Danny's vision slowly came back to him, as did his consciousness, and he began to straighten himself out. As his vision cleared up all the way, he blinked and looked around.

What lay before him appeared to be Amity Park as it would look if it were transformed into the Ghost-Zone. He could vaguely recognise the main buildings of the city and places he usually visited, but everything was black, green, and distorted from the spectral energy around them. Some parts of the city didn't even seem like they were all really there – like they were the ghosts of images long since past.

Danny had guessed at where he'd been sent, and what he saw disturbed him.

"OK…" he said to himself, "If this is my mind, then either it's like this 'cause I'm in ghost mode, or I need to let Jazz pull her psychology routine on me," he sighed, looked around a bit more, and began floating into the ghostly vision of his town.

The place appeared deserted. An occasional mass of green ectoplasm would come up from nowhere and float around, but neither man nor ghost seemed to inhabit this realm. Danny opened a few doors to houses, but all he saw were ghostly visions of their interiors. This version of Amity Park was the perfect definition for "ghost town."

Danny was just thinking that the emptiness of this place might serve Lancer's point that he needed to study more when a strange sound caught his ear. He couldn't understand it at first, but soon it gained clarity, and with that clarity, a chill ran down Danny's spine. The sound was that of a first encounter he remembered only too well.

"I…I don't want to fight you!" his own voice said, some fear within it.

"No. No you don't," came the response. Danny whirled around, but saw no one.

"Who's there?" he shouted, but no answer came. Now suspicious, he continued floating onwards. As he went on, more sounds began to come to him, sounds he had heard before in battle and since in his nightmares.

"Yes, well once your father is out of the way we'll see how you feel."

"Until next time…son."

"What are you? A ghost trying to fit in with humans? Or some creepy little boy with creepy little powers?" Danny suddenly fired off a spectral blast, hoping to eliminate wherever the voices were coming from. The blast hit nothing and travelled onward into nothingness, but it drowned out the voices for only a moment. As they came back, louder than before, his attempts to tune them out with ghost-immunity grew more futile, his flying more unstable, and sweat began forming on his face.

"Oh, look! The little LOSER ghost has a few baby helpers!"

"…And by the time I'm done with you, you'll be sure it was all your fault!"

"I have more than just music for you. Now that they're chanting my name, my music can affect you!" Danny threw his hands up to his head, the voices still echoing around inside his mind. It was getting to be too much. There had to be some place where he could escape these voices! He ran to the nearest door and opened it up, but for the second time today, he saw Sam kissing Dash, and immediately threw the door shut. He soon found himself leaning up against that door, gripping the doorknob for some support as the voices kept on coming.

"You know what, punk? We've had just about enough of you!"

"They're here…kill Jack."

"Looks like I'm gonna have to do this the hard way!"

"I wouldn't need fifteen seconds, would I?"

"Feared on Earth and wanted in the Ghost-Zone – you've lost, ghost kid! LOST!" it was too much. With a scream, Danny threw up a huge dome of spectral energy that continued stretching and growing, his cry echoing after it in a mad attempt to get the memories silenced. Even after they'd vanished, even after his dome had completely overrun everything in sight within that realm, even after the ghostly Amity Park around him disintegrated, he continued screaming and pouring out his energy into the shield. It was a good long while before he finally calmed down, collapsing from exhaustion and taking his breaths in deep, heavy gasps.

He was now on the ground, still in the Ghost-Zone and in a valley surrounded by twisted, ghostly forestry. As Danny got the wind back in him and calmed down, he rose to his feet, looking around the valley. Five mirrors rose from the ground and surrounded him like a pentagon. None of them showed a reflection. Moving his feet so that he went around in a circle, Danny looked at all the mirrors one at a time, trying to figure out what was going on. As he completed his circle and came to the mirror behind him at his right for a second time, he saw Johnny 13 standing in the mirror, looking slightly confused and tired. Scooting back a few inches, Danny adopted a battle stance, as did Johnny in the mirror. His stance was a perfect mirror image of Danny's, right down to how many of his teeth were bared. The close likeness of their stances put Danny at unease. Keeping a suspicious look on his face, he slowly stepped down into a normal stance. Johnny did the same, movements and expression matching perfectly. Danny slowly moved his fingers toward the mirror – and Johnny did the same. Their hands met, but Danny felt nothing but glass. Johnny was his reflection. Danny felt his face get hotter and a trickle of sweat drip down his face at this realisation.

