EPISODE 54—DOWN THE DRAIN
It was a normal Sunday afternoon in Amity Park. The world was calm—no ghosts had been around for the entire weekend. Actually, then, the absence of ghosts made it an abnormal afternoon.
Danny walked down the street with Tucker and Sam, having just come out of a movie. They talked and laughed like normal teenagers… unfortunately, they weren't normal teenagers. Hunting ghosts pretty much disqualified you for the Normal Teenager of the Year award.
"This is excellent," Danny said. "I don't know where all the ghosts have gone, but I have to admit, I really don't care."
"It's nice to act essentially normal for a day," Sam agreed. "Now I kind of know what other teenagers do for fun."
"Yesterday," Tucker said, "we visited my cousins for dinner, and one of them asked me what I do for fun. It was funny for a moment until I realized I wasn't answering, just kind of looking at the ceiling and laughing."
"Smooth," Sam said. "I'm sure they didn't suspect you of anything after that."
"They thought I was on a crime spree at nights," Tucker said, "so don't worry, they don't suspect you guys."
They walked down the street for a few minutes, talking. It was wondrous to discover how much they had to say, when there was time to say it, uninterrupted by ghost attacks. Tucker talked about how his father had gotten a promotion, and was now bringing in a lot more to the family income; Sam discussed her most recent victory over her parents' attempts to turn her into a happy pink princess. Her grandmother had backed her up, and together, Granny and Sam defeated the forces of pink frilly sleeves. It was amazing to think that Sam's parents still thought that they could change her fashion taste…
Then they talked music, what new hits were great on the radio, what bands were coming out with new albums, and their favorite Dumpty Humpty hit off the album that just came out last month. They talked sports, and video games, and hit just about every topic that wasn't ghost hunting.
Danny kept expecting his ghost sense to go off at any moment and ruin the record—this was the longest running no-ghost stretch since the early days of his powers. Whatever it was that was keeping them away, he hoped it would keep up. He had a test on Wednesday, and it would be nice if he had both Monday and Tuesday night to study. That was a lot to ask for, and he didn't expect it to happen, really. But it didn't hurt to hope.
They'd even put aside training, to have one ghost-free weekend. Any moment now, it would be ruined by Danny's ghost sense and the appearance of the Box Ghost… or Filch, who had made several appearances in the last few days, until this weekend…
Someone…
Danny yawned and stretched. He swung his feet over the side of his bed, feeling distinctly refreshed. Ten hours of sleep. Ten hours! A luxury beyond his imagination.
He brushed his teeth and washed his face. He ate breakfast and packed up his things, then took the trip to school. It was…
What was this strange new feeling?
Boredom?
Is this what normal teenagers felt like sometimes? Teenagers without superpowers?
Again, Danny was expecting his ghost sense to go off at any time during school. His first class passed without incident, and then his second. Lunch came and went. And then the final bell rang to end the entirely unremarkable day, and he walked out with Sam and Tucker.
"Wanna hit the arcade?" Tucker said. "We never get to do that!"
"Absolutely!" Danny and Sam shouted concurrently. They all high-fived and then walked down the street that led to the downtown area where the arcade was.
"So how was your day?" Tucker asked.
"Simple," Danny replied. "A quiz and a homework quiz, but they were both cake. You?"
"I had a great gym class," Sam said. "I finally got to spike the volleyball directly into Paulina's head."
Danny cringed. "There's a shortage of perfect skin in this world," he said. "It would be a pity to damage hers."
"Perfect skin is nothing if you have a corrupted, rotten and festering, soulless interior," Sam argued.
"In your opinion, because you share a mutual hatred," Danny said.
"Hey, it's not like I haven't tried to get to know her," Sam said. "I know she's a… Um, Tucker?"
They just noticed that Tucker had stopped on the corner of the entrance to a side street, staring wide-eyed down the other road.
"Tuck?" Danny said. "What is it?"
"Danny," Tucker said, turning. "Your ghost sense didn't go off?"
Danny frowned. "No, I would have felt that. …Why?"
Tucker gestured, and Danny and Sam ran over to see what Tucker had been gawking at; when they reached him and looked down the street, they gawked, too.
It was Ember McLain, the siren ghost he'd dealt with many times before. But something was very, very off.
Her hair was gone—the fire part, anyway. All that was left were her bangs and a small puff in the back. She usually had the typical small glow of a ghost, but that was completely gone, too. She looked extremely tired. She wasn't flying, either—she was limping and dragging her guitar along the ground. When she looked up and saw Danny, she held up a hand, and her mouth twitched while open for a while as if she was going to say something, and then she toppled over and struck the ground face-first.
Danny scratched the back of his neck as he stared down at his foe. "Um… aren't you supposed to look like this after you encounter me?" he asked, and ran forward to look at her.
"Danny, no!" Tucker said. "It's probably a trick!" He grabbed a thermos out of his backpack and got ready with it.
"I don't think so," Danny said. "She looks crazy weak."
He knelt down in front of her and tapped her shoulder. She looked up with unfocused eyes, having difficulty keeping her head up. Danny put a hand under the back of her hair and stared at her. "What… happened?"
"V…" she started to say. Even though she'd only stressed one letter, Danny could tell that her voice sounded damaged, hoarse. "V…"
"Vlad?" Danny asked, growling the name of the first V-villain he could think.
Ember shook her head.
"Vortex?" Danny ventured. "Valerie?"
She shook her head a second and third time, and then she scratched out one word with a very coarse voice before her eyes fluttered shut again: "Voromni."
This time, Danny couldn't rouse her. He bit his lip and looked over at Sam and Tucker, who both shivered on cue.
"I think we should get her somewhere safe," Danny said, "and then when she's better, we need to find out what happened."
"How are we going to transport her?" Tucker asked.
"Tucker, you're holding a ghost containment device," Sam said, slapping a hand against her face.
"Oh, yeah," Tucker said, sticking his tongue out for a moment as he stared at the thermos in his hand. "Danny, you might want to step back."
Danny nodded and backed away from Ember. Tucker readied the Fenton Thermos and fired it. A beam of light shot out as usual and enveloped Ember.
He gave a closed-eyes grin, and patted the Thermos. When he opened his eyes, the grin faded.
Ember was still there. The Fenton Thermos had not worked on her.
He tried again, with the same results. Ember wouldn't disappear into the Thermos.
"This is starting to freak me out a little bit," Sam said.
