Chapter 3:

Fright Knight hopped off of Frightmare and marched his way up the steps into the red castle of Pariah. It was as intimidating a walk as ever, but for the Spirit of Halloween it just meant he was that much closer to his ultimate goal. He held the Skeleton Key in front of him in his left hand and in his right hand he held the Crown of Fire.

He walked down the corridors paying no attention to the wall paintings until he got to the ruined wall that opened into the chamber where his master was sleeping. He floated up to the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep and inserted the key into it. With a single twist there was a clicking sound and Fright Knight backed away from the ancient device and went down on one knee while holding the crown above his head.

Fright Knight also bowed his head to his master and said, "Lord Pariah, I have brought thee thy crown once again, so that thy might get thy revenge on the half-breed that defeated thee."

Pariah Dark, High King of all Ghosts, narrowed his lone eye at his servant while taking thudding steps out of the Sarcophagus, "And why has it taken you so long to get what you needed to revive me, Fright Knight?"

Fright Knight offered the Crown a little higher, "The half-breed Plasmius, the one who took possession of thy crown, was stronger than I when it came to combat and he had hidden the Crown of Fire and the Skeleton Key, both of which I now present to thee. I had to pretend to be on his side until he revealed their resting place and I could defeat him through trickery."

Pariah accepted the crown into his hand, "So the half-breeds have grown in strength?"

Fright Knight nodded, "And in number, my Liege."

Pariah raised his eyebrow, "How many, Fright Knight?"

Fright Knight shuddered a little but remained kneeling, "Seven, not including Plasmius who I banished or the little one that has yet to be born."

Pariah nodded, "And are all allied with the child that defeated me?"

Fright Knight nodded, "Related or allied, yes. The Ghost-Child is still the strongest out of all of them, though his sister and mate are close seconds to him."

Pariah gazed at the crown, "Oh?"

Fright Knight nodded, "Yes, Master. His mate is the child of the Ancient Undergrowth and his sister is the child of the Ancient Nocturne. Even the child himself has absorbed some of the powers of the Ancient Vortex. He is also considered the disciple of the meddler."

Pariah's eye narrowed, "He is the disciple of Clockwork?"

Fright Knight shrugged, "Either that or he counts the Ancient of Time as his Ally."

Pariah sighed, "But one thing I know about Clockwork is that he will not interfere. If it were not for that I would not make a move."

Fright Knight looked up at his master, startled, "You fear the Ancient of Time?"

Pariah's eyes narrowed, "It is not a matter of fear, my servant. Clockwork is the de facto most powerful ghost in existence. You do not provoke one capable of annihilating you from existence with a stick lightly. If he is truly backing the half-breed child, then this could all end in an instant, and this ring on my finger and this crown in my hands would mean nothing before the Time Master's might."

Fright Knight blinked, "What will you do, Master?"

Pariah glared down at the crown, "Make sure that my opening move against that human world is so devastating and cruel that he would have to step in if he was going to."

With that Pariah placed the crown upon his head and in a flash of green and red lightning he again had the unlimited energy afforded to him by the Ring of Rage's and Crown of Fire's combined powers. He gathered a ball of crimson energy into his right hand that then ignited into flames. He added a ring of energy around it that sparked with red lightning that fed into the ball. For the final touch he obscured it with a cloud of scarlet poison. He smiled maliciously and started to pour the unlimited energy from the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire into it until the point where he could barely control it any longer and it shined in his right hand like the midday sun.

His smirk grew more pronounced, "Let us see the human world survive this!"

With a feral grin he opened a portal and stuck his hand holding the brightly glowing mass of ectoplasmic energy through it, calling out, "Annihilation Storm!"

"Come On! You could hit it farther than that!"

Danny sighed good-naturedly at his Dad's enthusiastic shouting, "... Dad, they are Casper High School students, in other words, ordinary humans."

Jack pouted at his son, "But in baseball you are supposed to get home-runs… Not hit it right back into the pitcher's glove."

Danny rolled his eyes and chuckled, "Please never change, Dad."

Maddie smirked, "Oh, he won't. How is Sam's meeting with Mr. Lancer going?"

Danny shrugged, "She just texted me a minute ago and said that they had gotten started on the test. We will see the results af…"

A puff of blue ectoplasm flew out of his mouth and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he went intangible on pure instinct at the sign of danger. In the next instant the world burned red.

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

The explosion washed through him turning the entire city of Amity park and the surrounding cities into a crater. A crater that he was almost at the center of. Massive Ectoplasmic Storm Clouds started to form overhead, and red lightning crashed down to the ground. Danny's brain could barely keep up with the destruction, and considering he was the only thing alive where the baseball stadium had been, he was almost in tears with grief over the loss of his family.