His breathing starting to get heavy again, Danny turned to the mirror behind him at his left. There also his reflection was that of a ghost – this time it was Ember in the mirror. He turned again, and on the mirror up from his right, there was Spectra. And in the mirror up from his left, Walker. At this, Danny finally snapped. Sliding back a few inches, he let out a blast at the mirror holding Walker, but it just seemed to absorb into the glass, leaving no trace save for some leftover ecto-smoke. With a gulp, Danny looked straight ahead to the last mirror in the centre – the one still left empty. Slowly a figure faded into view within the glass, this one not matching Danny's stance. His head was held down low, the rest of his body held up confidently. The angle of his head hid his face, but Danny recognised the Wolverine hair and white and red cloak over the body only too well. After a few moments passed, the figure slowly raised his head up to reveal the sinister grin of Vlad Plasmius. As he lifted his head up, he slowly rose off the ground within the mirror, his cape starting to gently flap around him. He bent his arms at his elbows, clenching his hands into fists. As he did this, all the mirrors suddenly melted away, and Danny and Vlad were left in a world of complete black, where ghostly violet flames were shooting up in a circle around them. The flames began moving in all around, at too quick a speed to get a shield up. With no time for anything else, Danny threw his arms over his head and clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the burns to start kicking in – and soon found a feeling of emptiness around him, all sound and atmosphere dead. Slowly he opened his eyes and lowered his arms.

He was now in a graveyard like the one he had accidentally crashed down to on his first visit to the Ghost-Zone. The black iron gate around the graves seemed miles away, and the headstones, though numbering in the thousands, seemed sparse and far off as well. He didn't have much time to take in the scenery, however – in a bat-like swoop of green, the ghost that had cast this spell came up from the ground. He had his eyes locked on Danny and his sceptre in his right hand, his left hand covering the black diamond on top. His stare wasn't the icy calm look of before. It was cold, hard, piercing, and hateful, and it sent chills running down all of Danny's nerves.

"Tá mé ar buille!" the ghost hissed. He pulled back his left hand with force, and a wave of spectral power leapt out, making a direct landing on Danny's body and sending him crashing him back into a tombstone. He recovered quickly enough, but he could have sworn he knew that kind of attack from somewhere. He soon got his answer – in a cloud of hot blue drifting out of the ghost's sceptre came a sneering Ember, hair back up in its flame and guitar in hand. Danny got up to face her, but felt something collide into his right side, and soon was on the ground, face-first. His head snapped up at the sound of a motorcycle drawing near, and he just barely managed to roll to the side in time before Johnny 13's bike went over him. Getting back on his feet, he saw that Shadow was who had hit him in the side before. Giving him no time to recover, his foes moved in. Ember let loose another spell from her guitar that Danny jumped up to avoid. Shadow then moved in for an attack, and Danny took off flying, Shadow and its master right behind him. Danny had picked up on his speed since he last faced the real Johnny and Shadow, and he had the motive of trying to avoid being killed edging him on, so he managed to stay well ahead of them. But as he looked back to check his distance, a line of ecto-laser ripped across his back horizontally and sent him spiralling down to the grown, crashing face-first into another tombstone and smashing it into ruins. Walker floated down grinning, spinning his weapon on his finger like a sheriff from an old Western. Snarling under his breath, Danny pulled himself together and knocked Walker away with a spectral blast, then jumped to the side as he heard Johnny coming up behind him. But no sooner had he landed than Spectra flew up from the ground in a swirl of smoke and fog, red and violet flames shooting out of her hands and onto Danny's left arm. Unlike the flames from Vlad before, these did burn. With a yelp, Danny jumped back from the pain. He quickly grabbed his uniform at the elbow and tore off the burning part, tossing it to the ground like a glove and blowing on his arm in an attempt to lessen the burning. This distracted him enough that he didn't fully realise that Ember had caught him from behind until he was pushed forward (Spectra moving aside) and landed face-first on the ground once again.

This foes gathered in a circle around him, the one ghost drifting over to be right in Danny's eye line. He sported as nasty a grin as ever and has his sceptre lifted up high above his head. Danny felt he knew what was coming – there was only one more of his most hated enemies left.

