Danny Phantom Unilimited 27

Chapter 27

Phantoms of the Heart: Space Ghosts, Part 2

Starcrossed

Act Five

September 15

07:06 PM, outside of Earth.

To leave the Earth, an escape speed of 11.2 km/s is required; in order to achieve this, scientists dedicated years, decades of hard work and research to create large ships capable of flying at such speed during the so-called space race. A mean joke from destiny it might seem to some of them to see two teenagers not only race into space with utmost ease, but to see it is a child's play to them.

Thanks to their powers and suits, they can hurl themselves and fly unconcerned by things that nearly shattered their brains when trying to solve them such as aerodynamic heating or gravitational drag, and in only 2 minutes with 36 seconds they arrive their destination: the Phantom Prime Satellite.

"Ha! I won," Danny laughs.

"I don't understand, why are we here? I thought we were going to the moon." Valerie inquires as they land in the entry platform for spaceships.

"We are. But I thought we should come here first, if there is anything going on out there, then my guys here should know something about it," Danny explained as he retracts his suit's jetpack back into his backpack disk, which propelled him by bursting out his own exceeding ghost energy from his broken ghost core.

Vanishing her board, she asks "Your guys?"

"Yep. My guys," he asserts opening the door of the satellite, revealing a very sophisticated state-of-the-art laboratory where a handful of the best minds of the New Millennium Foundation handpicked by Danny and Mr. M, worked to push the boundaries of the paranormal science in order to prepare for the incoming war against the Ghost Zone and the betterment of mankind as well, assisted by dozens of miniature, chubby, baby-like clones of Danny floating all around them. Ironically enough, some of these projects were too dangerous to be worked on Earth.

Stepping into the satellite, Valerie stares at everything with amazement walking past an experiment with laser induced plasma, with small magnetic confinement for ultra precision used to easily slice a 12 inches thick steel wall into paper thin sheets, walking next to a second experiment that she wished to put her hands on, a multibarrel ecto-machine gun capable of firing 15000 blasts per second as indicated on the holographic bullseye.

"What are you guys working here?"

"The future." Danny claims.

The answers wasn't really helpful, yet, her biggest question was "What's with the bubble heads?"

"The Mini Me's? Oh, that is a new trick I've been working on. I need to keep a close eye on these guys and my satellite in case they blow it up, but I can't be going in and out of Earth all the time, and I can't teleport this far, so the one solution was to leave a clone behind, but that takes too much energy. Or at least it does if I want a normal clone to live more than twenty-four hours, so after some practice and German beer I was able to create them. These are ow energy clones that can live for long periods of time without sucking as much energy from me," he explains as one of his mini clones approaches him and hugs him tenderly. The picture was almost like that of a kid hugging his father.

"Low energy clones?"

"Yeah. And since I put less energy into them, I can create hundreds of them. The downside is that their shapes are… undeveloped, they all look like large-headed babies, and have the mind capabilities of an eight year old at the best. But they get the job done, and if something goes wrong, each one them has a designated scientist to guard so they'll be able zap them out of here, that if… they got time."

"Downside? But they're so cuuuttteee! How can it be a downside?" Valerie wondered as she played with three clones that got close to her.

"I know. They're a love when they have their masks on, they actually make the bug-eyes lenses look cute too, but they're not so cute when you take it off," he explained revealing the disturbingly large green eyes of one of his clones startling Valerie.

"Eeep!"

"Creepy, isn't? They look like if they had two glowing tennis balls instead of eyes. Thanks God I got a mask now," points putting his clone's cowl-mask back on as he retracts his cowl-mask helmet into the suit exposing his face.

"I'm guessing you can't use them in combat."

"Not really. But I've been working on creating explosive clones, kinda like kamikaze ghosts," says as they keep walking with three clones fluttering around Valerie. "I think they like you."

"Explosive clones? You're kidding."

"No, I'm serious. I got the idea after the last ghost-zombie that exploded in my face."

"Right. I forgot those chompers tend to go Una Bomber on you."

"Sir, welcome back, is a pleasure to have you here. And… I see you brought a visitor, is she from the company?" The lead scientists asks.

"No. But she's fine. She can be trusted. Besides, not like the man on the moon doesn't know I brought her with me, he gave me this suit, you expect me to believe he's not monitoring everything I do, at least while I'm wearing it?"

"What's going on exactly?" Valerie asks baffled.

"Very well, then."

"Speaking of the man on the moon, I came here because of this," he sounds playing a hologram of the NASA video from his chest. "The NASA thinks this can be ghost-related and they want me to make sure of that. What do the sensors have to say about this?"