Unfortunately the luxury of tears was not going to be given to him today, "Quite the opening move in our war, eh, child?"

Danny spun around to see the Ghost King standing behind him and he didn't know how to reply, beyond a broken, "Why?"

Pariah Dark raised his eyebrow, "'Why' Ghost Child? Because to defeat my competition I must demoralize them first."

Danny's grief rapidly spiraled into rage, "COMPETITION! FOR WHAT!?"

Pariah held up the ring on his hand and gestured at the crown floating above his head, "I can feel them calling out to you, and I know you can feel it as well."

Danny growled, because he instinctively knew Pariah to be right, but he didn't want to accept it, "For that you kill my family and the people of Amity Park?"

Pariah shook his head, "No, for that I declare all out war on the human realm, your protectorate. This was but a first strike. My Annihilation Storm will encircle the globe and my armies will destroy this world. Then I will…"

BOOOMMM!

Jazz glared at Pariah Dark, Her golden-gloved hands glowing with fiery smoke as her red hair flowed like fire from her ponytail, her red and golden eyes glowing with rage and her legs missing because of the red ghostly tail that had formed beneath the golden sash around her waist.

Pariah Dark raised an eyebrow at the golden bird symbol on her chest beneath her golden turtleneck collar, "So you stylize yourself as a phoenix and dare to attack your King?"

A red Ectoplasmic blast shot from his eye and impacted with a vine that shot up in front Jazz, "Yes, she does."

A crescent shaped blast of energy hit his chest, "And so do we."

Fright Knight stepped out from behind Pariah and glared at the woman wearing a dress made of leaves and the little girl in a two-piece Fenton Hazmat suit, "Phantom's mate and spawn."

"Don't forget the best friend!"

BOOOMM!

Danny saw Tucker revealed in all his cyborg glory lowering his smoking anti-ghost arm cannon, "Guys, get out of here."

Pariah Dark grinned and unleashed another blast from his eye, Danny put up a shield around Pariah to contain the blast inside, "Nay, child, let your guards come and taste my might."

Tucker growled, "Let us help you, dude!"

Danny grunted, "You can help, by getting to your lair and figuring out… ugh… a way to power this guy… gah…. down!"

BOOOMMM!

The green shield burst and Pariah grinned fiercely, "Not to worry, child, I have more than enough soldiers to keep them occupied while we settle once and for all who the real King of the Dead is."

Thousands of skeletons burst from the ground and from red portals that formed in the storm in the sky. Tucker got an alert from the Fenton Anti-Ecto Satellite Network that caused his one good eye to widen in alarm, "Guys… They are popping out over the largest city in every country in the world."

Danny mechanically stopped trying to catch his breath and turned to glare at Pariah Dark along with everyone else there, "GRRAAAWWWAAWAWAWAWWWWAWAWWWWAWWW!"

Danny changed into his ghost form, in a wave of white light that started at his head and worked its way down his body, as green waves of energy lashed out from his mouth and a full-powered, though short, Ghostly Wail plowed into Pariah Dark and Fright Knight, bowling them over in an instant and throwing them deep into the ground. He glared down at them with glowing green eyes, white hair waving in the wind of Pariah's storm. Small fangs bared in a growl. In his ghost form, he wore an ornate black robe with silvery white detailing over top of a futuristic white armor that looked built into the old Fenton Works hazmat of his youth. His white DP insignia made by his wife was displayed proudly on the left breast of the top-most layer of his robe.

Danny turned to his friends who nodded to him and said almost in unison, "We're on it, Danny."

Danny nodded, "Thank you. Danielle, you follow your Uncle Tuck into the Zone and help protect your Aunt Val and let all our allies know what is going on, even though they probably already know."

Tucker nodded and quickly flew towards the still semi-standing Fenton Works with Danielle hot on his heels. Jazz glared at Pariah for a moment before she teleported in a puff of fire that vanished almost as soon as it had appeared to surround her. Sam summoned a ton of vines around her and tried to plow them into the Pariah who was getting out of his very own hole in the ground. Unfortunately the vines turned to ash the moment they got within a couple feet of Pariah.

Pariah smirked, "A child of Undergrowth stands no chance against a fire elemental. Now, where were we?"

Danny blasted towards him as a streak of green, plowing into his face with his fist causing Pariah to shoot him back with an ectoblast from his eye, lessening the fist's impact and increasing the ectoblast's impact. Danny turned intangible before he hit the ground causing him to pass through the ground and the ectoblast to prematurely detonate on the ground, leaving behind a massive scorched crater.

Danny phased back up next to Sam, "Please go help in the Ghost Zone."

