Squad Ghouls - Wintermoth - Danny Phantom [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: Who Ghost There?

Chapter Text

"Okay, one more time. It's called the what?"

Danny resisted the urge to sigh and stared at the grains of wood less than an inch from his eyes. Crystal clear, even though the arms enclosing his head against the picnic table eliminated almost all light coming in. Apparently, this was something he could do now. "The Fenton Finder."

"And it led them right to you?"

"Yep."

"While it wasn't even finished?!"

"Yep."

Tucker made a noise that sounded like someone had shoved an eraser up his nose and Danny listened to him typing furiously on his PDA.

"Well…that bites," Sam declared after a moment of silence. "What are you gonna do about it?"

Danny raised his head, frowning. "Uh, 'we', Sam. I think you meant 'we.'"

"Hey, I'm not the one who shares a house with the ghost hunters."

"I mean, what should I do?" he snapped, throwing his hands in the air. "Drop it out of the sky so it breaks? Or, I don't know, throw it through the portal the next time it opens? They'll just make a new one. After they spend a whole day raving about ghosts sabotaging their equipment." With that, his head dropped back to the table with a thunk.

"Dude, relax, it'll be fine. They'll probably just keep thinking it's broken and give up eventually." Tucker said. "I mean, it's not like they'd attack their own kid."

He laughed as if the mere thought were ridiculous but Danny, well. Danny wasn't sure. And, boy, did he hate it. He peeked at Sam, out of habit more than anything, and knew from the slight scowl on her face that she was thinking along the same lines as he was.

"Do you think…" Danny paused, raised his head, and curled his fingers against his biceps. "Do you think maybe we should tell them?"

The words had barely left his mouth before Sam scoffed. "Why? Parents don't listen! Even worse, they don't understand! Why can't they accept me for who I am!?"

Tucker stared at her, completely unimpressed, and Danny frowned. "Uh, Sam. We're talking about my parents."

"Oh, right. Me too."

Danny sighed. "I mean, come on. It's been a month since the accident and we barely have any control."

"Speak for yourself, man." Tucker folded his arms. "I haven't fallen through my bed in a week. That's progress."

"The fact that's considered progress isn't exactly a good thing," Sam pointed out.

Tucker smirked. "You're only saying that because you haven't made any."

She folded her arms, her usual scowl deepening into one of genuine distaste. Unlike the boys, she hadn't been falling through her bed. Quite the opposite, actually. She kept waking up on the ceiling, despite her best efforts to keep herself firmly in her bed. Danny had suggested she strap some weights to herself to keep her down but apparently an extra thirty pounds meant nothing to a power capable of lifting an entire human body into the air. Short of literally tying herself to the bed, she was running out of options. She was lucky her parents hadn't barged into the room while she was sleeping, but with them, it was only a matter of time.

"For your information, I woke up in my bed this morning."

"Lucky you," Danny muttered. His legs were getting a bit sore from being pressed into the edge of the bench so he tried to adjust them, only to find that he couldn't move his feet. He leaned back so he could peer under the table and groaned at what he saw. "Uh, guys?"

"Yeah?"

"My feet are in the ground."

And, then, because that was what his life was these days, his butt fell through the bench and he hit the ground with a solid thud.

Mocking laughter rang through the air, informing him that his fall (and hopefully only his fall) had not gone unnoticed by other students spending their free period before lunch outdoors. He recognized Paulina's high-pitched laughter among the rest and felt his face heat up.

Under the table, Sam aimed a surreptitious kick at Danny's shin with her boots and Danny hissed, recoiling. Fortunately, it was enough for his feet to pop free from the earth and he sat up, dusting a few errant blades of grass from his arms. Pulling his legs out from under the table, he climbed back into his seat and sighed.

"At the very least, maybe they could come up with something to get us to stop doing that. I mean, come on, if my parents can invent something that turns us—" he glanced at the nearby table where most of the laughter had come from. No one seemed to be listening but with something like this, one couldn't be too sure. He lowered his voice to hiss, "—y'know, then maybe they can do something to change us back."

"Or it could kill us," Sam pointed out. "Y'know. For real."

Danny's forehead hit the table again. Knowing his parents, Sam was probably right. The fact that they hadn't completely died in the Accident was pure luck, as far as Danny could tell. Not that he knew much about ectoplasm or ghost dimensions or portals.

