.
"How could I forget him!" Jack screamed, getting up. He started pounding his fist into his palm. "If I ever see that ghost again, I'll stuff his…"
"Jack!" Maddie yelled, stopping her husband dead in his tracks.
Jack stopped talking and quietly slumped back down onto the couch, where he was sitting before Danny ran inside.
"Anyway, I thought I finished the guy up when I freed you guys from that giant ball," Danny explained. "He got set on fire and fell down into a pile of chemicals and turned into a giant fireball. But somehow he survived it, and now he's got my powers and…"
"Wait a minute!" Jack yelled, interrupting again. "How did he get your powers?"
"Oh yeah…Compton and I got into this giant fight. To make a long story short, it ended with Compton falling off a building and dying."
Jack and Maddie's faces filled with horror after hearing that Compton had died.
"Guys, hold on a second!" Danny insisted. "Right before he died, he pressed a button on his ghost hunting suit and this claw thing fired out of it and stuck itself into me."
Maddie shrieked. "Are you hurt!"
"Actually, it didn't actually hurt too badly," he said in a casual voice. "But it sucked all my powers out, and then Horrick came down looking like a moving statue made of coal and took my powers away once Compton pulled them out."
Jack began to look very worried. "Well, did you get your powers back?"
"Nope," Danny said, looking down at the floor and shaking his head. "That's why I came to you guys. Would either of you know any way that I could sneak into Horrick's mansion to get them back?"
"Sneak into his mansion!" Maddie shrieked. "Absolutely not! He's dangerous now. If you're going, then your father and I are coming with you!"
"No you aren't!" Danny shouted back.
Maddie and Jack had surprised looks on their faces. None of them expected Danny to do that, not even Danny himself. Danny was stunned by how aggressive he had just become.
Danny sighed. His eyes began to fill with sorrow. "I'm sorry, but I can't put you guys in that kind of danger again." Danny didn't know whether or not he was apologizing for the outburst or for saying he was going to go alone and without their help. "If you want to help me, the most you can do is make me a weapon to help me fight him."
Neither Jack nor Maddie said anything. They looked at each other, then Jack looked like he had something. However, he looked like he thought he was really going to regret saying it.
"Danny, we still have one last thing you can take with you in to fight," he said.
"Really?" Danny asked.
"The Fenton vehicle that we have for ghost zone travel," Jack said. "We still have that."
"Awesome!" Danny burst with excitement. "Can I take it in there now and find Horrick, blow up his mansion and get my powers back?"
"Hold on, Danny," Jack said. "It's not going to be that easy. I've removed all the weapons and defenses from it, so you've only got a vehicle. I was going to wait until sometime next week until I began dismantling the whole thing."
Danny deflated.
"But yes, Danny, I'm going to let you take the car into the ghost zone and try to get your powers back."
Maddie's eyes widened. "Jack!"
"Maddie, I know you're worried about Danny, but who's going to get his powers back if he can't? I have faith in our son; he may not be the best student, but I'll bet he's a darn good ghost hunter and fighter, just like his old man!"
"Um, yeah, let's go with that," Danny said. "Anyway, thank you so much dad! I promise I'll be careful!"
Danny ran down into the basement and saw the car sitting there. True to his father's words, all the weapons and defenses had been stripped from the vehicle, so it was really nothing more than a pile of metal that could be piloted.
Danny strapped himself into the machine and looked around his basement one last time before he started up the engines and activated the portal.
"All right," Danny said, "here we go."
He pushed one more button and he was automatically in control of the vehicle as it belted out of the portal and into the Ghost Zone. "Watch out, Horrick, because here I come!"
Actually, Danny was hoping he wouldn't have to fight Horrick. At least, not until he got his powers back. Danny had shown on more than one occasion that Horrick was a pushover when Danny had his powers, so all he had to do was find him and beat Horrick to a pulp.
The flight to the Horrick's mansion was surprisingly short. Danny didn't pay any attention to anything around him. He was way too focused on what was going to happen next to care what was happening anywhere else.