"Sorry sir, we've been too busy trying to synthesize the instable matter without losing its properties, which as you might guess is as hard and incongruent as it sounds, so we haven't had the time to—"

"Instable matter?" Valerie sounds even more confounded, cutting him off.

"The correct term is instable molecules," Danny corrects.

"By configurating a special atomic nucleic and electrons synthesizing them into a usable material that responds to the energized matter or sudden change around them, most specifically ghost energized matter like him," points at Danny, "we could create a very versatile and durable material. If we can find a way to synthesize it, we could create a material that would be nearly indestructible at the very least," the lead scientists adds.

"Imagine a suit made of a fabric that can't be scratched, burnt, is completely bulletproof, doesn't need to be washed, and even if it's ruined, it can regenerate in seconds and comes with an unlimited hard drive. In other words, it would be an improved version of what I'm wearing," Danny adds.

"So you can carry all your porn with you," she jokes with a smug.

"Sorry, no. That's more of a Tucker thing."

"And just to be clear, this suit is made of what exactly?"

"A strange alloy of titanium, diamonds, and other man-made pseudo organic metals that can regenerate themselves, it is very resistant indeed."

"Lucky you."

"Don't cry. I'll get you one for Christmas. But back to the issue at hand, what can you tell me about this? Other than is not a meteor," he said pointing at the green light.

"The main computer says there have been multiple ghost portal opening around the Moon this week. I assume they were overlooked since it is actually a common phenomena on this area, though now that I look at this numbers it does seem to be more frequent than usual, probably artificial" the scientist explains, using his wrist mounted interface, a set of solid holographic keyboards with screens, all of them green.

"Ok, next time I want you to keep at least one guy on that, remember this is also a surveillance satellite."

"So are we going to the moon?" Valerie asks.

"You can be sure of that. Just let me get the keys."

"The keys? The keys of what?"

"You're gonna love this," he said with a sly gin.

Taking Valerie and the three mini-clones that fancied her to the hangar, he shows her one of the most important projects at work in the Phantom Prime Satellite: a black spaceship at least three times larger than the Specter Speeder with green glowing lines around the edges.

The ship was like no other she had ever seen, similar in appearance to a large sphere with a ring mounted longitudinally and a second larger ring mounted transversely, shapping an X when inactive, it had three large blades parallel to each other protruding from behind, curving over the space between the rings pointing frontward, this ship definitely seemed more like that of a villain than a hero's.

"Let me introduce you the Space Ghost," he said with his right arm outstretched.

"You have a space ship? Of course you have a space ship."

"It's only a prototype, but once it's over it will be Team Phantom's main vehicle for overseas missions, missions in the Ghost Zone and extraplanetary missions like this."

"Wait, overseas missions? Like hunting ghosts in other countries?"

"Yep. There will be no limits for this ghost and his phantoms."

The inside of the ship was even more amazing than the outside, with tactile holographic interfaces, black leather seats for each member of the team and it even had a mini-bar. It was so surreal it was like a movie and left Valerie with one question.

"Who is your provider?"

"Uh?"

"You know, who's giving you all this stuff?"

"Uh, that. I got friends on the other side."

"Danny, enough with the secrecy, that might work with Sam and the others but I'm not your girlfriend. I'm not gonna put a nice face when you lie to me and pretend everything is ok when is not just to make you happy."

"Put a nice face? Make me happy? Excuse me, have you met Sam!?"

"Danny, I'm not an idiot, am your friend and I know where you are right now."

"What do you mean with?"

"When Technus ripped your ghost core, you felt powerless, unable to stop him, the way I felt when you destroyed my life, even worse you could have died and ended up losing control over your powers. When I got my first suit and weapons, they all came one day out nowhere and I thought it was so cool because that meant I could finally destroy you, I felt like I was in control of my life again and there was somebody out there who wanted to help me. But then it turns out I never was, that it was Vlad who gave me all that stuff and at first I thought it was all fine — even better, I finally got a face to thank to, but at the end we all know how that ended. He was just using me to destroy you. Even this armor, I still don't know how I got it. So my question is, can you really trust this guy?"

Danny sighs deeply and moans "Look, I know you are worried about me, and I appreciate that, but you don't have to," starting to feel exasperated. "I mean, this guy isn't Vlad."

"Have you seen him? Can you truly know is not him?"

"Val, Vlad is long gone and even if he was around, he wouldn't be giving me new toys like these."

"Then who's is giving you all this?"

"Look, I told you all you need to know."

"So you don't know who he is."

"All I know is that he was there to help me when Technus ripped off my ghost core and nearly destroyed my powers. He gave me what I needed because he was the only one capable of doing so, he gave me control over my broken powers and helped me break through my limits. And I trust him for that, the question is do you trust me?" He asks staring into Valerie's emerald green eyes with his glowing green ghost eyes.

