[Third Person Pov]
Arthur swam in front of Mera, weaving his trident around with practiced precision as he deflected the incoming spectral beams of energy. Some he cut apart entirely, the glowing attacks splitting in half before fading into the water. Others he redirected with sharp swings of his trident, sending them spiraling away into the dark ocean depths. A few he met head on with arcane blasts of his own, green energy erupting from the weapon and colliding violently against the attacks coming from the Flying Dutchman.
The force behind some of the blasts was immense. More than once Arthur was shoved backwards through the water, his muscles straining as the impact traveled through his arms and shoulders. The recoil alone was enough to make his hands tremble around the shaft of the trident, pain shooting through his body every time he blocked another direct hit.
Behind him, Mera continued pulling her magic inward, focusing entirely on healing the wound between dimensions. The crack in reality slowly shrank under her control, the unstable edges stitching themselves back together little by little as glowing currents of energy wrapped around the tear. Sweat mixed with seawater along her face as she concentrated harder, forcing the dimensional wound to become smaller and smaller.
"Arrr!!" the Flying Dutchman roared furiously from atop his ship. "Dock the ship! Deploy the anchor! Nothing will stop our voyage to the great beyond!"
At his command, the front of the ghostly ship burst open and an enormous anchor shot forward. The thick chains behind it rattled violently like a nest of metal serpents as the weapon tore through the water straight toward the dimensional gap.
Arthur gritted his teeth and surged forward with a shout, swimming directly into its path. He slammed both hands against the shaft of the trident and struck the anchor head on, trying to knock it away before it could reach the tear. But the moment his weapon connected, his eyes widened in shock.
The spectral anchor phased right through both him and the trident as if neither existed.
"What—?!"
The anchor continued downward uninterrupted before crashing deep into the ocean floor with tremendous force. Sand and stone exploded outward as the massive hook buried itself into the floor and locked firmly into place. The chains pulled taut instantly.
Arthur turned around in disbelief, staring at the anchored chain while Mera continued trying to seal the dimensional wound. The gap closed around the anchor itself, but the moment the edges reached the chain, the tear stopped shrinking entirely.
Mera narrowed her eyes and thrust her hand forward harder, pouring more magic into the task. The dimensional wound trembled violently, but no matter how much force she applied, it refused to close around the spectral chain.
"It's anchored between dimensions," Arthur realized grimly.
The Flying Dutchman suddenly leapt from the deck of his ship and landed heavily atop the massive chain. The line stretched tightly between worlds beneath his boots as he began running across it while cackling loudly. Behind him, members of his ghostly crew jumped onto the chain as well, following after their captain with excited shrieks and laughter.
"Zahahahaha!!" the Dutchman bellowed boisterously.
He grabbed one of his cutlasses and wedged it where the anchor and reality met. The glowing blade carved directly into reality itself, ripping open a brand new tear between worlds.
Beyond the opening was a towering wall of seawater that led back into the ocean outside the Ghost Zone. The water churned violently between dimensions while ghostly mist spilled from the edges of the tear.
"An adventure awaits on the other side!" the Dutchman declared proudly.
Danny immediately phased out of Mera, her body returning to normal the moment his ghostly form separated from hers. Green energy flared brightly around him as he shot forward like a missile.
"The only thing waiting for you here is my fist!" Danny shouted.
His punch connected squarely with the Flying Dutchman's face and launched the ghost pirate backward through the dimensional opening.
Danny followed right behind him without hesitation, diving through the tear and entering the Ghost Zone. He emerged from the wall of water with a loud splash before landing firmly atop the massive chain. Water dripped steadily from his spectral body while his white hair hung matted over his forehead. The endless green storm of the Ghost Zone stretched around them in every direction.
"You dare stand in the way of the Flying Dutchman?!" the pirate captain roared furiously as he recovered. He immediately drew his second cutlass, both glowing blades humming with ghostly power.
Danny rolled his shoulders before lowering himself into a fighting stance. His glowing blue eyes narrowed while faint cold mist escaped between his lips.
"You must not have heard of me," Danny said calmly. "There's no limit to my audacity."
"Zahahaha! Then your soul is for me to take, whelp!!" the Dutchman roared.
Both of them sprinted forward along the massive chain at the same time.
Danny thrust his hands outward and molded freezing ghost energy around his fists, forming massive ice gauntlets over both arms just as the Dutchman swung his twin blades downward.
The ice-covered fists collided directly against the cutlasses head on.
The impact rang across the chain with a metallic boom that echoed throughout the Ghost Zone. Frost exploded from Danny's fist while green fire burst from the Dutchman's cutlasses. The chain beneath them shook violently from the force of the collision.
Danny twisted, using the momentum to duck under a vicious overhead slash that would have cleaved his head clean off. He countered with a brutal uppercut, his icy fist connecting squarely with the Dutchman's jaw.
The pirate staggered, his face cracking with lines of frost that spread like spiderwebs, but he recovered almost instantly. With a furious bellow, he spun and delivered a spinning kick that caught Danny in the jaw. The blow lifted the half-ghost off his feet and sent him skidding backward along the chain, his boots creating sparks along the spectral metal.
Danny flipped mid-slide, landing in a low crouch. Ghostly blood—glowing a faint, luminous green—trickled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of one gauntlet, his expression hardening into grim determination. "That all you got, Captain Creepy?"
The Flying Dutchman laughed again, that deep, booming "Zahahaha!" echoing into the swirling green mists of the Ghost Zone. His tattered coat billowed as if caught in an invisible storm. "I've sailed through storms that would drown gods, boy! You are nothing but a fleeting chill on the wind!"