Danny finally landed in front of Horrick's mansion. He parked the car and hopped out of it. He stared at the massive house in front of him. His powers were somewhere inside that house, he thought. And he wasn't about to stop at anything to get them back.
After a quick breath in, Danny walked over to the front doors. He had been in this mansion enough now; he hoped that this would be the last time he'd have to go in.
But just as Danny went over to the door to open it, the doors burst open. Danny was staring right into the face of Count Xissil Van Horrick as that happened.
Danny gasped. Horrick smiled. He still looked like a giant chunk of walking ash. But his grin still looked nasty enough to give an elderly person a heart attack.
"You may have killed my daughter and made quick work of Compton," Horrick said, "But like I said, even if you were able to dispatch of Aria and Compton, you will have no chance against me."
"Please!" Danny yelled. "You're probably the easiest out of all of them! I've already fought you two or three times and you were done in about thirty seconds every time."
"Well, that was then, and this is now," Horrick said.
"Hey, how'd you even turn to that shade of black?" Danny asked. "Because I would definitely sue whichever network held the rights to the makeover show you went on."
"Do you even have to ask?" Horrick wondered. "Fine, if you must know. Do you recall when I was trying to sever the link between us?"
"How could I forget?"
"Remember how I sliced my arm open to prove to you that we indeed felt the same pain?"
"Once again, how could I forget?"
"And do you recall that fight we had before you set your loved ones free?"
"Just cut to the chase already!" Danny screamed.
"Fine," Horrick growled. "As you remember, the fight ended with you accidentally setting me on fire with the gas hose. Well, luckily for me, the first place the fire came into was that giant gash in my arm when I sliced it open. When that happened, the fire traveled all throughout my body and charred all the molecules that make me up."
"Is that why you look so burned?" Danny asked. "The fire did that to you?"
"No. I look charred because that fire ENHANCED me."
"Okay, you've totally lost me," Danny said in a non-caring way.
Horrick growled, obviously not knowing why he was explaining everything. "The fire has made my molecules accustomed to it! Fire is now part of my being!"
"Wait a minute," Danny said, starting to sound a little nervous. "Are you saying fire can't weaken you now?"
"Weaken me!" Horrick screamed with a loud laugh mixed in. "Quite the opposite, Danny! Fire doesn't weaken me now; it makes me all the more powerful!"
Horrick tossed his arms in the air, and just like at rock concerts, two massive pillars of fire popped up around him, burning the air around both of them. The cackling of fire and its roaring drowned out any sounds of shock that Danny made.
Horrick stopped the fire uproar and looked at Danny the same way a hunter looks at a deer when he's about to shoot it.
"With this new power, nothing can stop me!" Horrick yelled. "Not even you!"
Horrick pointed his hands at Danny. Out of habit, Danny ducked out of the way. And it was a good thing, because Horrick fired a solid beam of fire right at him. Danny watched as the fire made the air around it look like a liquid and as it made the air feel thirty degrees hotter.
As soon as the fire cleared, Danny realized he had no hope of getting his powered without being barbecued. He ran over to the vehicle his parents let him fly into the Ghost Zone and hopped in. He started the engines up and flew away from Horrick's mansion as quickly as he could.
"That's right, run!" Horrick screamed as he watched Danny fly away. "You'll come crying back for your powers eventually, and when you do, I'll be ready!"
Danny just flew away with his back pressed hard into the chair.
"Man, that guy's insane!" Danny exclaimed breathlessly. "He's going to make Dario from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow look like a firecracker."
Danny had nowhere to fly now but home. He was really worried, because Horrick knew where Danny lived, and if he ever found his way out of the Ghost Zone, Horrick would probably come and toast everyone Danny knew, as well as probably Danny himself.
The rest of the ride, all Danny did was think about what he could do to possibly stand up against Horrick's newfound power. Yes, he had been up against huge power before, but fire was a completely different experience to him. Fire could spread easily, and it caught on someone, it would kill them slowly and painfully. And if it didn't kill them, it would certainly scar them for the rest of their lives.
How the heck was Danny going to stand up against that, especially when he didn't have any power to defend himself?