"I've been freaked out since we saw her," Danny replied. "Come on, I guess I'll have to fly her invisible. Let's get her into an alley where we know no one's watching. I'll text you when Ember wakes up; meet me at my house when I text."
Lucky for him, his parents were out visiting a friend today, and so he could put Ember on a makeshift bed on a table in the lab without worrying about his parents stumbling in on it. He didn't want them tearing her apart molecule by molecule, even if she did give him a little trouble.
Jazz was keeping watch on her while Danny took a call from Tucker. "Whatcha up to, Tuck?" Danny asked.
"I did some quick research," Tucker said. "The word Ember said, 'Voromni,' sounded like Latin to me. I made a rough guess as to how it was spelled. Omni, as you might have figured out from words like 'omnipotent' and 'omnipresent,' means roughly 'all,' or 'everything.' And that left the prefix 'vor-,' which after a little while, I decided was probably the same root as in the words 'herbivore,' like Sam, 'carnivore,' like me, and 'omnivore,' like you. Which means that the word that Ember said, 'voromni,' likely means 'eats everything.' I don't know about you, but that doesn't warm my troubled soul very much."
"I'm with you," Danny said. "That sounds a little ominous."
"Danny!" he heard Jazz call. "Her eyes are open! She won't talk, but she's awake!"
"Ember's awake," he shot to Tucker. "Tell Sam, and get over here when you can."
"Right-o," Tucker said, and he hung up.
Danny floated down the stairs to the lab quickly, and walked up to the table where Ember was sitting. She looked at him, and a lip twitched.
"We're keeping you safe here," Danny said.
Ember glanced over to the Ghost Portal and pointed a very shaky, weak-looking hand at it. "Is it sealed?" she rasped with the voice of someone who'd screamed for five straight hours.
"Yes, it's sealed tight," Danny said.
Ember visibly relaxed. She coughed once, but it was a barely audible cough. She felt the top of her head where her hair should have been and shuddered.
"What happened?" Danny asked again. "You said Voromni. Is that some new ghost?"
She nodded. "Never seen it or heard of it before," she whispered. "Just this… mammoth creature… looked like Grandma McLain's worse cooking results. I saw it flying at me… and I fled, but it pursued… so I fought back, but it was so powerful… It assaulted me with a barrage of meat products, and then trapped me in this box of energy."
"Meat products?" Danny asked, frowning. "A box of energy?"
"I fought my way out with my guitar, but by then it was too close. It… It transformed into a dragon, and snapped its tail into me. I plummeted to the ground, and it grabbed me and… it turned back into its porridge-looking animal-like form. It shoved me in its mouth, and it felt like my energy was being sucked out. It spit me out, and my flame was out and I could barely speak, and my guitar was powerless. I couldn't even fly or turn intangible."
"How did you get out of the Ghost Zone?" Jazz asked. Danny had been wondering the same thing.
"Found Wulf," she croaked. "He fled into the human world when Voromni approached, and I left with him so that I could find you."
Danny blanched. "He closed the portal, right?"
Ember nodded.
Danny breathed a sigh of relief. "How long ago was this?" he asked nervously.
"A full day," Ember said. "I've been trekking towards Casper High since I woke up this morning."
Danny hated to think how long that thing had been on the loose. He was starting to form a theory—it sounded like this Voromni creature was stealing and draining power out of other ghosts and adding it to his own energy. That meant the longer it was on the loose, the harder it was going to be to defeat. By the sound of it, Voromni had already gotten Ember, the Box Ghost, the Lunch Lady, and Dora the Dragon Ghost, or perhaps her brother.
"You said you just had no ghost attributes whatsoever?" Danny asked. "You couldn't turn intangible?"
Ember nodded. "But for some reason, I passed through walls anyway inside the Ghost Zone, without even trying."
"Then Voromni completely drained you of your powers," Danny said. "That's why we couldn't carry you back in the thermos, either. He essentially made you human."
Ember groaned and put her hands over her face.
"And humans pass through everything in the Ghost Zone," Danny added. "That's why you went through stuff."
There was a slam of the door; Danny feared his parents for a moment before remembering that he'd asked Tucker and Sam to come over.
They came running down the stairs to look at Ember. "So what's the story?" Sam asked, biting her lip.
"It's this creature in the Ghost Zone that looks like a huge animal made out of porridge," Jazz said.
"And that's Voromni?" Tucker said.
"It absorbed all of Ember's ghostly energy," Danny said. "She can't use any ghost powers, not even flight, invisibility, intangibility, energy rays… nothing. She's so human now that she was passing through stuff in the Ghost Zone—only humans do that."
"That's kind of…" Sam started, and then she shook her head. "Scratch that. I meant, that's extremely unsettling."
"Yeah," Danny said. "That's why we couldn't even get her in the thermos."
"Some ghost monster did that?" Tucker asked.
"And it stole her powers?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. This one looks like it's going to be a toughie."
Ember coughed and shook her head. "No. Not one."
The four teens gaped. "What?" Danny shouted. "More than one of them?"
Ember chuckled hoarsely. "Just messing with ya."
Danny's heart rate slowed a little bit, but he growled at Ember. "Thanks for almost making me have a heart attack," Danny shot. "Anyway, Sam and Tucker… something's been making me worry. I don't really know how to phrase this, but… We're still encountering new ghosts and new challenges, right? Most recently that I've fought, I mean, that'd be Vortex, Undergrowth, Amorpho, Nocturn, Wardback, and Hemozoa."
"But you didn't face Wardback," Sam said, frowning. "You said you just talked with him."
"Y-Yeah, I just misspoke," Danny blurted. "I meant, I didn't face Wardback, but I encountered him and I faced and encountered all those others I said! I mean… You know what I mean."
Sam's eyes narrowed. Danny hoped she wasn't expecting that he'd lied about not fighting Wardback.
"So my point was, I'm still meeting new ghosts," Danny said. "I assume this is a new one, too. And we're unfamiliar with them because they're new to the human world. But… ghosts aren't exactly new to the Ghost Zone. How could no ghost have ever heard of this thing before? Do new ghosts still just pop up in the Ghost Zone?"
"That's weird," Sam agreed. "Ember, any thoughts on that?"
"I don't know where it came from," Ember said in her shaky, raspy voice. "And I didn't have time to ask if anyone knew. I just know that we ghosts named it Voromni."
"I'm… really kind of freaked out about this," Danny said. "I think we need to go into the Ghost Zone to stop this thing."
"What?" Sam asked. "Why would we need to do that?"