Somewhere behind him, the bell rang, announcing second lunch, and Sam clapped her hands together once with an excited hiss.

"What's got you so excited?" Tucker asked.

"Oh, nothing much. Remember that program I mentioned I was pushing for the school board to try?"

Danny raised his head. "You mean the lunch program?" He frowned. "I thought you'd dropped that." He'd barely been able to function normally with all this ghost weirdness, he was surprised Sam found the wherewithal to finish her one-woman campaign against the school board. Then again, it was Sam….

"What program?" Tucker asked warily and narrowed his eyes. Sam merely swung her legs over the bench and rose to her feet. "What'd they do to the meatloaf? Sam, what did you do to the meatloaf?! Sam!"

Danny sighed and, ignoring Tucker's frantic yells, followed Sam into the school. They were probably in for a week of salads, tofu, veggie wraps, fresh fruit, and whatever else. It couldn't be that bad.

It could.

Her name had been Dorothy, Before. This was a fact, nothing more. None of the children ever called her by her name. She was simply the Lunch Lady and that had been fine for her. It was all about the children and lunch. Making lunches for the children, serving lunches to the children. Hundreds of children, thousands. Countless faces filing by her station day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Every month the same menu, each meal reoccurring exactly every two weeks, without fail, following the menu she herself had written long ago. Were there minor deviations? Perhaps. Special weeks. Special days of pizza. But those were scheduled. Those were planned. They were a menu.

And so it had always been. Until now.

She could hear the distressed sounds as the children beheld the food on their trays. She could feel their shock, their disgust.

And, like nothing had ever before, it called to her.

It was grass. On bread. With dirt. Actual dirt. Or maybe not actual dirt, Danny didn't think the school would go that far, but it sure as hell looked like it!

"Don't you think this is a little extreme, Sam?" he asked

The satisfied, dare he say, smug, smile on his best friend's face said no. No she didn't.

No one noticed the teacher's approach until he was suddenly there. "Ah, Miss Manson." Lancer's hand came down on Sam's shoulder and she jumped, startled, and he withdrew his hand. "Sorry. The school board wanted me to personally thank you for ushering in this welcome experiment to our cafeteria."

Tucker's eye twitched as Lancer approached. "Meat...near…!" he mumbled and then actually sniffed Lancer.

Lancer, not at all put off by the teenager's sudden movement, which was decidedly canine, merely held his hands up nervously. "No, no, the rumors about the all-steak buffet in the teacher's lounge are completely untrue."

Danny might have believed it. If the man hadn't chosen that exact moment to raise a toothpick to his lips. Tucker made a strangled sound and Lancer made his escape.

"Thanks again!" he muttered to Sam and hurried off.

"Yeah," Tucker groused, "thanks again for making us eat garbage, Sam."

"It's not garbage," she retorted, holding her turfwich aloft. "It's recyclable organic matter."

"It's garbage," the boys deadpanned.

Sam shrugged. "But it's your lunch, so. Eat up."

Tucker glared down at his plate as if he could transform it into meatloaf through sheer will alone. Danny didn't think that was the sort of thing a ghost could do, though. After a long moment of boring holes into it, Tucker pushed his tray towards Sam and propped his elbow on the table and sulked.

"My all-meat streak is fourteen years strong and I will not be breaking it for this," he declared with a tone of finality.

Danny looked down at his spoonful of, well, turf, and wondered if it would be worth it just so he didn't spend the next few hours hungry.

He would not, however, get a chance to decide, for at that very moment, cold swelled from his center, shooting upwards with a rush of air, and the reflexive exhale which followed was visible. At the same moment, Sam slapped her hand over her own mouth to hide the dark smoke which would follow a feeling that she described as 'like swallowing a chili pepper in reverse' alerted her to the sudden arrival. Tucker's fingers spasmed like they'd been shocked, which was pretty much exactly what it felt like, and he quickly curled them into fists against his chest.

"Oh no," Sam coughed behind her hand.

Tucker glanced between them. "You guys felt that too?"

Danny opened his mouth to confirm but was interrupted by something soft but firm colliding with the back of his head. It wasn't painful, but it got his attention, which is exactly what the boy screaming his surname wanted.

