Chapter 42
The streets of Washington were a chaotic mess, with food debris raining down like a culinary apocalypse. Danny, standing on the glowing frame of his bike, tried to open another portal to the Ghost Zone, but the Chef Lady surprised him by slipping through his ectoplasmic chains. Her body shifted and reformed, her soul twisting into strange shapes to evade capture.
"You can do that?" Danny muttered, genuinely caught off guard. He had never seen a ghost manipulate their essence like that before.
Before he could act, the Chef Lady unleashed her wrath. Food items from nearby shops—fruits, vegetables, meat, and even entire ovens—came to life, swirling with ghostly energy. The possessed objects hurled themselves at the trio, forcing Danny to go intangible.
Tony Stark, hovering nearby in his Iron Man suit, had no such luxury. "Are you kidding me?!" he shouted, blasting refrigerators and flying pots out of the air with repulsor beams.
Peter Parker, clad in his black symbiote-enhanced suit, adapted quickly, forming blade-like appendages with his arms. "This is ridiculous!" he quipped, slicing through a flying steak and dodging a barrage of knives. "I'm all for food fights, but this is next level!"
Danny left his allies to manage the chaos and dove toward Chef Lady. "This is far from enough to stop me!" he shouted, his confidence unwavering. "You're not getting a pass for this. Equality for everyone—that's what I stand for!"
He delivered a powerful kick aimed at the ghost, but instead of landing the blow, his leg sank into a sticky, gelatinous substance. Before he could react, the substance morphed into a massive jelly that swallowed him whole.
Inside the gelatinous mass, Danny struggled, realizing that the Chef Lady had fused with the essence of food itself. "She can manipulate the energy of all dishes?" he thought, his mind racing. This wasn't just about her skill as a chef—she was practically a living manifestation of cuisine.
Her abilities reminded Danny of Technus, the ghost of technology, who could merge with machines. Unlike Technus, however, her ethereal body wasn't directly visible, making it harder to pinpoint and attack her true form. Worse, her ghostly energy was interfering with his powers, preventing him from going intangible.
"At least I'm learning this now instead of during a fight to the death," Danny thought wryly. Focusing his energy, he channeled it into his hands, building up a concentrated shockwave.
"Take this!"