Vlad duplicated into four, each surrounding Danny. The ghosts that Vlad had with him flew up to the ponies as told, and the fight began. The ponies began to use their hoof-rays to keep the ghosts away as best they could. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz used whatever weapons they could find, and Danny helplessly looked back to the others while he tried to best Vlad with his parents.
"How can I get them all at once? I can't use ghostly wail, and I can't..." Danny looked to Vlad and realized what he had to try. Danny grunted. "C'mon...c'mon!"
The boy struggled until three more copies of himself formed with a flash. Everypony took notice of this achievement of Danny's and cheered for him. Danny gasped. "I did it!" all of the clones said at once together. Two Danny duplicates were sent to help the ponies best the ghosts, first with Fluttershy, who was screaming and trying to shoot at the ghosts from under a table. One of the duplicates managed to knock out Fluttershy's ghost momentarily, much to Fluttershy's relief.
The effort quickly drained Danny and the copies came back to one. Vlad laughed. "Daniel, you're still weak! What makes you think you can beat me?"
"He has his family!" Jack roared, giving Vlad a hard blast from the ectogun he was wielding. Jack turned to Danny. "Son, go help the others fight off Vlad's minions! Your mother and I will deal with Vlad!"
"But-"
"NOW, son! Don't you dare argue with me!" Jack snapped. Danny immediately obeyed- reluctantly- and turned to help the others. Rainbow Dash and Applejack had managed to buck the ghosts attacking them in the head, but all it did was momentarily daze the ghosts- and they their mind control did not fade. Twilight Sparkle yelped as she cast a spell towards one of the ghosts, while Spike tried to breath fire at them.
"Blueblood's gotten better! I can't undo the spell unless they're all down!"
"How are we gonna do that? It only takes a minute for them to regain their bearings!" Applejack yelled. Their question had been answered not even a second later, when perhaps the shrillest shriek anypony had ever heard from Rarity. Everypony paused and stared at the unicorn, who was breathing heavily. She was not injured in a physical sense of the word- but was injured where it hurt most.
One of the ghosts made the deadly mistake to damage Rarity's hair and left an unpleasant-looking burn mark on her coat. Rarity whimpered for a second before her eyes filled with fire. "Oh...no...you...DIDN'T, YOU ECTOPLASMIC MONSTERS!" she screamed. With more speed than anypony knew she had, she ran forward and bucked her ghost in the stomach as hard as she could. The ghost gave a pained cry and fell back. Still enraged, she took the same action out on another ghost. The other ghosts began to back away, but it was too late. Rarity began to buck and kick them as they tried to stop her, successfully throwing each one to the floor. "YOU NEVER DESTROY MY MANE OR MY COAT! EVER!"
Everypony, even Vlad, had stopped to gawk in shock at this turn of events. Nevertheless, Twilight Sparkle used this to her advantage and cast a powerful spell over the ghosts. Each one let out a moan as a strange-looking puff of red escaped them each. When they got back up, the ghosts had forgotten all about the others and their fury got turned to Vlad. Now severely outnumbered, Vlad stared at the group of beaten and bruised ponies before him and ghosts who had directed their attention to him. Vlad looked around for a quick target for a distraction, and laid his eyes on a certain purple earth pony who he knew Daniel loved.
His hooves began to glow a dangerous red and tried to blast Sam with all his might. Danny reacted without thinking and shoved Sam out of the way and took the blast in all its glory. The boy screamed in agony and fell down, panting and moaning. Smoke rose from his body. Vlad flew over the boy and was about to unleash another when a blue light surrounded him.
He paled and turned to see Jack with the thermos. "NO! JACK! STOP! I...oh, butter biscuits..." he muttered as he was pulled in. Maddie shoved the thermos shut and placed it down. Everypony ran up to Danny, who was lying in pure pain. His side of his coat had been burned away and a bright red burn was apparent. Danny changed back and moaned. Sundry places on him had been burnt or singed. The ghosts flew away and Sam gasped and knelt down next to him.
"Danny! Are you-"
"I'll be fine," Danny said hastily, "J-just...go take care of Blueblood. I'll b-be fine."
"Danny...how can I ever...I don't even know what to..." Sam stopped with words and decided to complete what she was saying with no words. She kissed him on the cheek, which made the pony blush and grin.
"That made it all worth it...so what's the plan next- Twilight?" He was lifted in the air with Twilight's magic. She simply stood there as she opened his bedroom door with her magic and placed him on the bed inside and pulled the covers over him while the others began to walk upstairs.
Pinkie Pie rubbed Danny's forehead. "You'll be okay, Danny. You're one tough cookie...or cup cake...or even pie! Yep, Danny the Tough Pie!" she said. Danny smiled at her weakly. Danny's parents shoved their way past the others and knelt down. Jack grinned.
"I'm proud of you, son...that took bravery. And heroism...we'll even spare you the obvious lovebird comment right now. I just wish I could've got Vlad in a different way that didn't end with you getting hurt. I can't believe I was ever friends with...with a man who hasn't got a soul."
Danny rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter. You got him, and now Blueblood'll be a pushover. Do you need my h-"
"NO!" everyone said at once. Maddie frowned.
"Don't you dare get off of this bed, Danny. You're in no condition to fight. Half ghost super healing or not, burns like these won't fade overnight." his mother said. Danny scoffed.
"I think I've been through worse. I'll live."
"We should take him to the Ponyville Hospital immediately. I don't know if the human doctors are equipped right now for severe burns out of nowhere. Why don't Fluttershy and I take him while everypony else does what they need to do?" Rarity suggested. Fluttershy nodded.
"Oh, goodness, I don't think I could deal with more fighting at all today. Plus I don't want to see Danny suffer without help..." she said. Maddie and Jack nodded.
"Good idea. We'll discuss how to nab Blueblood..." Jack said. Fluttershy and Rarity picked up Danny together and waved to the others. Danny, embarrassed, tried to fly stubbornly, but pain met him in his right wing and he yelled and stopped. Rainbow Dash grimaced.
"Ugh, make that burns plus a broken wing..."
Danny sighed, defeated, and waved to the group. For a split second his and Sam's eyes met for a split second, telling each other things they didn't know they were telling each other without so much as a word. Danny, Rarity, and Fluttershy faded away from view as they retreated to the portal in the weapons vault and to the Ponyville hospital.
Tucker cleared his throat. "Alright, I have an idea. Here's how it's gonna go down..."