Pitch black. The only light came from black high-tech battle armor illuminated from the inside by a green ectoplasmic entity. Skulktech.

"Hello," started Skulker.

"Ghost child," Technus finished.

Then, I heard Danielle's voice, yelling my name.

"Danny? DANNY!"

I woke up to Zak incessantly calling my name. "WHAT?" I expected to hit a ceiling. I didn't.

My eyes were sore. I grabbed the nearest towel and dabbed the sweat off my face.

"You looked like you were having a nightmare."

Déjà vu.

"What happened?"

"You passed out after putting the glasses on. I guess they make you dream the future."

That's the last thing I wanted to hear. I have to find Danielle. If anything happens to her…

"I have to find my cousin. She's a half-ghost, like me."

After a moment of thought, "Well, one of the things I can do is communicate with cryptids, no matter where in the world they are. Can you do anything like that, but with ghosts?"

"I have a ghost sense, which lets me know if there's a ghost around, but it'll take forever to track her down."

Zak had a look that said I thought you'd never ask. Well, I didn't ask. He pulled out his bamboo…sword…thing like it was show-and-tell time. "This is The Claw. And THIS is the Hand of Tsul 'Kalu." The way he held it, you'd expect a bird to fly out of it any second.

I looked around. There was no one else in the room, so either he was still talking to me, or that Claw was scratching his brain more than that Hand was giving him a hand. Is this how idiotic I looked every time I yelled "Going ghost"? I dismissed that as an intrusive thought. I looked boss when I did that.

Looked like a regular old paw to me. Heck, I'll bite. "Go on."

"The Hand is another artifact. It enhances anything mystical." He blinked, and his eyes started glowing orange. Almost instantaneously, the three fangs of the Claw, which were previously clenched in a fist, relaxed and started glowing orange, as well.

Zak pointed the stick at the door.

Komodo started moonwalking into the room, eyes glowing orange, as well.

The glow in their eyes and on the hand diminished.

"The Claw amplifies and helps me control my powers. If you concentrate, maybe it can do something with your ghost sense? Help you find your cousin?"

It was worth a shot. I'd always wanted to see what my powers were capable of when used to the max. This might be my only chance at it. Well, without waiting ten years.

It was heavier than Zak made it out to be, maybe because I was still laying down holding it above me. The rod itself, which looked like plastic from afar, was actually metal. I expected it to be lopsided, but it was actually well-balanced, probably because of the serpent's head at the end opposite the Hand.

Nothing happened at first. I tried focusing on my ghost sense. There was a shift – no, a surge of energy inside my body. The claw relaxed its fangs like it did when Zak used his powers, and started glowing blue.

Almost immediately after that, I heard a voice in my head.

Danny! You need to find a way into the Ghost Zone.

"Danny? You've been standing there for like 2 minutes, now. Anything?"

"Huh? Yeah." It's that voice from before. "I need to get into the Ghost Zone."

"I'm guessing it's not as easy as finding a mirror, huh," Zak asked hopefully rhetorically.

I tried concentrating on a different power, the closest one to some sort of spatial tunneling ability like Wulf's and Dan's. Maybe my ghost ray?

I raised my free hand and charged it with ectoplasmic energy. The glow on the claw turned green.

Yes! Maybe Zak and I can get along, after all.

Thought too soon.

"Uh, Danny?" Zak saw the fluctuating glow of my hand and could probably tell that it wasn't supposed to be that erratic.

The Claw started resisting me. I wasn't sure if I should've been focusing on the Claw, or the hand building up ectoplasm, so I went for the free hand. That was a terrible idea. Ectoplasm started building up like guys to Paulina and shot out of my hand, cutting clean into everything from that room to the airship based 2 floors above us. I hoped there weren't any planes flying around the area at the time.

The sound of the spectral energy cutting into several layers of reinforced metal rang for a few seconds before it dissipated, paving way for the sound of the ticking clock and my rampaging heart.

We turned to each other, faces flushed with fear, and counted down. "3…2…1…"

Doc Saturday slammed the doors open, and I had the sudden urge to fight my evil older self.