"It would be an absolute catastrophe if it got, say, Undergrowth, or Vortex. Or both! Then what happens if it gets Wulf and steals his power to claw through dimensions? We wouldn't be able to stop it!"
"Wulf is in the human world," Sam said. "We don't have to worry about that."
"We don't know if there are other ghosts who can do that!" Danny said. "My point is, firstly, we can't let it get so powerful that we couldn't beat it. And secondly, we can't let this thing attack all these ghosts, anyway. We have to help them."
Sam folded her arms. "And what if it absorbs you, Danny? What do we do then?"
Danny wanted to argue, but so far, Sam had been right about both encountering Wardback (sort of) and traveling through the Zoan Wall. It seemed like she probably, at this point, knew what she was talking about. Yet something had to be done.
"Well, what can we do, then?" Danny asked, scratching his neck. "I refuse to sit here while that thing gets more powerful."
"I'm thinking," Sam said. "I want to get rid of this thing as much as you do."
"Let's go through all of your parents' inventions," Tucker said. "Your mom just remade the Spirit Spear. That's a plus. That one worked great last time."
"And," Jazz added, "she made it into a retractable harpoon! You can detach it and use it as normal, but with the harpoon feature, it's a distance weapon."
"We've got the Ghost Gauntlets," Danny added, "but I don't think I want to get that close."
"True that," Sam said. "What about the Fenton Crammer? Maybe you could shrink his powers!"
"Or the Fenton Peeler!" Jazz called. "That might peel away the layers of powers he's added on from other ghosts!"
"That's a good one, Jazz," Sam said, impressed.
"And maybe just in case, we could take Fenton Fishers or the Jack-o'-Nine-Tails," Tucker added.
"What else have Mom and Dad invented?" Jazz wondered aloud.
"I like the idea of using the Fenton Crammer to shrink it and short out its powers, and the Fenton Peeler to weaken it," Danny offered. "And of course, since we'd be in the Ghost Zone, we wouldn't have to worry about the collateral damage of my Ghostly Wail." He puffed out his chest.
"Forgot about that nifty power," Sam said.
"Forgot about the word 'nifty,'" Tucker said.
"But still, you shouldn't use all your power at once unless you really need to."
"I suppose not. But still, it's probably going to help us."
Sam sighed. "All right, Danny. We'll go after this thing with ecto-guns blazing. But please, promise me you—"
Danny's ghost sense went off suddenly as the ghost portal opened behind them. Tucker yelped and grabbed a Fenton Ghost Fisher and stood in a widened stance, shaking slightly.
"How did the Ghost Portal get open?" Jazz asked, and whipped out an extendable metal pole with glowing green ends, which was able to send any ghost back into the Ghost Zone… at least, most of them. Hopefully this creature wouldn't be powerful enough to resist that effect…
Danny tensed and growled, "Going ghost," and the band of light swept across him, readying him for the fight he was expecting with Voromni…
But instead of a mass of porridge, a familiar ghost popped out of the Ghost Zone. He was a dark green-skinned ghost wearing a gray shirt and a forest-green jacket with sunglasses on his forehead and dark, shifty eyes—it was Filch again.
"Again?" Danny shouted.
Filch's eyebrows vaulted when he saw Danny. "How did you know I was going to be here?" he muttered. "Come ON."
"I dumped you in the farthest stretches of the Ghost Zone last time!" Danny groaned. "How did you get back through? And how did you open the Ghost Portal?"
"You think I'm gonna give that away?" Filch laughed. "Who do you think I am, Technus? I'm outta here!"
The thieving ghost flew into the air, but Sam had been at the ready with a Fenton Thermos and she sucked him in. As he realized what was happening, he gave a shout and something dropped from one of his bulging pockets; he disappeared a second later and Sam slapped the cap on.
"What's with the garage door opener?" Tucker asked, staring at the small device that Filch had dropped.
"I'll bet you that's a Ghost Portal opener," Danny said. He picked it up and transformed back into a human. There was a green button and a red button; he pressed the red button, and the ghost portal closed instantly. "He's the ghost of theft. He must have stolen it when we weren't here. Smart of him."
Sam sighed. "All right. I suppose I'll have to start again. I know you need to do something. But please, promise me you'll be careful. Don't get too close to this thing, whatever it is. I really care about—"
They were interrupted again by a sudden blast of noise that echoed throughout the house. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" It sounded like a terrible impression of a ghost's wail, voiced by Jack Fenton.
"What the heck is that?" Sam shouted over the noise, which continued for about five seconds.
"That… would be the new doorbell," Jazz said, casting a look up at the sky. "I hope that's not audible from the outside."
"Who is that?" Danny asked, a little nervous.
"Don't worry," Jazz said, running upstairs. "I'll keep him away from the lab. It's Dash; I'm tutoring him in English."
"Anyway, Danny, I care about you," Sam said, finishing her thought before there was another interruption.
"I care about…" Danny's brow furrowed and he looked after Jazz at the stairs. "Dash?"
"You care about Dash?" Tucker repeated, not bothering to stifle his laugh.
Danny glared at him, then continued his thought. "I thought Jazz wasn't tutoring Dash anymore," he said. "He kept trying to ask her out, and she wasn't getting anywhere because he kept staring at her without taking in anything she said."
"We'll have to ask her about that, after we save an entire dimension," Sam said. "Should we… um… go?"
"What else do we have to do?" Danny asked, sliding open a drawer and grabbing the Spirit Spear. He then pushed a lever forward, opening a garage-like door that had recently been built next to the lab. The Specter Speeder hovered inside.
"Well, maybe we could make some sort of a plan," Sam said.
"Sam, when have any of our plans ever actually worked?" Danny stated. "We plan, we get there, and all hell breaks loose."
"Stop quoting the last Harry Potter movie, Danny, and be serious," Sam said. "You can't get too close, so how do we go about doing this?"
"Don't you guys get too close, either," Danny said. "My parents would probably kill me if I wrecked another Specter Speeder."
"I'm pretty sure we'd have kept our distance anyway," Tucker said. "I mean, it sounds like it only attacks ghosts, but it's still a gargantuan porridge-monster, and I've never met a gargantuan porridge-monster that I've liked."
Danny let out a little puff of laughter. "Just… use the Spirit Spear on the harpoon," he said. "It's retractable, which is nice because we won't lose it. And somebody's going to man the Fenton Peeler."
"I've done it before," Sam said. "I'll do it. Tucker, you can take the Spirit Harpoon."
Danny scratched his head. "When did you use the Fenton Peeler?" he asked.