He lunged again, blades whirling in a deadly dance. Danny met him head-on, parrying strike after strike. Each clash sent fresh bursts of elemental energy exploding outward—ice shards and spectral flames colliding in miniature tempests. Danny's movements grew more fluid, his spectral body shifting and phasing slightly to dodge the most lethal cuts. One blade grazed his shoulder, slicing through his suit and drawing a shallow line of glowing ectoplasm that froze instantly into a jagged scar of ice.
Danny unleashed a flurry of punches, each one empowered by swirling cold energy. His ice gauntlets grew larger, more jagged, forming claw-like extensions that raked across the Dutchman's chest. The pirate staggered, his coat tearing open to reveal rotten, glowing flesh beneath. But the Dutchman retaliated with raw power, slamming one cutlass downward, which Danny blocked by crossing his arms.
Balls of snow packed tightly with swirling ghost energy formed around Danny's free hand. With a sharp motion he launched them directly at the Dutchman's chest. The projectiles exploded on impact into massive ice bombs, coating sections of the chain and part of the Dutchman's coat in thick layers of frost.
The Dutchman burst through the freezing mist with a roar, both cutlasses swinging wildly. Danny ducked under the first strike before stopping one blade with his left hand. The second cutlass came straight for his neck, only for Danny to catch that one too with his other hand just inches away from his throat.
The Flying Dutchman grinned viciously as their faces remained inches apart.
Danny's eyes flashed with cold blue energy. A beam of freezing ghostly vision erupted toward the pirate captain's face.
The Dutchman reacted instantly, driving his boot upward into Danny's chin hard enough to snap his head back. The cold vision narrowly missed, carving a frozen trench through the sky instead. Before Danny could recover, the Dutchman released a violent burst of spectral energy point blank.
Danny was blasted back, nearly tossing off the chain. He quickly formed a glowing shield around himself as the Dutchman's crew swarmed around him from every direction. Ghost pirates circled him while firing barrages from their flintlocks, glowing green blasts hammering repeatedly against Danny's barrier.
The shield cracked. Danny narrowed his eyes and created several spinning disks of condensed ectoplasm. The moment the barrier ruptured he hurled them outward. The disks exploded among the crew in violent flashes of blue energy, throwing several ghosts away from him.
Danny's body turned intangible and fluid as he twisted around incoming attacks. Spectral bullets and energy blasts passed harmlessly through parts of his body while he maneuvered between them.
Arthur saw Danny getting overwhelmed and immediately surged through the water toward the chain.
Without hesitation, he leaped over Danny entirely, trident aimed directly at the Flying Dutchman.
The Dutchman met the attack head on. Steel collided with Atlantean magic.
A burst of green and gold energy erupted between them as their weapons locked together. The force shook the chain beneath their feet before both combatants were violently thrown backward.
Arthur nearly lost his grip and started falling away from the chain before Danny grabbed him by the arm midair. "Got you," Danny grunted.
Mera, Jackson, Garth, and Tula didn't waste a second. One after another they burst through the dimensional tear and entered the Ghost Zone. Water spiraled around them as bolts of lightning and streams of hardened hydrokinetic blasts slammed into the Dutchman and his advancing crew.
The Flying Dutchman dug his boots into the chain and roared furiously. "You will not stop me from reaching the other side!"
Danny floated upward slightly, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. "You sure about that?"
He turned sharply toward the massive wall of seawater connecting both dimensions. Blue energy pulsed outward from his body as the entire mass rapidly froze solid. Towering walls of thick ice sealed the opening between the two worlds.
The Aqua-Family immediately pressed the advantage.
Arthur and Garth attacked from the front while Jackson and Tula struck from above with repeated blasts of lightning and water pressure. Mera restrained portions of the crew with hardened constructs while Danny rushed the Dutchman directly.
But the Flying Dutchman proved terrifyingly powerful.
One blast from him scorched their skin even through armor and magic. Every swing of his twin cutlasses released shockwaves sharp enough to cut across flesh and armor alike. The ghostly energy radiating from him was suffocating, crushing down on them with an unnatural pressure that made even Atlanteans feel as if they were drowning.
Danny's entire body suddenly erupted with icy ghost energy. Waves of freezing power exploded outward from him as his form transformed into a blazing comet of blue-white frost.
He rocketed directly into the Flying Dutchman. Both of them crashed through the deck of the spectral ship. Wood exploded apart beneath them as they slammed onto the lower deck.
The Dutchman recovered first. One vicious slash tore across Danny's chest and sent him flying backward into the mast. The impact cracked the wood loudly.
Ghostly blood sprayed from the wound. Danny coughed harshly before forcing himself back to his feet. Ice rapidly spread across the injury, sealing it shut enough to stop the bleeding.
The two glared at each other in clear annoyance. Neither willing to back down.
Danny took a deep breath, puffing out his chest and unleashed a raging storm of ice and freezing wind.
The Flying Dutchman answered with a massive torrent of ghostly flame that billowed from his mouth like a tidal wave.
The two elemental forces collided violently in the center of the ship. The resulting explosion shook the entire vessel so hard it lurched side to side like a wild carnival ride.
Arthur and Mera both lost their footing and were thrown from the chain. Jackson and Tula reacted instantly, each still carrying one of Danny's duplicates allowing them to dive downward and catch them before they could disappear into the abyss below.
Back aboard the ship, Danny suffered the worst of the explosion. He had been caught directly in the center of the blast. Parts of his suit had been shredded away, exposing burns and cracks of glowing ectoplasm across his body. Smoke rose from his shoulders while frost melted against his skin.
The Flying Dutchman, meanwhile, only looked slightly winded.
Danny stared at him carefully now. The difference in durability between them was becoming painfully obvious.
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