Sam was already halfway out of her seat before Danny even turned to see Dash, butthead in chief of the Casper High student body, came storming over with a plate of mud in hand and a glare that promised pain. Par the course with Dash, really. What wasn't was the awareness of a ghost within their immediate proximity.

"I ordered three mud pies!" Dash shouted. "Do you know what they gave me!? THREE. MUD. PIES. With MUD. FROM THE GROUND!" He narrowed his eyes. "All because of your girlfriend!"

"She's not my girlfriend!"

"I'm not his girlfriend!"

Dash seized the front of Danny's shirt and hefted the smaller boy clean into the air. He paused to set the plate down on the table nearest him then grabbed the front of Danny's shirt with his other hand.

"These are the best years of my life! After high school it's all downhill for me!" He shook him once. "How am I supposed to enjoy my glory days eating mud?!"

"Actually, it's topsoil," replied Sam, not helping.

"Whatever!" Dash snapped, practically throwing Danny back into his table. He snatched the plate from the table beside them and slammed it forcefully down in front of Danny. "Eat it," he growled, "all of it."

Danny sighed and picked up his plastic spork, prepared to once again simply give into Dash's demands to save his own skin—

Ice swelled and Danny's eyes flicked towards movement in his peripheral. A plump woman in a pink uniform glided past the food window. From this distance, it was difficult to make out any details, except her movements were far, far too smooth to be anything but flight. Sam had both hands over her mouth and was looking around frantically but her back was to the ghost and Tucker was too busy watching Dash to notice Danny's pointed look.

Thinking fast, Danny did the first thing which popped into his mind. He grabbed the plate, leaped to his feet, and yelled "GARBAGE FIGHT!" Then he threw the whole thing directly into Dash's face.

What followed was chaos. Pure, unadulterated, chaos.

Though Sam was prepared to go down swinging in the crossfire defending her meal choices, Danny quickly pulled her down to the relatively safety of floor level and gave her a long, tempering look. The three of them crawled as quickly as they could through the throngs of students having the time of their lives in glorious, muddy combat, towards the kitchens. Dash screamed a vow of vengeance and Danny winced but otherwise ignored him.

They slipped into the kitchen unseen. It was surprisingly empty of human staff, and, given that he'd heard no screams before his sense went off, Danny figured something else must have drawn them away. This ghost, though, she was front and center, fussing with a bowl of salad that was, for some reason, not out for the students to choose from. She was a plump woman who, according to Tucker's whisper, somewhat resembled his grandmother. She wore the same pink outfit as the current lunch staff, albeit somewhat faded, including a pair of yellow gloves and white apron. Her short white hair hung loose around her neck, meaning either she'd died before hairnets became a requirement, or simply didn't care to spend her afterlife wearing one. Though why or how anyone could be so devoted to school lunches as to come back wearing the uniform was utterly beyond Danny. As was why she wasn't haunting, like, a bingo hall or something else old people found fun.

"Hello children, can you help me?" she asked sweetly as the door swung shut. She floated towards the trio about a foot off the ground, gesturing with her hands as she spoke. "Today's lunch is meatloaf, but I don't see the meatloaf. Did someone change the menu?"

"Yeah," Tucker replied and jerked his thumb in Sam's direction. "Her."

"Dude," Danny muttered.

The Lunch Lady's sweet smile lingered half a beat longer and then she was suddenly all flames, sharp teeth, and red eyes. "YOU CHANGED THE MENU!?" Her voice reverberated with the fury of a thousand aggrieved culinarians and she began to swell in size.

It was at that moment the three teenagers realized they were prooobably in over their heads.

"THE MENU'S BEEN THE SAME FOR FIFTY YEARS." She let out a roar so loud it caused everything not bolted down to rattle ominously.

Danny let out a wordless yelp and darted in front of Sam and Tucker as if to shield them with his own body.

"Yeah, thanks, I feel sooo much safer," Sam muttered, pushing Danny's arm down. "We doin' this or what?"

"'Or what' sounds good!" Tucker replied, his voice several octaves higher than usual.

Sam scoffed. "Fine! Stay here and hide then! We'll take care of this." She looked at Danny and her bravado…wavered. "You ready?"

He gulped and nodded. "Lets go ghost!"

She grabbed his hand just as he reached inwards towards the cold place deep inside where everything that was Other waited. It answered his call. Light flared around their midsections and swept across their bodies in identical rings. Comfortable clothing gave way to jumpsuits, black hair turned white, and the dull colors of human eyes gave way to otherworldly glowing.