"Against… um… well, I know I used it," Sam said. Truth was, she'd used it when Ember, Kitty, and Spectra had made all the men disappear. Danny and Jack had been at Lake Eerie at the time.
"I remember that," Ember said softly.
"See, Ember remembers!" Sam said, smiling.
"Cute rhyme," Tucker said. "You should write a song that rhymes those words."
"Shut up," Ember rasped.
"Hey," Danny said, frowning. "What are we going to do with Ember?"
"Shove her in the garage that had the Specter Speeder?" Tucker suggested. Ember glared at him weakly.
"Sorry, Ember, but I think we're going to have to do that," Danny said. "We can't have Dash or my parents stumble down and find you; they'd probably dissolve you in acid or something."
"Dash would too?" Tucker asked.
"Stop mixing up what I'm saying!" Danny yelled. "My parents would dissolve her. Dash would probably ask for her autograph."
"So let's go, then," Tucker said. "Before that creature gets any other ghosts and gets more powerful."
"I really hope that beating it will give the powers back to the ghosts who've lost them," Sam said.
"It has to," Danny assured her, but more so, assuring himself.
"Then I suppose we'll go," Sam said, her mouth tightening up a little bit. "Stay safe, Danny, I'm serious. I want you back whole, powers and all!"
"You were worried like this when I went to go face the Ghost King," Danny said, "and I came back from that!"
"You had the exo-skeleton," Sam said.
"Yeah," Danny said. "I need to get Dad to make another one of those somehow."
"Come on, Sam," Tucker said, boarding the Specter Speeder. He took the wheel; Sam gave Danny a glance and then walked to the other side and boarded as well. Danny put on the headphone set to communicate with them, and then Danny pressed the green button on the portal opener that he'd taken from Filch. The portal door parted, and Danny and the Specter Speeder passed through into the Ghost Zone.
"REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED."
"What is that?" Danny asked, floating beside the Specter Speeder.
"This concerns me more than a little," Tucker said. "That's the Real World Item Detector, in case it wasn't obvious to you. It's going off like gangbusters, and flashing a whole lot of different shapes of ghosts that we know, and a whole lot of different shapes of ghosts that we don't know. The Box Ghost. The Lunch Lady. Dora. Klemper. Johnny 13, his shadow, and Kitty, Youngblood, Spectra, and even Technus. And then of course, we know it got Ember, too. And there's at least a dozen shapes of other ghosts that we don't know. That's just in the general area, too. I don't know this thing's range, but there's got to be more ghosts than that who've been turned human by this creature."
"We'll… be careful."
"Really?" Sam blurted. "Careful? Who would think you'd be careful in a situation like this? I think we'd be better off being careless!"
"I get it, I stated the obvious," Danny said. "Let's find this thing, quick." He flew ahead and up to scan the landscape… though there wasn't really enough land in sight to call it a landscape.
"I see something," Danny said. "Something big, the same shape and color as thrown-up cat food."
"You don't have a cat," Tucker observed.
"Grandpa Fenton did," Danny answered.
"Whether or not he has a cat, that's still disgusting," Sam said. "But at least we didn't have to spend forever hunting."
They sped towards the beast, their heart rates quickening. Danny gulped and readied himself to do anything necessary to beat this thing.
Sam activated the Fenton Peeler inside the Specter Speeder, to get ready. The armor formed around her, and she readied the weapon on her arm. Tucker kept driving, but he gripped the Spirit Harpoon with one hand.
"I think we need to rename it," Tucker said. "When it became a harpoon instead of a spear, the alliteration just vanished."
"Let's worry about that later!" Sam yelled. "And besides, the Fenton Peeler doesn't have alliteration… we don't need that."
"I've been thinking about that, actually. It should have been named the Shade Shredder."
"Who cares?"
"The beauty of language cares!"
"The beauty of language? They invented the freaking Spooktacles!"
"Calm down, guys," Danny said. "We want to face this thing at our best state of mind."
"Then tell Sam to stop threatening me with the peeler!"
"Sam, stop threatening Tucker with the peeler. Tucker, stop trying to impress a nonexistent audience with your exhausted witticisms."
Tucker gave a "humph" and drove stiffly forward. They were almost upon the beast; it was heading in the other direction slowly. After a little more pursuit, they were within a football field of it; it was about the same size as Fenton Works.
"We should sneak up on it," Danny whispered.
Voromni whipped around and stared at them; Danny had the eerie feeling that it had heard him from that distance. They slowed their pursuit, drifting closer slowly, more details of the beast coming into focus.
It looked like a manatee that had grown legs, and had its skin turned into oatmeal. Swirling under its skin were blue and green wisps of light… He hated to think that was the ghostly power of the ones it had consumed, but that seemed like it was right.
"Okay," Sam said. "Get ready for this."
Tucker shifted gears on the Specter Speeder to get ready for quick acceleration, then he took out the Spirit Harpoon. He pressed a button that pulled up the windshield, opening up the front of the vehicle so that he and Sam could fire their weapons out of it.
The monster stared at Danny with enormous eyes. It seemed like this thing was evaluating him, using some power it absorbed to scan him and determine how much of a threat he was.
They were about twenty yards away, and the Speeder slowed to a stop. Danny was eager to stop, too. He was staring at this creature, wondering what he could do to it. It looked like it was rather fluid. Maybe he could freeze and shatter it.
Voromni then held up a paw and fired a ray of energy at him. Danny threw up an ecto-shield, but this was a blast unlike anything he'd ever encountered. It not only shattered his shield instantly and kept traveling through, it made a small explosion on contact with him and blasted him directly downwards; he slammed into the land below and lifted himself up on shaky arms.
Tucker shot the Spirit Harpoon, which made a direct line at Voromni's face. But without making a move, it took control of the device, slowing it to a stop, and made it fire backwards at the same velocity. It would have punched a hole through the Specter Speeder if Tucker hadn't been quick with the wheel.
"Voromni's got Technus's mental ability to control machines!" Tucker yelled.
Sam fired the Fenton Peeler, but Voromni blew a breath of freezing air that froze the energy ray solid, and it fell to the surface below and shattered.
"Voromni's got Klemper's freezing powers!" Sam shouted.
"It's gotten everybody," Tucker said.
"Not me!" came Danny's cry, and he rose up, his eyes glowing icy blue. He fired a ray of cold from his eyes, but Voromni stomped its foot hard into the ground. A wave of energy radiated from the source and dissipated the energy he'd shot, then continued and slammed into Danny and the Speeder, pushing them back with a loud sound like a sonic boom.