"You know I do… But I don't trust whoever that guy is. I can't trust somebody who claims to have good intentions but who isn't willing to show his face, not after Vlad. I can't believe you do."

"Look, you don't have to trust Mr. M, all you gotta do is trust me and work with me and the equipment he gives me."

"Wait, did you just say Mr. M? You're telling me the guy who gives you all this high tech equipment calls himself Mr. M, as in M, the guy from the James Bond books and movies?"

"Ah… would you believe me if I told in all this time I never notice that?"

"Unbelievable!"

"That aside, trust me, he is a cool guy."

"Then why don't you tell the others about him when they ask you where did you get your suit?"

"He doesn't want me to, and if somebody tells me he or she wants to keep his identity a secret, then I respect his wishes," he claims.

"Then what about me? Why are you telling me all this? Or are you going to erase my mind like the Men In Black?"

Danny ends the conversation, laughing at her question, sitting in the pilot's sit, while Valerie glares at him arm-crossed as she sits in the co-pilot sit. If there was someone who knew his situation, that was her, she understand what it was to have your life torn apart by a force greater than yours, and she feared somebody used that feeling against him to manipulate him the way Plasmius did with her. She just couldn't sit idly by and see how her best friend goes down the same path she was once, oblivious to the dangers behind this secret providence. She had to know who was behind Danny's new suit, his station — everything, because she knew whoever it was, if he didn't show his face he wasn't trust worthy.

"Stop doing that inside the ship!" She scold the mini-clones who started a small beam struggle over her head with a booming voice.

"Oh. Don't bother to lock your sit belt, this will take only thirty seconds," he said starting the engines which ran in pure ecto-energy, and in only 29.04 seconds they arrive the Moon's surface.

07:21 PM

"That was just great. We made a fifteen minutes stop to take a ship that will take us to the moon in only half a minute, when we can make it from Earth to here in only five minutes without stop."

"Your point being?"

"Did we stop on you satellite only so you can brag about your spaceship?"

"Maybe," claims with a grin as his cowl-mask unfolds itself around his head, shaped into its space helmet mode with a holographic bubble breathing mask covering his mouth, which quickly goes invisible as the jets emerge from his backpack disk.

Now without his long hair, the suit shaped itself so the helmet would be open on top as in its regular form, rather than having the usual three slit openings for his hair, letting his spiky hair come through.

"Hold on. Before we leave I wanna give you this," says taking Valerie by the hand, drawing a green energy circle on her wrist with the other, apporting a strange metallic bracelet.

"What's with the jewelry?"

"It's a personal gravity generator. You know last time we came you had some trouble with the lack of gravity when we had to fight, with this you can walk on the Moon as you'd do on Earth."

Flattered by the gesture, Valerie utters a profound "Thanks, that's considerate. Can I get my hand back now?" Hoping her red faceshield hides how blushed she was.

"Ah, right. I'm sorry."

With unhurried ease, they step out of the ship and start exploring the Moon.

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. I always wanted to say that," Danny grinned.

"I give you credit for not making a bad ghost-hybrid pun on that. Now, what does that fancy suit of yours say? Is there anything ghostly around here?"

"Barely, there are some traces of ghost energy, but they're too faint. Like if any ghost has barely been here at all," he explains shifting the light spectrum of his lenses which now glowed bright green, allowing him to see the traces of ecto-energy in the Moon. "Let's scan the place to see if there is anything here."

Danny activates the suit's scanners hoping to find a ghost lurking in the shadows, but when he reads the result he's surprised to read there are no ghosts in the area other than him and his doppelgängers, or at least not on the bright side of the Moon for that was the reach of his scanner, yet, his threat counter indicated there were four unknown enemies around them, one of them a human but the other three were tagged unidentified species.

"What the hell? This oughta be broken, what does your scan says?"

"This side is clear of ectos, no other than you and… your three little stooges," sounds with a deadpan face looking at the clones fighting just the same way the Three Stooges did.

"I don't like this. Activate infrared spectrum," ordered to his suit, his lenses now glowing of an intense blue.

And then he saw them, three heat signals standing around them as though they were forming a triangle. One of them seemed to be a strange large slug crawling on the floor, the second seemed almost like a small alien spaceship hovering behind Valerie, whereas the third one seemed to be a very sultry female silhouette.

"Oh crap!"

"What's wrong?" Valerie asked already in a state of alert with a plasma cannon on her right wrist.

"We're surrounded!

"By who?"

"Don't know! They're invisible and my scanner says they're neither humans, or ghosts or hybrids," explained quickly shifting for every light spectrum his suit can use, hoping to find one he can use to see who his enemies are, until hitting with a low level X-ray spectrum which used his own invisibility power to see through objects. "Well, this is new."