If the Lunch Lady was surprised to see the two of them transform, she didn't show it.

"Back me up, Danny!" Sam's newly echoing voice ordered. She shot into the air in a blur of black and white. Danny followed a bit more slowly. Something about letting Sam take the lead on this just seemed like a bad idea.

"Listen, you!" his best friend shouted at the vengeful spirit. "That menu you're so fond of is from the fifties! This is the twenty-first century! There is nothing wrong with change!"

"That's not for you to decide, you ungrateful brat!" the ghost snapped and the row of stoves began to rattle ominously. "I control lunch! Lunch is sacred! Lunch has rules!"

"Uh, not really?" Danny said and then winced as she turned her flaming eyes on him. "I-I mean—it's not that big of a deal? Maybe?"

Y'know, for a kid who grew up hearing about ghosts day and night from his parents, you'd think he'd remember certain key facts about how ghosts worked. Like how all ghosts were supposed to have that one thing which kept them going past their natural lifespans. That thing which became everything to them. For this woman, somehow, that thing was apparently school lunch.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

The Lunch Lady let out another unholy roar and this time her cry was echoed by the ovens as they began to spew unnatural green fire. At the same moment, her glowing hands hurtled a dozen plates directly at the half-ghost children. Sam jerked herself upwards and out of the way, leaving Danny to frantically try and catch them.

"Would you get your butt in gear?!" Sam screamed at their 'teammate', still human on the ground.

"Okay, okay!" he cried, clenching his fists and screwing up his eyes. For all of his boasted progress earlier, Tucker actually had the least control out of any of them. Sure, Sam was levitating at least once an hour and Danny had the tendency to go intangible when he got nervous, but at least they could transform at will. "Come on," he muttered. "Come on. Think ghostly thoughts! Come on."

"TUCKER!" Danny screamed.

He peeked one eye open just in time to see a line of plates coming straight for his head. Tucker yelped, throwing his hands up to protect his face, and wished he was anywhere but here—

And suddenly found himself crashing into a table somewhere very much not there.

Somebody screamed.

Danny and Sam stared at the spot where Tucker had been an instant before, their sixth senses helpfully supplying what their others failed to grasp. Tucker was gone. He'd physically moved, though neither could tell how far, only that he was no longer in the room. Instantaneously. The plates shattered harmlessly against the wall near the door. A moment passed and they glanced at each other in confusion. Danny shook his head quickly and turned to face the Lunch Lady once more.

She snarled at them. "Lunch is the lifeblood of the student body! Lunch gets you through the day! And you need protein for that!"

"And there are plenty of plant-based alternatives which are better!" Sam shot back, fists clenched at her sides. "For someone so obsessed with feeding kids, you sure don't know a thing about—"

"Uh, Sam?" Danny interrupted but it was far too late.

"Oh, you think so?" The Lunch Lady spat. "We'll see about that, child!" Still flaming green, she rose into the air and disappeared through the ceiling.

Sam growled and started after her but Danny caught her by the wrist. "Sam! Would you give it a rest?!"

She whirled on him, golden eyes blazing with fury. At the same moment, the row of ovens started snarling, and the two ghost teenagers whipped around in surprise. They weren't just spewing unnatural fire anymore, oh no, that crazy bat had somehow brought them to life! Their oven doors had disappeared completely, leaving gaping, fanged maws which spewed flames, and beady eyes. With eyebrows.

When they lunged, Danny and Sam screamed in unison. Thinking quickly, or perhaps not even thinking at all, Danny went intangible and flew through the nearest wall, pulling Sam with him. Intangibility was apparently beyond the skills of the sentient ovens and they collided with the wall in a cacophony of metal and ungodly screams. Danny popped back into tangibility just in time to hit the floor in the hallway behind the kitchen.

They flipped and rolled a few times as the excess momentum wore off and ended up in a tangle of glowing limbs on the floor.

Danny blinked at the locker three inches from his nose…and then a grin stretched across his features as he realized what he'd managed to do. On command, no less. "Ha!" he laughed, scrambling to his feet. "It worked!"