"Voromni's gotten too powerful already!" Sam said.
"One shot left!" Danny shouted. "Guys, get ready to pick me up in the Speeder and shoot out of here if this doesn't work. I'm going with the wail!"
Tucker positioned the Speeder so it was facing Danny, and Danny took in a sharp breath. Voromni's eyes seemed to widen.
He let loose a deafening, continuous howl that made even the air rumble. Voromni dug its claws into the earth, but its skin was rippling and pieces were flying off. Wisps of energy were escaping, and it started to shrink a little bit.
Danny was feeling the strain in his head, and he kept his eyes closed. He didn't see Voromni howl and huddle itself close to the ground. Voromni's shadow rose from the ground, just like Johnny 13, and it swept along the ground until it was just under Danny.
"No!" Sam yelled; it was inaudible over the wail. She blasted the Fenton Peeler under Danny, but the shadow shot up too quickly. It smashed into Danny and wrapped around him, then bent back like a rubber band and launched him directly at Voromni. Its jaw opened expectantly, and Danny opened his eyes in time to see himself flying into a nightmare. He swung his arms, and struggled against his flight path, stopped in midair, and started to fly the other way.
His heart stopped and panic flooded into him when a mass of sludge wrapped around him, and he knew it was Voromni's hand. He was about to unleash a blast of cold and freeze it solid, but he was immediately crammed into a dark, cavernous mouth which closed around him, and he lost consciousness as his skin erupted into fire.
He next woke in a somewhat dark area. Sam and Tucker breathed a sigh of relief when his eyes opened and he sat up. He looked to his left and saw Ember resting next to him, and the Specter Speeder floating next to that. "Where… Are we back in the lab?"
Tucker nodded.
"Why are we hiding in the Specter Speeder garage…?" Danny asked, then he looked at his arm.
He was still in his ghostly form, but he felt human in every way except for the absence of the usual glow around him. "Oh no," he said. "Please, no. That didn't happen."
"It happened," Sam said, grimacing. "Can you go human?"
He concentrated, but no band of light formed around him. He placed his hands slowly over his face.
"I'm stuck in ghost form, without being able to turn back, but I can't even use my powers!" Danny moaned. "When my parents find me, they're going to dissect me, and I can't even do anything about it!"
"That's why we're hiding you in here," Sam said. "I already told Jazz. She's still upstairs with Dash; I took her aside and told her."
"And when she came back, I went and got this," Tucker said. He held up the wig that he and Sam had used in the past; it looked just like his hair.
"Why would I need that?" Danny asked.
"Well, because we don't know when we're going to be able to get your powers back," Tucker explained. "You're going to need to wear this… and those—" he pointed across the room at a set of Danny's normal clothes which were hanging on a coat rack— "until your powers come back."
Danny frowned. "What about my eyes? I've got blue eyes, but they're green right now."
Tucker smiled uneasily and held up a pair of sunglasses.
"You're kidding, right?"
"Afraid not, man."
Danny patted his belt, and his eyes shot open. "Tucker. Sam." His words were rapid and alarmed. "Where's the remote-controlled Fenton Portal opener?"
"What?" Tucker said. "You had that with you!"
"Did you put me in the Specter Speeder? Check the floor! Check everywhere that I might have dropped it. Oh man. Oh man. If Voromni got hold of it…"
"Calm down," Tucker said. "That thing's hands were the size of one of our classrooms. It probably couldn't see it. Even if it did see it, it couldn't press the button. Even if it pressed the button, it wouldn't know what the device does. Even if it did know, it couldn't fit through the portal. Calm. Down."
Danny relaxed slightly, but most of his tension remained. Things like this never ended well.
Sam exited the Specter Speeder. "The remote's not in there."
Danny closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart. He took deep breaths. There was no reason to panic…
Following this self-reassurance was the unmistakable sound of the Fenton Portal opening. Danny leapt up from his seat and grabbed the Spirit Harpoon that was leaning against the wall.
"Oh, and I thought of a name for that," Tucker blurted. "The Haunt Harpoon!"
"On a different day, I'd kill you for saying that," Danny said. "Guys. The portal is open!"
He reached for the handle on the door and heaved it upwards, not wanting to wait for the slow automatic opener. He stepped right next to the portal and readied the harpoon for Voromni.
He expected to see a massive leg of oatmeal burst through the Fenton Portal, into which he would eject the harpoon. But he was thrown off by the fact that he emerged from the portal—his human image, perfect in every way—holding the portal remote.
He triggered the harpoon, but it wouldn't fire. Voromni was controlling it. Danny instead raised it over his head and thrust it at the disguised beast, but it turned intangible and he fell completely through it. Then it flew into the air and disappeared through the wall.
"We have to follow it!" Danny screamed. He started to run, but Tucker grabbed his arm.
"Dude!" he yelled. "You can't go out looking like this. If the Guys in White see you, you're dead. Period. If your parents see you, you're dead. Period. If anyone finds you, you're going to be mobbed, or discovered, or something, because you need to be yourself, too. Danny. Be rational. Calm down, change your outfit, and put the sunglasses on."
Danny ran to the garage and changed his pants and shoes. He threw off the shirt, stuffed the wig on, and grabbed his normal shirt and ran upstairs while trying to get into the shirt at the same time.
"Danny!" Tucker yelled, running after him; Sam followed. "Danny! The sunglasses!"
Danny burst into the kitchen, still struggling with the shirt, and when he finally stopped running and got it over his head, he was staring at Dash, who looked just about to leave.
"Fenton?" Dash asked, his jaw dropping. "Fenton, you're… You're freakin' ripped, man!"
"I am?" Danny asked, puzzled slightly by the compliment.
"Like, yeah," Dash laughed. "Geez, man, you could be on the wrestling team!"
"Wha…?" Danny had figured that his training was paying off physically. Since the President's fitness test, he'd done a little more body work, just in case something else happened like the Fenton Crammer incident with Dash…
That was kind of fun, actually. Looking back, knowing that he did indeed make it back to full size without his head going on Skulker's wall, and didn't reveal his identity to Dash, it was a little bit fun.
"Thanks, Dash," he said, enjoying his own confusion at the strange friendliness.
"Sorry," Dash said. "For breaking character, I mean. I'm in a good mood. Jazz really helped me with my essay for Lancer."
"It looks a lot better," Jazz agreed. "Come back next week if you feel like you need to."