"What!?"

With his lenses now glowing with a dim blue light he could see a just clear-enough image of these new threats, one seemed to be a human-like girl, rather pale with strange black bubbling-energy hair, a black and pink skintight jumpsuit and a breathing device covering half her face, the one behind him was almost as a giant ball of goo with an aviator helmet on — what he assumed was — its head and the one behind Valerie was like a floating robot with an elongated dark crystal tank on top.

"Master Phantom, you must hear this. They're communicating in a six gigabytes frequency," G.A.S.P.E.R. explains as he hacks their communication lines, playing their conversation on Danny's headgear.

"—does the scanner say, Bert?" Asks the mysterious girl, or so Danny thinks, for there was no way this wasn't a woman's voice speaking.

"His power level is over nine-thousand!"

"Nine thousand!? That is impossible, that thing must be broken!"

"No, is not. They both wear some sort of advanced warfare clad. And I mean very advanced, specially for this planet. It is beyond its technology level. One more than the other though, the female has the more weapons but the male has the most complicated war-gear, I can barely scan the surface of it, it's almost as a living organism. Also, they both seem to run on the same strange energy we found earlier."

"Who's the most dangerous one?"

"The female seems to have a reactor in her armor, but the male is like a reactor himself, so are those little spawns fluttering around her."

"So he must be one of those intradimensional energy beings too. But she has more weapons, those are always a problem, so I say we take her down first."

"Ani, my dear, that sounds like a bad — a terrible idea for so many reasons. I love it!"

The unidentified floating object pulls out a large plasma cannon from below, with an electric blue aura pulsing around it as it charges up large energy blast aimed at Valerie.

Act Six

Quickly Danny rushes to block the attack before it fires, diverting the devastating blast with a rotative energy shield around them.

The spinning ghost shield raises a large lunar dust cloud, concealing them from their enemies and allowing Valerie to see their silhouette in the dust.

"Huh? Who are they? What do they want? Why are they attacking us?" She asks rather hastily.

"You must have loved twenty questions when were you were a child. In that order, I don't know, I don't care and we're gonna beat that answer out of them! Now be careful, I heard them talking, they want to take you out first because you got a larger arsenal in your armor, I'm not letting that happen."

"What!? That is ridiculous! I don't need you to save me."

"You're welcome. Listen, I already played this in my head, and I have devised a plan."

"Of course you have a plan."

"First we must stop that cannon."

"How are we doing that?"

"I have another plan for that too."

Snapping his fingers twice with a handshake, he orders his clones out of the spinning dome through the ground to attack their hovering aggressor. One of them draws his tiny cupped hands to his side and thrust them forward firing a green streaming ghost ray, the second one focus all his cold energy on his chest between his curled little fingers and thrusts his hands towards to fire a continuous freezing blast while the third one fires a streaming white plasma ray from one hand with a cold energy beam swirling around it fired from the other hand.

The combined forces of these little clones sustains enough damage to their opponent to interrupt the attack allowing Danny to do his next movement.

"I thought you said they didn't work in combat?" Valerie asks confused.

Swinging his hands and arms around in a slow motion, his rotating energy shield starts changing and acts as though it was a whirlpool, pushing their attackers back as he explains "I lied. I like to keep some mystery between us. Makes things more exiting."

"You just came up with it, didn't you?"

"Didn't even think it was gonna work. I surprised myself," states extending his right hand towards the girl, drawing his left hand up to his chin while changing the flow of his energy to transform his defense into a powerful offense, thrusting the ghost shield at her as a sliding energy wave.

The attack impacts against her as if it was a tidal wave, pushing her back and damaging her camouflage system, causing it to glitch.

Soon, her teammates turn off their stealth devices as well, becoming visible to Danny and Valerie.

The girl was astonishingly white skinned and donned what seemed to be a highly advanced and sophisticated form-hugging armor which somehow accentuated her lean and curvy form over the black jumpsuit. The creature dragging itself on the floor was green-blue glob with eyes and a mouth, using a bubble breathing helmet, while the other seemed to be a floating UFO-like robot.

"Look, I don't know who you guys are, and I don't care," Danny asserts enraged for their assault on Val as he generates white and green electricity around his chest and converts it into a greenish white aura around his body. "You tried to hurt my friend, I'll never forgive that! Prepare yourselves for oblivion!" Shouts thrusting his chest forward to fire a huge energy wave at these unknown opponents, knocking them on the ground.

"Well, that's new?" Valerie points out.

"Watch out. I doubt they would stay down with that," and he was right.

Slowly, the white girl gets on her feet with her fists steaming, shouting out in anger. "I'll vaporize you for that!"