Sam, on the other hand, was too busy fuming to be impressed. "Seriously?" she growled as she pushed herself to her feet. "This is the thanks I get for thinking like an individual? I swear, I'm gonna—"

"Sam, stop." He grabbed her upper arms and prayed the seriousness in his tone would get through to her. "Trust me when I say, there is no way you are going to win this argument with her. Lunch is her 'unfinished business' or something. All you'll do is tick her off even more than you already have."

Her golden eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm sorry, which one of us told her lunch isn't sacred?"

"Okay, any more than we have. Happy?"

"No. And where's Tucker?" She looked around. "I thought he'd just gone invisible or something but—"

There was a sound like thunder from above and the whereabouts of their missing friend suddenly was the last thing on their minds.

It didn't seem fair to Danny that a normal, forty-something teacher was able to haul him to the office like a misbehaving dog when he was the one with the super powers here but that really was just his life now.

"Mr. Lancer, please," Danny tried for the third time, "you have to listen to me. Sam—"

"Will be joining you both shortly, don't you worry, Mr. Fenton."

"But she—wait. Both?" Danny perked up, despite himself. "You found Tucker?"

Mr. Lancer's scowl turned annoyed. "'Found' is not exactly the word I would use."

He didn't offer anymore information and Danny knew better than to press him for details. He glanced at Dash over his shoulder and the quarterback grinned nastily at him. Danny whipped his head around quickly, heaved a sigh, and allowed himself to be directed into Mr. Lancer's office. Where, if his odd sixth sense was correct, Tucker was waiting.

Sure enough, when the door opened, there he was, perched contritely on a plastic chair in front of Mr. Lancer's desk. He had a few strange stains on the front of his shirt but other than that, he seemed entirely unharmed. He was staring intently at the door and though Danny saw a flicker of relief at his arrival, Tucker pressed his lips together when his eyes confirmed what his sixth sense must have been telling him: Sam wasn't with them.

"Where's Sam?" Tucker whispered as Danny was dropped into the empty chair beside him.

"As I told Mr. Fenton, she will be joining you shortly."

"B-but, Mr. Lancer," Danny stammered, "she didn't—I mean—whatever you think's going on here, Sam didn't have anything to do with it. Really."

Lancer fixed him with a stern look and walked around his desk to a large file cabinet. He pulled open the drawer labeled 'freshman'.

"Where did you go?" Danny hissed as softly as he could manage.

Tucker gulped. "Um…."

"Tucker Foley," Mr Lancer read aloud. "Chronic tardiness, talking in class, repeated loitering by the girls locker room…."

The fact that Tucker didn't so much as react to any of those marks on his record spoke volumes in Danny's opinion. He really hadn't just gone invisible. But what else was possible?

"Danny Fenton," Lancer went on and Danny nearly winced. "Thirty-four dropped beakers in the last month, banned for life from handling all fragile school property, but no severe mischief before today. So, gentlemen…" He dropped their files on his desk and smiled. Neither one of them bought it for an instant.

"Why did the two of you conspire to destroy the school cafeteria?!"

Danny would've liked to say he didn't recoil, but, well.

"We didn't!" Tucker yelped at the same moment Danny argued, "Dash started it!"

Lancer drew back. "Not according to the other students."

"But he threw—"

"Four touchdown passes in the last game and is thereby exempt from scorn. You two, however, are not." Lancer folded his arms.

Tucker clenched his fists. "But Dash—"

"Also did not throw himself onto the buffet table in the teacher's lounge."

Danny blinked. Turned his head towards Tucker. Glanced at the stains on his shirt. Tucker met his gaze and shrugged sheepishly.

"I'll be mapping out your punishments when I return." Mr. Lancer announced and walked over to the door. "I advise you both to sit here and consider your actions in the meantime. Mr. Baxter, guard the door."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Lancer, sir," Dash replied and threw a mean smirk in their direction the moment Lancer's back was turned.

The door slammed shut and Danny rounded on his best friend. "You did what?!"

"It wasn't like I meant to!" Tucker cried, leaping to his feet. "One second I was in the kitchen with you guys and the next, I'm face first in the steak buffet in the teacher's lounge! Which was totally real, by the way. I have no idea what happened! But where is Sam?!"

"The ghost took her," Danny explained, scrubbing his hands across his cheeks. "We were fighting in the hallway. I accidentally transformed back to normal and got swatted like a fly. By the time I was back up, they were gone, and then Lancer had me."