"I will," Dash said. He turned to Danny, and looked like he was about to say something, but then he laughed. "I'm gonna leave before I say something that really breaks my character. I'm feeling an 'A' on this paper!" He skipped joyfully out of the room.
"Glad he didn't notice the eyes," Sam said angrily, shoving the sunglasses in his face. "Seriously, Danny, do you want to blow your cover?"
Danny put the sunglasses on. "Jazz, you didn't happen to notice, just now, someone who looked like me? Flying out the roof?"
"What? No! Why?"
"Voromni stole my ability to change human," Danny said, "and apparently, he can turn into my exact human form. I—"
Screams filled the air. Danny ran to the window and pressed his face against it, but he couldn't see anything. Dash burst back in the door, stammering and pointing.
"Dash, what happened?"
"Nice shades, Fenton," Dash said, then his eyes rolled up and he fainted, collapsing on the ground.
"Tucker, help me drag him to the Op Center transport," Danny said. "We need to see what's going on."
They stared out the window of the Op Center. Voromni was plainly visible; the monster was in its natural form. Since several hours before, it had simply camped out over what from this distance appeared to be the local supermarket. That made sense, since it was reaching into a building, pulling things out and stuffing them in its mouth. It was clearing out the shelves of the market and feeding, growing steadily larger, just as Hemozoa had.
Once Jack and Maddie had returned, the Op Center had become sort of a planning center on how to get rid of the ghostly beast. Neither the Fenton Thermos nor the Fenton Ghost Weasel worked on it; the Fentons didn't know why.
In attendance were Danny, Jazz, Jack and Maddie; Sam and Tucker and their parents; Valerie and her father; Mrs. McFadden from the home appliance store, who was apparently somewhat of an amateur ghost researcher; Vlad Masters (much to Danny's chagrin); the new head of Axiom Labs, Trent Wheelwright; and the Guys in White. Dash was there but was sitting in a corner, pressing an ice pack against his head.
One of the Guys in White started the conversation. "This ghost-draining monster could potentially cause millions in damage," he said. "We need to go on the offensive before it starts moving again. Once it starts moving, there'll be incredible destruction."
The other cleared his throat. "We can't attack it with normal ecto-weaponry. There's something strange about it. Either it's able to mask its ecto-signature and make itself appear non-ghost, or it isn't even a ghost at all."
Valerie had brought her laptop, and she cleared her throat as the adults were discussing the situation. "Danny… Could we go down to your room or something? I need to show you guys something, but… I can't do it here."
Danny was taken aback. Was Valerie going to go after the beast? Was she going to tell them that she was the Ghost Hunter? What else could this mean?
"Yeah," Danny said. "Let's head down to my room. Get Dash?"
He, Sam, and Tucker went down the lift first, and wound up in Danny's room. Danny sat down at his computer, Tucker and Sam sat on the edge of his bed, and then when Valerie, Dash, and Jazz came down, Dash took the chair and the two girls sat on the floor.
Valerie sighed heavily. "All right, so… I have some information that might help. Danny, I think we should pretend it's from you."
"What?" Danny asked.
"Firstly, could you take off those ridiculous sunglasses?" Valerie frowned.
"No!" Danny said. "I… just had my eyes dilated. They're very sensitive to light."
"All right," Valerie said. "Anyway, I said, I have some information that might help. But… it would be weird if it was coming from me. I mean, I have no connections to ghosts."
Except me and Vlad, Danny thought.
"But if we present the information as if it's from you or your parents," Valerie continued, "it wouldn't be as weird. I mean, your parents hunt ghosts."
She turned the laptop to them, displaying information on a multitude of ghosts. The Box Ghost, Danny Phantom, Skulker, Technus, Desiree… "I don't know if anything in here can help, but maybe it will."
Danny nodded. "Yep."
"You're not going to ask why I have extensive ghost files?"
Danny shook his head. "Nope."
Valerie continued. "The Guys in White said that it had absorbed most of the ghosts in the Ghost Zone, and their powers. So we should have information on the ghosts and their powers, and then maybe we'll… know what we're up against." She sighed. "Unfortunately, my records aren't complete."
Danny gave Sam, Tucker, and Jazz a glance, and nodded. He cleared his throat next. "Um… yeah. Maybe I can help." He shook his mouse to get his computer out of the screen saver, and then clicked on his ghost files.
Valerie looked stunned at the extensive files that Danny had procured. "What… Where did you get all this information?" she asked.
"I thought it wasn't weird because my parents hunt ghosts," Danny said, but he still reddened a bit.
"That's some pretty good work you've done," Valerie said. "Their… what? Their general place of dwelling are listed on here? Have you been in the Ghost Zone?"
Danny hesitated, but nodded yes. "Yeah. I've been in there a couple times just to have a look. It's… amazing."
Dash came over and looked at the screen, squinting, keeping the ice pack against his head. "Wow," he said. "That's a lot of stuff." His nose wrinkled. "You nerd."
"Remember any of these ghosts?" Danny asked, ignoring the typical Dash comment. "Some of them have been in our school."
Dash nodded, and pointed to Desiree. "I remember her," he said. "What does she do?"
"She grants any wish she hears," Danny said. "See, long ago, this powerful sultan promised her everything her heart—"
"Why don't we go find her and wish that creature was dead?" Dash asked.
"Well, that's…" Danny trailed off. He paused in stunned silence, and then burst out laughing, the sunglasses almost falling off his face. "What the heck. That's BRILLIANT! Embarrassingly simple, but BRILLIANT!"
"That is actually…" Sam nodded. "One of the smartest things I've ever heard him say."
"Thanks," Dash mumbled sheepishly.
"Come on," Danny said. "Everyone downstairs. In the lab and into the Specter Speeder. We're going to go find Desiree and hope she hasn't been drained. If she has been, we'll wish at that thing in person!"
The door to the garage with the Specter Speeder opened up. Danny walked towards the Speeder, but he suddenly froze and tensed. His Danny Phantom clothes were strewn randomly on the ground near the coat rack.
Danny turned around and blocked the entrance as best he could with both hands. "Um—WAIT!" he bellowed, making it up as he went along. "Um… Before we go into the Ghost Zone, there's one thing you need to know…" He trailed off, and pulled at his collar. "Sam! Tell them what they need to know!" He stepped to the side, and then frantically gathered up the boots, pants, and shirt, and looked left and right for a place to hide them.
"Uh—Right!" Sam yelled, understanding quickly. "We… Uh… In the Ghost Zone, normal items, including people, pass through stuff! It's like we're the ghosts when we're inside the Ghost Zone!"