"Vaporize me? I wanna see you try," he taunts her. "I'll tear you apart molecule by molecule before you do anything!"

"Master, I beg you to be careful. My sensors indicate she emanates some dangerously high levels of an unknown energy. She's like a nuclear reactor," Gasper warns Danny, but there was something about him now that he would fail to listen.

"Yeah, whatever. They attacked me and Valerie. I don't care what you say, I will destroy her and her weird friends," states hurling himself with his jetpack charging his fists with ghost energy.

The mysterious girl easily dodges the blow and fights back with a double-axe strike only to see Danny disappear in front of her eyes, then reappear behind her delivering a spinning hook kick to her head. An attack she barely manages to dodge arching her back down, then swings on her hands with her legs spread open to kick Danny who once again teleports away to avoid her attack and reappears above her firing a ghost ray. Yet, his opponent, so quick and nimble, backflips away dodging his every shot.

Touching the blue circle on her chest, she materializes two rockets on her legs in a blue glimmer and charges at Danny who once again teleports away from her, appearing back on the ground aiming at her with his Gaitlin Gauntlets, firing a barrage of ecto-energy bullets at her.

Swaying swiftly, she dodges the attack and pounces at Danny spouting white energy blasts from her hands, forcing Danny to take high where she finally connects her first strike.

Danny grimaces at the impact. The inner armor layers of his suit protect him from the devastating blow, and knowing now the true strength of his enemy he's taunted to keep on fighting, only this time he would not hold himself back.

The girl continues on a non-stopping assault, delivering endless blows and kicks with her fists smoldering in rage, yet Danny dodges and single-handedly blocks every attack with the slightest effort, if not none, all the while with a shit-eating grin that made her angrier.

"You fight well," his echoing voice came out calmly, almost derisively, "now show me something I can't handle."

His teasing serves its purpose, her response forms in her hands raised above her head in the form a steaming white energy ball she trusts at him just as he expected.

Unsheathing his arm-swords conducting his ghost stinger through them, he catches the attack with his blades and swings it around throwing it away.

"What's he doing? Finish her already!" Valerie shouts distraughtly.

"I'm just barely warming up," his ghost aura flared out green as he delivers a powerful roundhouse kick that knocks her onto the ground.

Channeling all his energy into his fist, he pounces at her ready to deliver a finishing blow, but alas! His final blow fails as she rolls away at the last second, getting back on her feet and rushing back at him with her fists charged in energy as well connecting one right hook on his jaw, twisting his neck around as that of an owl. Yet, he shows no discomfort or pain whatsoever.

"As a devout feminist, I refuse to say that you hit like a girl," claims unfazed as his neck crunches while it twists back to its natural form and stares at the priceless shock in her face, "so I'll just go ahead and let you infer that," sounds tapping her chest with a powerful ghost stinger that knocks her out in seconds.

"Congratulations sir. This battle lasted four minutes, thirty-six seconds."

"Why are you taking note of that?" Danny asked.

"Oh, I take note of everything, sir."

"Ok, that was… I'm gonna go as if I never heard that."

"Are you not glad to see how much you've improved, sir?"

"I'm, is just… kinda creepy when you put it that way. Now where are the others?" Asked to Valerie who only shrugged for she didn't realize their escape.

"Sorry. I got distracted with your fight. Like your new moves."

"Thanks, I've been training. Well, at least we got her," sounds tossing the girl over his shoulder. "My God, you're heavy."

Act Seven

07:35 PM

Once inside the ship, Danny puts their prisoner inside an adamant crystal bubble while Valerie starts the ship and sets the auto-pilot to float around the Earth as they wait for her to wake up and ponder as to what are their new enemies, to which Danny suggests:

"I don't know. Aliens?"

"Danny, come on. You said you don't believe in that thing."

"I know, but I've been thinking: my scanners said they're unidentified species, only one human other than you was detected, one of them was a little UFO-bot and the other was a glob, and that girl. And again, I emphasize, the radars say they are not ghosts. Added to the green lights on the Moon, and what do we got?"

Staring back with a blank face Valerie claims "That's it. No more History Channel for you."

"Well, what do you think it is?"

"I don't know. Maybe Technus found a way to conceal ghosts from radars, something like your suit?"

"No, this technology is from the New Millennium, is just too advanced for him to copy. Besides, what about my ghost sense? It didn't go off when they showed up. No high techy-techy gadget can conceal a ghost from it. And why would a human work with him?"

"Why would a human work with an alien like her?"

"Oh, I can think of a few reasons why."

"Sir, I just ran a full spectrum analysis on our host," a blaring computer voice with a thick British accent sounds inside the ship startling Valerie.