Tucker groaned. "This is my fault, isn't it?"

"At this point, Tuck, I think it's all our faults."

"We have to find her."

"Duh," Danny replied and reached for his ghostly half once more. It responded to his call without issue or hesitation and where was that when he'd needed it earlier?

His sixth sense told him Sam was somewhere below him but beyond that, it was difficult to say. As far as he could tell, she was on the move, and fast, which meant she'd probably managed to free herself…and was probably being chased. Frowning, he flew over to the panel of security cameras Lancer had on the far wall. He didn't expect the ghost herself to be visible on them but maybe they could find some kind of clue or….

Or maybe he could see Sam fly by right in front of his eyes with a familiar glob of meat in hot pursuit. That worked, too.

"There she is!" Danny pointed to the screen labeled BAS-2 then whirled around, expecting to see Tuck in his own ghostly form, ready to go. But he was just standing there. Human.

"Come on, we gotta go!"

"I–um–well you see, the thing is—"

"Tucker!" He nearly shouted, glanced furtively at the door, then lowered his voice to a loud whisper, "Would you please just change already!"

"I can't! I haven't figured out how!"

Danny stared, nonplussed. "Seriously?"

"Yes!"

"It's been a month and you still—oh crud." He could hear Lancer coming back. "We'll talk about this later. Can you at least go intangible?" Tucker nodded and Danny grabbed his hand. "Good. Hang on!"

They both turned intangible and Danny pulled them down into the floor just as the door to Lancer's office swung open. Whatever his reaction to their disappearance would have been was lost as they sank beneath tile, stone, piping, and wiring to the basem*nt below.

They found Sam dodging chicken legs in 'BAS-2', which turned out to be some sort of meat locker. Tucker had a bit of a moment when he realized what had been lying beneath their feet this whole time but, thankfully, was pulled back to the task at hand when Sam went hurtling by.

"What took you guys so long?!"

"Lancer," Danny shouted after her then had to duck to avoid a sirloin.

"YOU!" The Lunch Lady hissed and both boys whirled around. Tucker yelped and promptly became intangible to avoid a barrage of hamburger patties. Danny, uncowed, leaped into the air and jabbed his finger at the ghost's face.

"Would you knock it off?! We don't want the menu changed anymore than you do—"

"Hey!" Sam protested from somewhere across the room.

"—but this is not how you solve anything!

To his utter shock, the Lunch Lady slowed to a halt. She floated a few feet away, eye-level with him, and narrowed her eyes. Though pieces of assorted meats continued to swirl and swam around her, after a long moment, the flames emanating from her skin diminished, and so did she.

When the Lunch Lady had come to deliver her reckoning, she had expected to find some interloper in her place. Some other woman wearing her uniform, feeding her students. Oh, there was one, to be sure, but she hadn't been in the kitchen when the Lunch Lady arrived. She'd tacked on 'abandoning her post' to the list of the woman's crimes (the first of which was existing) then went about looking for the meatloaf. She hadn't expected to learn that a mere child, not the interloper, had somehow convinced the school board to change her menu. (That was not to say they were off the hook. In the end, it was the adults who had the final say in how things went around here, this she knew well.)

And she certainly hadn't expected to find three young ghosts in residence at her school!

She folded her arms and considered the two boys in front of her: one still intangible, and the other trying is hardest to look intimidating (and failing spectacularly). The girl was…somewhere. Close. She had quite the mouth on her but apart from being disrespectful and rude, she wasn't fighting back. None of them were. And the Lunch Lady wondered.

"You kids are…new, aren't you."

The intangible kid's eyes popped open and he and the floating boy glanced at each other.

"Th-this is our first semester," the intangible boy replied. She scowled at him and he shrank back.

The floating boy drifted to the side, placing himself between her and the other, she noted. Despite this, his voice was hesitant when he asked, "Do you mean new ghosts?"

The Lunch Lady inclined her head.

"Um. Yes. Ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

Well at least one of them had manners.

Her scowl returned. That certainly explained why they weren't fighting back. It was probably taking all their energy to maintain enough control over these human kids whose bodies they were riding around in. More like as not, they'd fallen through a natural portal and had gotten stuck. But that gave them no right to invade her school and change her menu. Not that she'd had a chance to claim the school, as such, but now with that stable portal nearby, it was hers for the taking! These children, no matter how old they were, had only just arrived. They had no claim on that which had been hers for fifty years!