'Come on,' he thought to himself, 'I need something – anything. I need –' suddenly, a bolt of lightning leapt out of nowhere and struck the ghost right in the chest, knocking him back and sending the sceptre flying. Danny and the conjured figures of his foes stared where the ghost had stood in shock for a moment. Then it hit Danny.

"Ah!" he hit himself on the head, "I'm such an idiot! If this is my mind, then I can control what happens!" with this revelation, he suddenly grinned and phased down into the ground. He reappeared behind his foes as they huttled around where he had laid.

"HA!" he shouted, getting their attention, "Some supervillains you are! Can't keep track of your opponent?" they all glared at him nastily, charging forward soon afterward.

"There we go," Danny muttered before flying up and out of the way. Shadow caught his movement and turned, flying at Danny with a snarl. Danny just grinned even wider. He thought for a minute and soon a blinding stream of pure white light shot out of nowhere and made a dead-on collision with Shadow. It let out a scream of pain and soon evaporated into nothing. His power now gone, Johnny slowly faded away.

"Two down," Danny counted, "Three to go," he set his sights on Walker, who had his laser ready. His case was a bit tricky, but Danny remembered what had got him last time and concentrated on that. Just as Walker was about to fire, Wulf leapt from oblivion and slashed just in front of Walker's chest, opening a tear into another dimension. Grabbing Walker, he jumped in, and the portal closed behind them.

Now he thought about Jazz's quick use of the Fenton Ghost Peeler. The device soon appeared in his hand. Before Spectra could move he hit the high-energy setting and let loose a huge blast of green, completely vaporising the ghost.

Now it was just Ember. Tossing the Ghost Peeler aside, Danny put on another grin. This one would be fun. He floated down to the ground, standing directly across from Ember. She was bent down low, her guitar positioned as if it were a sheathed sword she was prepared to draw. Danny made his grin more smug and covered his ears. He though back to the night of her concert, got the image he wanted, and waited. Tucker soon appeared, dressed in his Ember clothes and with a microphone in hand. He soon broke into his horrendous rendition of Ember's song, filling the graveyard with his obnoxiously horrible singing voice. Ember also put her hands to her ears, but it was too late for her. Her hair had already faded away, and soon, both she and Tucker vanished. Danny unplugged his ears let his smile become one of relief.

"Alright," he sighed, "Now I just need to –" a red spectral blast spiralled up from behind him and met him right in the back, pulling him into the air for a few seconds and then dropping him down to the ground like a rock. The ghost had recovered his sceptre and had gotten his wind back, and he was not happy at all. He almost threw himself at Danny, his sceptre raised high above his head like a sword. Danny just barely managed to conjure up a Fenton Stockades sword to parry the blow with. Even after the parry the ghost pressed in as close as he could, so close that Danny could feel the cold of his ghostly form coming up against his face. They remained locked in their position, each trying to gain ground and each failing to have any success. Their faces were pulled into tight grimaces, Danny gritting his teeth and the ghost letting out snake-like hisses as they continued pushing at one another. After several minutes of no progress, the ghost's eyes darted from Danny to the ground and then up to his sceptre. Through clenched teeth he began to hiss out a spell.

"Níl mé go maith!" he screeched. A beam of red leapt out of the diamond, and the ground below Danny began to change. The tombstones began crumbling to pieces, and the fence seemed to be sucked into the ground. The ground around them – save for the bit that the ghost rested his feet on – was consumed by a flow of lava. Danny immediately cringed as the molten rock seeped up to consume his leg, burning away at his boots.

"Solid ground…" he muttered, trying to concentrate, "Solid ground!" the magma soon cooled into rock, and Danny went to the task of putting his foot out. But the ghost had caught the action and fired off another beam at his foot, trying to keep the flame going. Their duel with their weapons now became a duel of wills, the burning on Danny's foot going up and down depending on who was dominating at the moment.

Danny's eyes had been at his foot, but now he looked up at the sceptre.