"Who's that?"

"That's Gasper, my suit's operative system. And the ship's operative system, he's a highly advanced and annoying A.I. that nags me when Sam doesn't, and a half-ghost."

"Wait, wait, your A.I. is a half ghost too?" Valerie asks waving her hands perplexed by this new piece of information. "…Ok… how and why?" She sighs.

"Beats me, that's how it came."

"As much as it flatters me to be the topic of this conversation, I have information to deliver. I believe you'd be surprise to hear our host is not only not human or ghost, but for the looks of it she is not matter either."

"Say what?" They both mutter at the same time.

"How can she be not matter? Explain yourself," Danny orders.

"It appears she is made of antimatter, Master Phantom."

"You're joking," Valerie sounds in disbelieve.

"Where you saying? " Danny asks with a smug. "Looks like the crazy alien guy from yesterday isn't that crazy after all."

"Hold on a second, last time I checked matter and anti-matter aren't compatible, the second they come in contact everything goes boom!" She points out.

"Apparently her armor is more than just a fancy attire, Ms. Gray. It confines her in a skintight magnetically charged vacuum that keeps her from coming in contact with normal matter, yet allowing her to manipulate objects and interact with her surroundings while in this universe. She also poses a set of universal translators, technology I took the liberty to study and integrate into the suit and the ship for your interrogation, Master. Oh, and she's up already."

Moving rather hastily, they walk into the ship's prison cell to question their prisoner.

"Well, you heal fast, that's a good thing," Danny claims seeing how her wounds and bruises quickly fade away. The girl sitting casually, one leg crossed neatly over the other. "For a second there I thought I killed you."

"You should've killed me." Says with no feeling.

"And all aliens speak English. That's also good." Valerie sounds sarcastically. "And here I thought it was an exaggeration when they said it was a universal language."

"I only speak a few words I learned from a human friend," the white girl asserts fairly spreading her long legs then crossing them lithely again. "Of course, I can understand everything you say thanks to my universal translators."

"You mean those things in your ears? I know, I just reverse engineer them and adapted the technology into my own. So now we can have a real grown-ups conversation. So… are you an alien?"

"You are the alien to me." She responds as though this was just another everyday conversation.

"So you are an alien."

"…You should have killed me," she insists glaring at Danny.

"Sorry, killing off my enemies is not really my style. That's is more of her thing," says pointing at Valerie who stood silent behind him with her arms folded. "But mess enough with me and you might just get it."

"I should let you know, no prison can hold me back."

"Oh really? This is adamant ecto-glass, it is unbreakable. I wanna see you try to go all Prison Break from here."

Walking as though she had nothing to worry about, she stands before them without muttering a single word for almost a minute, tapping and eyeing fixedly into the thick glass between them.

Then her hand clenches into a fist and pounds the glass with all her might, merely cracking the bubble.

"Well, you are much stronger I predicted," Danny claims showing no worries at all as the glass repairs itself without leaving the slightest dent. "Doesn't mean you can break free."

"I know what you want, this isn't… how do you humans say? My first rodeo. You made me your prisoner to get answers from me, but I just won't talk no matter what."

Danny and Valerie eye at each other for half a minute, acting as if they could read each other's thoughts and come to a decision.

"Ok… I hope you enjoy your steady here at the Space Ghost," says leaving the room with Valerie, turning off the lights.

"So, on top of all the monsters and the zombies and the ghosts and the hybrids, it turns out that there's—So if aliens are actually real, what's next, huh? Hobbits? Seriously!" Danny shout losing his mind before the realization that aliens are real!

"Danny, calm down," Val sound without losing her temper.

"Calm down? Our reality's collapsing around us, and you're telling me to calm down!? Not only we gotta protect Earth from monster-ghosts from another dimension, now we also have to protect them from… evil E.T.'s!? Don't you understand? Our whole is universe falling apart!"

"Danny, calm down, or I'll slap you."

"Ok, ok, I'll… I'll calm down," says tapping his chest. Apporting his hip flask with Vodka and his Vicodin pills into hand to swallow a handful of pills with alcohol as if it was a good idea, "…All right I calmed down."

"What was that?"

"My medicine. I got a… condition, no big deal. I should be better soon."

"And you mix those with alcohol? On second thought, I don't wanna know. What do we do now?" She inquiries.

"Isn't obvious? We wait. We've already made our move. We took their queen, now we wait for them to come here and take it back."

"That is your big plan?"

"Part of it, yeah. I'm kind of improvising this along the way," says increasing the durability of his bubble prison with his wrist interface. "Once they come here knocking to our door, we take the fight back to Earth and we trap them inside Vlad's improved ghost shield."

"Did you say Vlad's ghost shield?"