But, they were young. Someone had to teach them the way of things.

"Alright, sweeties," she crooned, clasping her hands together. "You're absolutely right. There's no need for violence. I'm sure we can work this whole mess out."

The boys stared at her. Further down the aisle, the rude girl's head peeked around one of the boxes.

"You…what?" the floating boy squeaked.

"Obviously there's been a terrible misunderstanding," she went on. "I don't want to fight you! We could even help each other!"

Slowly, the floating boy lowered himself to the ground by his friend whose own body was returning to tangibility. The rude girl narrowed her eyes suspiciously and didn't come down from her perch. That was annoying but, no, no, this would do for now.

"You see, children, this is my school. For fifty-two years I worked here, serving lunches to you kids. Why, I'm the one who designed the menu you still eat today! Or should be," she hissed and threw the rude girl a look which was returned with equal venom. Brat. But no, no. Calm. "And this also happens to be the place where I died, which makes it mine. Unless…" she paused, frowning. She hadn't considered this. "You died here as well?"

"Uh, no ma'am," said the floating boy, whose legs had dissolved into a wispy tail the color of his jumpsuit.

"Wonderful! Then there's no reason for us to fight! I don't want to hurt you kids, I only want what's mine and for things to be as they should be!"

"But it's our school," the grounded boy protested. "We go here!"

She narrowed her eyes at him and this time the anger swimming through her refused to be fully quelled. "You lost that right when you changed my menu, children."

"B-but we didn't! I didn't!" The boy placed his hands on his chest. "I love meat! I love meatloaf day! And so does Danny!" He pointed to the floating boy.

The Lunch Lady tisked but considered the boys once more. Neither of them had outright attacked her and, really, she couldn't blame them for being defensive of what they thought was theirs. So long as they learned their place, she could, perhaps, permit them to attend classes here…. After all, neither would be stepping on her toes if all they wanted to do was attend classes.

"Perhaps—" But then the rude girl floated out from behind her boxes and put her hands on her hips. A challenge. And her anger, like boiling soup left unattended, bubbling viciously, swelled towards the surface. "That one," she growled, failing to notice the way the floating boy tensed once more, "isn't welcome here."

"Yes," the floating boy interrupted and began to rise into the air once more. Another challenge. "She is."

The Lunch Lady's eyes flicked to the self-proclaimed meat-lover. So did the floating boy's. He glanced between them for a moment and then puffed out his chest. "Yeah! We're a package deal!"

Well, then. That was that.

Danny wondered what it said about him and his life that the fact she turned into a giant meat monster wasn't the most surprising part of that whole encounter.

Chapter 2: Ghoulash

Chapter Text

Danny cracked open the front door to his house and peered inside. The way he figured, there was no way Mr. Lancer hadn't already called his parents. However, just because he'd called didn't mean the Fentons had answered. They didn't have a phone down in the lab and sometimes they went days without checking the house voicemail, assuming the phone hadn't been gutted for parts again.

His parents were waiting in the entryway. Which, y'know, figures.

"Oh, hi sweetie!"

Or perhaps not.

"H-hi Mom, hi Dad," he replied nervously and opened the door, revealing Sam and Tucker behind him, whom his mother greeted with a little too much emphasis to her usual cheer for everything to be normal.

Danny's eyes flitted around the room for anything potentially dangerous or out of the ordinary. The muffled whirring of a vacuum cleaner drew his attention down the hall, where he spotted his sister in a losing fight with the Fenton Xtractor. Wasn't hard to guess what had happened there, but why? Danny frowned. He considered helping her for exactly one second before deciding Jazz probably stood a better chance against that thing than he did and simply headed for the stairs.

"School was fine, nothing to report," he lied. "We'll be up in my room doing homework and stuff."

A lie which might have been believable if a single one of them had a backpack.

He ignored his parents' gazes as they hurried up the stairs and hoped his friends had the sense to as well. Neither of them had been very keen to come over to his house ever since the Accident and, honestly, he didn't blame them. It wasn't even the proximity to the portal which bothered them, it was his parents. Danny knew exactly how they felt. There was something…unnerving looking into the eyes of people who dedicated their lives to hunting the very creature you'd become.