Sam glared at him, even as he put up a shield to protect them from Pariah's summoned mace, "And let this murderer try and take you from me like he took the rest of my family!?"

Danny shook his head, "No, he won't be going free this time, and you won't lose me, I promise."

A tear fell down Sam's face, "If you are lying to me then I will never forgive you."

Danny smiled and wiped the tear from her cheek with a trembling hand, "I love you." He turned the shield into a spherical ectoplasmic blast that knocked Pariah back once again, "Now, please go."

Sam nodded and flew towards the ruins of Fenton Works, with a quiet, parting, and broken, "I love you."

Danny flew over to Pariah Dark and attempted to punch the Ancient Ghost in the face, "Ready for your duly earned butt-whooping, you overgrown fossil?"

Pariah Dark raised a red shield around himself and grinned at the dark glower on Danny's face, "Ah, the poor attempt at humor that Fright Knight warned me about last time that I didn't get to see."

Danny coated his armored hand in ice and punched the dome surrounding Pariah, causing it to be quickly encased in ice and shatter, "Well now you did!"

Pariah dodged to the side away from Danny's follow up ectoblast and retaliated with one of his own which was also dodged, "Indeed, but let us dispense with the pleasantries child," he dodged another blast, "and find out which of us is stronger."

Danny growled again and then saw, out of the corner of his eye, someone trying to sneak off, "Let's! But first…"

He unleashed an ectoblast towards Fright Knight, who was heading towards the rubble of Fenton Works. The ghost barely ducked away from the blast. Pariah used the opportunity provided by the distraction his underling caused to smack Danny in the back with his mace. The hit launched Danny into the side of the crater, but thanks to Danny's ghostly durability and armor the worst the hit left was some dust from the impact and an unseen red spot that healed almost instantly. Unfortunately the attack caused Danny to lose track of Fright Knight. Danny retaliated with a lot of precise ghostly icicles flying at Pariah.

He held up a fiery shield that the ice got stuck in, "Impressive, your elemental affinity for ice is rare for those not of the Far Frozen."

Danny grinned unpleasantly and with his outstretched hands glowing blue and green he caused the icicles to get bigger and inch their way towards Pariah instead of melt in the face of his fire, "Who do you think were my teachers?"

Pariah tilted his head and increased the power of his shield in response, "But even their ice would melt before me, the Ancient of Power and Fire."

Danny shrugged, "Then I guess my ice is just special then."

A glowing sliver of green inside the ice, that Pariah had ignored before, rapidly expanded and then the entire setup exploded in a shower of fiery ice. Pariah was pushed back by the explosion, and some shards of ice buried themselves in his clothing. Pariah growled and unleashed another beam from his eye which was countered by one from Danny's right hand.

The point of contact of the beams wavered between them before finally balancing out in the middle when Danny strengthened it with his left hand. A ball of angry red and green swirled into existence and, in the blink of an eye, it exploded almost as spectacularly as Pariah's initial attack, launching both combatants into the edge of the crater through its ghostly might.

Pariah growled and got up, trying to peer through the cloud of smoke and dirt for his enemy. Said enemy came out of it glowing green and punched Pariah in the face so hard that it unleashed a shockwave of air that cleared out a lot of the dust cloud while also simultaneously kicking up more. Pariah used the momentum to spin around and smack Danny out of the air.

Danny and Pariah thought the same thing at almost the exact same time, "This is going to take a while."

A family out in the woods near Spittoon Arkansas turned on their TV to watch the nightly news. Heedless of the glowing danger coming their way through the woods. The lady on the TV looked like she had been crying her eyes out for a while.

Their youngest boy looked at his mother, "Mommy, why is the lady on the screen crying?"

The woman looked concerned but motioned her son to be quiet, just in time for the news lady to compose herself, "This day started off so well… And now… And… Despite the best efforts of Phantom's team, every single Country's capital now lies in ruins due to the storm and endless armies of the Ghost King. Major population centers all around the world are now being targeted with small towns probably being next on the list if not already in the line of fire."

The father looked outside, "What is…?"

The lady on screen continued, "The response of the various world militaries is piecemeal at best due to their command structures being shattered and the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are equipped with anti-personnel weapons instead of anti-ghost weapons."

CRASH!

The family started screaming, "AHHHYAHHHH!"

The lady on screen sighed, "The death toll is already estimated to be in the upper millions if not billions already, but the Ghost King's troops are destroying anything that lives. So not even the plants and animals are being spared from his cruelty… The question on everyone's minds is, 'Will we surv'-HURCHAAH!"

No one was left in that house to watch the news lady get impaled through the back by a sword wielding green skeleton except for some of its compatriots standing over the slashed corpses of the family that had lived there.