"Back in Wisconsin, in one of Vlad's manors he had an Omni-Shield, a ghost shield that works on humans and ghosts. His mansions haven't been touched not even by the GIW, who knows why. I'm guessing if his shield is still there, and I'm positive it is, we can use it to trap them inside. That if it can work on… aliens."

"You're basing your whole plan in a supposition?! I thought you had an actual plan!"

"Well, one of them is a human guy, she said it. At least he should get trapped in the ghost shield. And before you ask why not here, the answer is: that bubble is not big enough."

"And where is her team now, anyway? They sure know the meaning of team work." She sounds just a moment before the ship gets hit by powerful energy bast.

"I'm guessing that's them," he says as the ship shakes again by a second blast. "That's it! One thing is messing around with the Moon, but another thing is when they blast my stuff!" He states angered and eyes blazing.

"Well, that was your plan, genius. Remember? Or were you actually expecting they'd literally knock the door?" Asked Valerie steering the ship.

"I'm going to kill that bastard for attacking my ship," fury waking up and for a second, Valerie notices flashes of scarlet in Danny's eyes rather than their usual green flash.

"Geez, what's gotten into you now?"

Maybe it was his lenses flashing out red as it changes the light spectrum, she thinks. Whatever it was, she assured herself it was nothing to worry about. Yet, his behavior became suddenly erratic. She knows some ghosts become more aggressive when they're fought with anger. Perhaps today Danny was more sensitive to these negative feelings than usual, and of course this encounter was not friendly and cause him to overreact.

Phasing out of the ship, he finds himself with his attacker, a man in what seemed to be a very sophisticated white and blue space suit propelled by a jetpack and boosters on each foot, with a blue reflective breathing bubble helmet on his head concealing his identity.

"Very well Buzz Lightyear, congratulations. You've messed with the wrong ghost."

"Ghost?" He asks.

"Now, I'm a good guy, so tell me what is it you and your girlfriend want and maybe we can work out something here."

Rising his hand as he charges a blue energy blast in his gauntlet, his opponent claims "I've heard that before. I don't deal with the likes of you, bug-eyed freak," firing a powerful streaming blue plasma beam.

Easily, Danny dodges the attack smiling for he now had a reason to attack him.

Putting his hands together by the tips of his fingers and thumbs as to form a triangle with it, he zooms into his opponent through it with his suit's targeting system as he charges a greenish white aura around his arms, condensing his ecto-energy to fire a concussive energy blast knocking him away.

"Ha! What a poser. Can't even take a blast like a man," he claims just a second before reading a HUD warning him about a new threat approaching from behind. The second he turned his head he realized it was a space ship at least twice the size of his, aiming at him with a very large plasma cannon.

"Oh shit!"

The ship fires a powerful plasma blast that could have killed him should he not have teleported back to his ship just a second before.

Confused and unable to understand what is happening — because yeah! Not even they can truly understand what's going on here —, Valerie shouts "What the hell just happened!?" as Danny takes his seat.

"The bastards wanted to kill me with a giant cannon." Danny explains dodging the incoming fire.

"You have reached Earth's atmosphere," a booming computer voice announces.

"Shouldn't this ship come with a cloaking system or something?"

"I'll activate the phasing system."

For the next two minutes, Danny races through the night sky with his persecutors until they finally arrive to Vlad's old manor.

"All right, this is the plan," sounds summoning two duplicates, "you and the mini-me's distract them and lure them into Vlad's football field while I sneak into his old lab and search for the remote that activates his improved ghost shield. Use these Phantom Headphones to communicate with me. And don't worry, they use a unique bluetooth signal so they won't be hijacked," said handing her a pair.

Connecting her headphones into her helmet "Wow, Sheldon was right: you men love bluetooth."

"Hey! Everything is better with bluetooth."

"What about them?" Asks pointing at the clones.

"Ah, he's going to park the sip. This thing is expensive. I can't let it get a scratch." Explained as the ship goes invisible. "And he's going to take our guest to the rendezvous point. Last thing we want is to leave her here alone."

As the ship disappears, they all jump out of it and fly in different directions forcing the enemy to stand still while it decides which one of them to follow, but as Danny goes invisible Valerie and the mini-clones charge at them shooting burning plasma blasts from her wrist and cube-cannons making their decision clear. Yet, they prove too small and fast for their large and slow cannon to shoot at them, dodging every shot.

Meanwhile, Danny flies through every room in the castle searching for Vlad's secret lab.

"Ok think, if I were a megalomaniac, crazed-up Fruit-Loop supervillain, where would I hide my evil lab? It has to be somewhere only I can have access to, without a secret door to be open by accident, somewhere unprevious to preying eyes." And then the answer came to him in a burst, his lab was beneath the ground accessible only through their intangibly.