"That's cool," Valerie said, trying to peer around Sam.
Danny found an empty trash can and stuffed the clothing in. He raced back and called, "Come on in, everybody!" while leaning against the Speeder as if he had been leaning there the whole time, except he was breathing quickly and heavily.
Valerie was too impressed with the Speeder to notice, thankfully, and Dash was too befuddled from his earlier blackout to be paying much attention either. Danny opened the side door, and Dash, Valerie, and Jazz sat in the center. Tucker took the wheel, Sam took the passenger seat, and Danny took the map. It was weird going inside the Speeder; he'd gotten so used to flying next to it.
Dash punched his arm. "Ow!" Danny shouted. "What was that for?"
Dash's reply was, "I've been slacking on my duties as a duly deputized nerd whaler."
"Um… Okay," Danny said. "Anyway… Watch, and be amazed." The portal was still open, and the Speeder drifted out of the garage and then passed through the portal.
Dash and Valerie were pressed against the side windows in amazement. "It's… amazing here," Dash said in a hushed voice.
"It's beautiful," Valerie whispered.
"And it's creepy," Jazz said. "Let's find Desiree quickly."
Danny directed Tucker on a full thirty-minute trip to where Desiree resided. It was a large palace adorned with beautiful jewels, with fountains and towers and sculptures and statues… suits of armor… everything imaginable for a grand castle. Which would make sense. It was everything one could wish for.
The Speeder pulled up and parked on a bridge leading to the castle. "Um… No real world items detected in there?" Sam asked Tucker.
"No," Tucker said. "So unless Desiree's not here, though we haven't seen her abroad in a while, I think she hasn't been found yet. She was pretty far from the attacks, anyway."
Four of them raced out of the Speeder; Tucker and Sam stayed behind to guard it. Danny led Dash, Valerie, and Jazz into the palace; they entered through magnificent and large double doors in the front, and ran directly through the guards who tried to stop them in the atrium.
They passed through the next doors without opening them; Jazz, Dash, and Valerie were a little slower due to not being used to running directly through objects. It really did look like you were about to run into something. But the next doors they passed through, after vanishing between more guards, led them straight to Desiree's throne.
Desiree slammed a hand on either side of the jeweled chair, and she rose with a finger pointing. "Guards!" she shouted. "Seize them!"
Danny pointed right back. "I wish you would hear us out!" he called.
Desiree's guards stopped and stood still. Her eye twitched, but she sat back down and folded her fingers together, and actually smiled. "Go on, ghost boy."
Dash and Valerie straightened up, confused. Jazz thought quickly, and whispered to them, "They call him Ghost Boy because he's a boy who treks a lot through the Ghost Zone and knows a lot about ghosts." Valerie and Dash nodded.
"There's this creature that ravaged the Ghost Zone just a little while ago," Danny said. "You may have heard of it. Voromni."
"I am safe in here," Desiree said. "I am not leaving."
"It's in the human world right now," Danny said. "You have to help us defeat it or it'll cause unimaginable damage."
Desiree frowned. "And why would I help you?"
"Because I wish you would," Danny said, walking forward and standing resolutely in front of her.
Desiree flexed her fingers and then crashed them into the sides of the throne. "You foolish boy," she said. "In my domain, I decide which wishes I grant. You are not going to force me into slave labor because you are too foolish to devise a solution on your own! Guards, once again, seize them!"
Danny whipped a Fenton Thermos out from behind his back. The guards attempted to grab him, but their hands passed through, and so did their spears when they tried that next. "You can come with us nicely or you can come with us the hard way. Or, you can let the human world, and likely the Ghost Zone next, get damaged beyond normal means of repair. What'll it be?"
Desiree fired a blast of energy at him in response, and Danny leapt expertly out of the way. In response, Valerie whipped out an ecto-pistol which fired a small ball of energy. Its blast knocked Desiree into her throne and knocked them both over. Danny next aimed and fired the Fenton Thermos. She tried to flee, but was unsuccessful, and she disappeared. Danny then aimed the thermos at the guards; they all, screamed, ducked, and dove through the walls and floor or vanished.
"Come on," Danny said, turning around.
Valerie and Dash were gaping. "Danny…" Jazz said, pointing with a trembling hand above his head.
"What?" Danny asked.
"Fenton…" Dash whispered, gawking at him. "No way."
Danny felt his hair and gasped. His wig had dislodged during the tumble he'd used to dodge Desiree's blast; it slid up and was revealing white hair underneath. He hastily fixed it, but the damage had been done.
"White hair," Valerie said. "Extensive ghost files. And she called you the Ghost Boy. Danny… Are you…"
"Danny Phantom?" Dash finished, gasping.
Jazz coughed loudly. "W-What? Of course not, what are you talking about?"
"You can stop covering for him now, Jazz," Valerie said softly.
Danny reached a shaky hand up to his face and removed his sunglasses, revealing his glowing green eyes. Valerie and Dash both gasped as one. Danny had decided it was not worth arguing against this time, and he pulled off the wig, too.
"Danny Phantom!" Dash burst out, grinning wildly. "No way! No way! You're the MAN!" He thought for a minute, if Dash was capable of thought. "No wonder you were jacked! But then… how come you didn't fight it? You coulda won!"
Danny shook his head. "I did fight it already."
"You lost?" Valerie whispered in awe.
Danny was half expecting Valerie to whip out the pistol again on him. He was glad to hear that it sounded like she still trusted him, but it was still very weird that he was exposing himself around people outside of the normal circle.
"Yes," he said. "Yeah. I failed. It was too powerful. It got me and sucked my power out." Valerie and Dash both cupped their hands to their mouths and took in twin gasps. "I'm stuck in my ghost form. I can't change back."
"That's about to be over," Jazz said. "Come on. We need to hurry back to the Speeder to get back to the human world before Voromni takes off. Guys," she said, turning to Dash and Valerie. "There is no circumstance, not a single situation that could ever arise in a million years where you could say this to anyone. You can't tell people as a secret. You can't tell people and make them promise to keep it a secret. No one can know about Danny. Understand?"
Valerie and Dash nodded slowly, staring at Danny, not at Jazz. Danny smiled weakly, then ran out without looking back, assuming they were following close behind.
"Here we go," Danny said.
The six kids were standing ten yards from the massive, sleeping creature; Danny was holding the Thermos.
"I hope this works," he said, and he uncapped the Thermos and hit the Release button.