"That jewel…" he muttered, "It's his power. If I can just…" green blasts of spectral power suddenly leapt from his eyes, meeting the ghost square in the face and smacking him back, Danny's foot going out and the sceptre falling to the ground. Danny was a bit shocked that he had picked up a new ability at the opportune moment, but he wasn't about to complain. He dived for the sceptre, grabbing it by the jewel. He prepared to destroy it with a concentrated spectral wave. But before he could, the ghost leapt back up and grabbed the handle of the sceptre, and a red wave echoed out of the diamond, pushing Danny's hands away. Danny started up his own wave, pushing back. The sound of the waves colliding shout out between them in loud, shaking booms, causing the ground around them to shake. After a few minutes, a bolt of red lightning leapt out of the space. Then another. Soon both sound and light were pouring out, shaking the world they were in with such force that it was damn near impossible to stand. And suddenly, with one final shockwave, both combatants were fired back. Danny flew all the way back. Up into the sky…past the sky. Into darkness, then light, then darkness again. He seemed to fill up from the inside, as if everything in his body had been removed and was now coming back to him. Soon his real eyes opened, his real body spread out, real air returned to his lungs, and something leapt out of his body. He was out of his mind and back in the real world.

He had started looking over himself when a blast of red caught him in the head and knocked him to the side. The ghost was what had come out of him, and he was snarling like crazy, his sceptre blazing and ready to strike.

"Yo, Bat-ghost!" a voice shouted below. A shot from the Fenton Bazooka knocked the ghost away, and as he was blasted, his sceptre began to fall. Danny dived down, caught it, raised it up, and hit the ground hard, brought the sceptre down harder, and shattered the jewel into pieces.

"Head's up!" the voice called again. Tucker, who had never moved, tossed Danny the thermos. Wasting no time, he spun around, opened it up, and snared the ghost in its beam. The ghost, screeching like a bat caught in a cage, tried to escape, but he could not. The second he was inside, Danny snapped the lid shut. Tucker walked over and they high-fived each other.

Immediately the town began to fall back into itself. Buildings and bridges untwisted from their hellish state and returned to normal. Trees re-gained their leaves. Signs straightened. The sky even seemed to lighten a little, even though the sun was almost completely set. And all the people began settling back to normal. Those who had their outfits transformed re-gained their original clothes. People who had been acting in ways they never would have normally settled down, holding their heads in confusion. (Lancer, who was in the middle of his tenth time around the track field, suddenly regained his state of self, and, in the process of trying to figure out in the name of T.H. White he was doing, lost control of the computer chair and crashed into the bleachers). Danny looked over at the tree by the benches. Sam had sat up straight, looking like her old self and holding her head in confusion.

"Sam!" Danny shouted. He was so relieved she was alright, so relieved that there was no lasting damage that, completely forgetting that he was still in ghost mode in the midst of all his now normal classmates, he ran over to her and grabbed her in a big hug that had Sam gaining an awkward expression. Catching himself, Danny let go and went back into human mode.

"What happened?" Sam asked, still a little dazed. Danny smiled and sighed.

"Tuck'll fill you in. I've got to check on Jazz. You sure you're OK?"

"Yeah," Sam smiled back, "I'm fine," Danny nodded and got up as Tucker came over. He ran around to the other side of the benches, where Jazz was sitting up and holding her head too. She was still bruised and battered, but otherwise looked normal.

"Danny?" she asked in a confused voice as she saw him come over, "What happened?"

"Oh…" Danny thought quickly, "There was a, uh…gas leak. We were evacuated outside. Are you OK?" she nodded. Danny smiled, helped her up, and ran back over to Tucker and Sam. After he left, Jazz smiled. She'd seen the ghost come at her before everything went blank, but she wasn't going to force Danny to talk.

Danny, Sam and Tucker walked home together, the sun now completely down and the stars draping the sky over Amity Park. Danny had called home with the gas leak excuse to see if his parents were all right – they were. They were sore, and Jack was now putting the house on Ghost Lockdown in case the ghost came back, but they had also recovered. Sam was still holding her head – Tucker had let her in on everything, and after she calmed down about finding out she had become a cross between Paulina and Ember, she realised the ghost still left her with a headache. Tucker looked worn out himself – he was carrying all the equipment back.

"Quite a day, huh?" he said. Danny and Sam nodded.

"You think everything's back to normal?" Sam asked.

"All's Well that Ends Well!" all three of them turned at the sound of Lancer's shouting. Their English teacher was running from The Box Ghost, who had a box in his hands raised above his head.

"You cannot escape from the might of The Box Ghost!" the little nimrod laughed, "For now that I have armed myself with my corrugated cardboard harbingers of doom, I am unstoppable!" Across the street, Tucker and Sam looked at Danny.

"Well…" he sighed, "as normal as it ever gets," making sure Lancer couldn't see, he went ghost and flew towards The Box Ghost, a kick ready.