After diving down twenty-three meters of solid rock, Danny falls into Vlad's laboratory which was, just as he expected, coated in dust, spider webs and filth for the two years of abandonment. The place was dimly lit by the green eerie light of his open ghost portal and everything inside the shady room had the same ghostly glow.

"My God, this place is worse than I thought," states looking at the many rat skeletons trapped in the many spider webs.

"Feeling a tad scared, dear boy?" Gasper asks, startling Danny.

"Fuck you Gasper! You scared the shit out me!" He asserts with his hand in his chest.

"I know sir. I noticed how your heart rate was rising and, well, all those other physiological signs of fear you truly wouldn't understand. Of course, I noticed you haven't really been yourself in the past hour either."

"And you thought the best thing to do is to scare me shitless? Didn't know you came with such a sense of humor."

"And irony, a ghost scared by a ghost? That epitomizes it." He laughs. "It sure must bring some memories, doesn't it, sir?"

"Shut up and help me find the ghost shield remote." Ordered as he summons three clones to help him search around the place.

"Sir, do you honestly believe those can be aliens?"

"I'll tell what I believe? That this is literally the weirdest hour I've had just this week…" claims looking at the fetus of a strange ghost creature of vaguely anthropoid outline, with an octopus for head, scaly skin with the texture of rubber, tiny claws on hind and fore feet shining to the white light of his suit, and small, narrow dragon wings behind, floating inside a jar with green ectoplasmic goo.

"Creepy…" a clone says.

"Is that a c—"

"Creepy bear-bat-pulp baby thing?" Danny cuts off Gasper. "Yeah. As I said, nothing makes sense."

"Ah, I found it!" A clone yells holding the remote over his head. "It was behind the mini-bar."

"Danny… do you copy?" Valerie yells through the headphone.

"Val, are you ok?"

"Define ok."

"Is your body still a whole?"

"I still got all my limbs, yeah. Just wanted to make sure you didn't forget your part of the plan. And to tell you your clone just got blasted to bits."

"The big one or the small ones?"

"The big one."

"Don't worry I got the remote. I'm on my way."

Absorbing his clones, he prepares himself to fly out of the laboratory, just a second before realizing the red glowing eyes of the creature were staring fixedly at him. Quickly he turns the jar around, realizing the creature had a large, spiky, curled-up tail.

"As I said, a seriously crazed-up Fruit-Loop," says flying away from the dusted laboratory, leaving the creature assorted on its mindlessness.

Flying into the field he finds Valerie fighting the pale girl in a very close hand-to-hand match in which she caught her with a leg-lock. And his mini clones fighting the rest of her teammates

Once inside the field, he activates the ghost shield with the remote trapping his four opponents, Valerie, his clones and himself inside the invisible energy shield.

"We meet again, bubble head," Danny says to the guy in the white suit.

"You again? You can't stay dead, can you?"

"No. I have this horrible, horrible habit of surviving and getting away from everything and with everything. Now, I'm giving you one last chance to give up."

"Or else what?"

"Or else I'll kill you."

Danny's threat astounds Valerie. She never heard Danny talking like that before, and the tone of his voice said he was not bluffing.

"I'd like to see that. Come on super ghost. Show me what you've got."

"All right. Activate user's voice command: override suppression function, code 000-X-23-0."

With that command he disactivates his suit's most important function: the power damper that maintained his unstable and fluxing ghost powers on the limit.

Then his body is overrun by a massive upsurge of energy.

"Man, I forgot what it was like to have all this power unleashed, unlimited. Everything is heightened: my strength, speed, even hearing and vision improve to the point where I can hear their heartbeats and see the atoms of their matter, or anti-matter for that matter. Is like becoming a super me, all this unlimited power in the palm of my hand, never ending, only growing… and I hate it! Gas, for how long can you keep this up?"

"Without undoing all the progress we've had healing your ghost core? For a very short time sir."

"Then I better make this quick. I don't know what these guys want or what can they do, and I don't wanna know. What about the heart?"

"Don't worry, I'll regulate your heart beat and block out your pain receptors so it won't bother as last time."

"Great."

Slowly his hair begins to ablaze, bursting into a white flame while his skin cracks and turns of a pale eerie blue as his ghost energy grows and flows through him so fast it seeps out of his skin, radiating as a wide green fiery ghost aura engulfing his whole body with eyes sparkling small green bolts of energy

"Last chance for request! Do you just want to see a super ghost? Or should I take it up to the next level!?" His ghost voice came out more booming than usual, sounding as though it was more than one person speaking one after another, while his muscles become slightly swollen, and the floor shatters by his ghost aura.