Desiree and Filch both popped out; Filch shook his head and flew off. Danny didn't care much about that right now; he shouted, "I wish you wouldn't try to escape us!" to ensure that Desiree stayed right here.
She folded her arms, but allowed him to wish; after all, she did get more powerful with each wish she granted. "So you have wished it suhshuhluhbeh," she mumbled, annoyed.
Danny pointed at Voromni. "I wish that creature was locked in a strong crystal sarcophagus behind the Zoan Wall from which it cannot escape," he declared, "and that all of its captured powers returned to their rightful owners."
As Desiree's arms glowed red, Voromni was surrounded by a red glow as well and suddenly woke up, thrashing against the ground. It appeared to be throwing off her power.
"I… cannot…" she whispered, struggling; her face was strained to the point of pain, it looked like, and her arms were starting to wither. "Too great a task for me…"
"Then I wish…" Danny asked, thinking quickly. "I wish I had a ghostly wail even as a human!"
Desiree released the thrashing porridge monster and pointed her arms at Danny. He felt a familiar power surging through his veins, and then his vocal chords; he let loose his signature ghost howl, and the world began to rumble.
Dash and Valerie looked around their feet nervously, but Sam and Tucker nodded at them while covering their ears; the two new additions caught on and covered theirs. The ground was cracking and buildings had windows shattering everywhere. Some of the buildings were already precarious from being smashed into by Voromni; those ones finally collapsed. And the kids could see blue and green strands of energy bursting out of Voromni's skin in every direction, all of them flying towards Fenton Works and into the basement where the Ghost Portal was. All of them except for one, that is; one of them wormed its way into Danny, and he breathed in deeply with ecstasy as he regained his former powers.
Danny opened his eyes to stare at Voromni; it looked like the Fenton Peeler had been at work. Layers of skin had flown off of it in every direction, and all that was left was a withered, pulsing husk, not bigger than a queen-sized bed.
The stress of the Ghostly Wail turned him back into a human, but he didn't need his powers anymore at the moment, so it was fine. He smirked. "I believe you have a previous wish to finish up, Desiree," he said. "Sending this thing to where it belongs: into eternal rest."
Desiree was growing more powerful with the wishes, and Voromni had grown much weaker. This time, she was able to rid it of the rest of its powers, which also flew towards Fenton Works.
A familiar crystal sarcophagus appeared. Voromni gave one last roar before it started to melt down, and the fluid swirled around, draining into the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus twisted and warped in the air, vanishing from their dimension completely.
"I wish anyone who was injured in this incident was healed," Danny said. "I wish all damage to buildings from this incident was repaired."
Desiree waved her arms; the rubble on the ground was magically lifted up and snapped back into place on the houses and buildings. She continued to grow, seeming more powerful with every wish that Danny made. But it had been worth it.
"Oh, and here's one," Danny added. "I wish I knew where this monster had come from."
Desiree held up a hand; a small window appeared in thin air, looking into the headquarters of the Guys in White.
"This experiment was a total disaster," one of them said. "It was supposed to destroy all the ghosts in the Ghost Zone. How did it manage to get to our world?"
The window disappeared, and Desiree's eyes flickered angrily as she watched the window go.
"Well," Danny said, looking back at the five other teens. "I guess that's not really the biggest surprise it could have been. But now, it's all over." Dash was looking at him with an impressed face, something Danny had never seen before.
Danny sighed. "I hate to do this, but… I let on too easily in the Ghost Zone, and I have a strict policy that none of my friends know my secret other than Sam, Tuck, and Jazz."
"Fenton, what are you saying?" Dash asked.
"I wish nobody remembered this incident except me, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz," Danny said, glancing at Desiree again.
Valerie reached out to Danny. "No, Danny!" she said, sounding genuinely hurt. "How could you? I… I had forgiven you." She sniffed. "For everything. I'm sorry I've been after you. And I know that Vlad Masters is a—" She vanished in a puff of red energy.
"She knows about Vlad?" Danny asked, glancing at Sam and Tucker.
"Fenton!" Dash said, actually looking like he was tearing up. "I can't believe you would… I hope I still continue to beat up on you for this one! I thought… you were… I was starting to realize, Fenton. I think I actually might l—" He disappeared next in the same puff of energy.
"They've been transported back to their rightful dwellings," Desiree stated. "As has everyone who has been displaced by this incident. Are you going to let me go now?"
Danny turned to her. "Thank you," he said.
Her nostrils flared. "Do not thank for this. You have forced me into these deeds. I do not accept your thanks."
"Well," Danny said, "I tried to make friends. Since we're still bitter enemies, I guess I'm going to have to wish for you to return to the Ghost Zone and never come back to the human world again."
Desiree laughed. "As soon as I return to my lair, I can break the power of your wish," she said. "I will be back; you can rely on that. But you had better not ever be back in my domain. I will be ready for you next time you try to pull a trick like this." She tossed her hair back. "But for now… I shall humor you. So you have wished it… so shall it be." She started to fly backwards towards Fenton Works, following the same path that all the ghostly energies had taken.
"And I wish I had the Fenton Portal remote opener!" Danny yelled, and with a wave of Desiree's hand, it appeared in Danny's. She vanished below the ground, and as soon as Danny was sure she should be back in the Ghost Zone, he pressed the red button to close the portal.
"You could have wished for her to send all the ghosts in the human world back into the Ghost Zone," Sam said.
"Or for more power," Tucker suggested.
"I don't know if she could have done those things," Danny argued. "She couldn't do the first wish I made. Because it was too big. And when she went back to her palace, she probably could have stopped letting that wish happen."
"True," Tucker said. "But it wouldn't have hurt to ask for a million dollars."
"You don't read those stories, do you," Sam said. "Like 'All the Money in the World,' or 'The Monkey's Paw.'"
"No," Tucker said. "Why?"
"Bad things happen to those who make selfish wishes," Sam said.
"Good thing mine weren't selfish," Danny said and smiled. "It was for the good of everyone."
"Did you hear Valerie?" Tucker asked. "She knew that Vlad was a ghost!"
"That's right," Sam said. "I wonder when she figured that out?"
"And Dash, I think, was about to say that he actually liked me," Danny said. "Go figure!"
What was it Dash had said, exactly, before he disappeared?
"I was starting to realize, Fenton. I think I actually might l—"
He was about to say "like you," right? Or was he about to say…
He laughed inwardly at the other thought that popped up. Well, it didn't matter now. Dash was going to go back to hating him, and honestly, it was pretty much a part of high school. He wouldn't have wished it any other way…
…would he?
-THE END-