They felt better once the door to Danny's room was closed.

He slumped face first onto his bed and sighed loudly. He knew without looking that the body that dropped down beside him was Sam's.

"Jeez," he grumbled, "who knew flying for our lives would be so exhausting?"

"Don't forget fighting meat monsters and phasing through walls," Sam added, her voice muffled. There was a rustle and then she said, clearly, "and carrying dead weight."

"Hey!" Tucker protested. "I helped!"

She scoffed. "Yeah, barely! What's with you? Why didn't you change?"

"Because he can't," Danny muttered.

"You can't?!" The bed wobbled as Sam hopped onto her hands and knees. "Since when!?"

"Since the second or third day!" Tucker exclaimed.

Sam let out a long, wordless groan of frustration and smacked something. Probably her forehead.

Tucker sighed, folded his arms, and dropped down into Danny's desk chair.

"Okay, ignoring everything else for a second here, why didn't you tell us?" Sam asked. Danny lifted his head in time to see Tucker shrug wordlessly.

"Tuck, come on." Danny propped himself up on his arms. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. We're all struggling here."

"And we're never going to get any better if we don't help each other," Sam added.

Tucker glanced at them, then out the window, and sighed. "'Cause it was the first thing either of you figured out. You remember those first few days. I could barely stay in either form for ten minutes. So it's not like I can't change, it just won't work." His frown deepened into a pout.

"You were going intangible just fine earlier," Danny pointed out. "And the…whatever the other thing you did was. Teleporting?"

Sam sat back on her heels and gawked. "That's what that was?!"

"Apparently."

"Cool."

A small smile tugged at Tucker's lips. "I guess. Be cooler if I could control where I ended up."

"Why, where'd you end up?"

Danny grinned. "Teacher's lounge. Right over the all-steak buffet."

Sam let out a noise that was halfway between a scoff and a laugh and shook her head. "How the hell did you explain that one?"

Now Tucker was really grinning. "Well, nobody saw me appear. They probably think I snuck in and then threw myself at the buffet face first."

"Yeah, that tracks."

"Right?"

"Oh my god," she cackled. "I thought those stains were from the meat monster. Please tell me you destroyed the buffet."

Tucker heaved a sigh. "Such a waste."

"Um, we're kind of off track here," Danny pointed out.

"Oops, sorry," Sam said without an ounce of remorse."Where were we again?"

"Tucker can't transform."

"Oh, right." Her mouth twisted thoughtfully. "Well, what have you tried?"

Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "Just about everything I can think of, honestly. I know my ghost half is there, I can feel it, I just can't… grab it."

"It's not about grabbing it," Danny said.

"Well, then, what do you two do?"

Danny and Sam glanced at each other. It wasn't something easily put to words, even for each other.

"It's like…there's something cold here," Danny began slowly, placing his hand over his heart. "But it's not something I'm always aware of unless I'm looking for it. Like a heartbeat but cold."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, "except it's warm for me. What about you, Tucker?"

Tucker's lips twisted thoughtfully. He looked down at his chest and then closed his eyes. A few moments passed in silence except for the sounds of their breathing and a gentle hum coming from somewhere downstairs.

"It isn't hot or cold," Tucker finally said. "It feels…sharp."

"Sharp?" they echoed and glanced at each other once more. Danny shook his head.

"Yeah." Tucker opened his eyes and his expression fell a little. "Yours aren't?"

"Not…really, no," Sam said slowly.

Danny shook his head. "Not at all."

"Helpful," Tucker muttered. "Maybe that's why I'm having trouble. I'm different than you guys."

"We're all different," Sam pointed out. "But it doesn't seem that difficult. The power's there, waiting to come out. You just have to want it to."

Danny nodded and then froze. Was it really that simple? "Wait a second," he said slowly, "do you think maybe that the reason you can't transform is that you don't really want to?"

Tucker grimaced. Bingo.

"Aw, Tuck." Danny sat up, bringing his legs around so he could sit on the edge of his bed closest to Tucker. "How come?"

Tucker took a deep breath and exhaled a frustrated groan. "See, that's just it! Today, in the kitchen, I was trying to transform! I wanted to help you guys but it wouldn't work!"

"Wanting to help and wanting to go ghost aren't the same thing," Danny pointed out. "I mean, I'm no expert here, but there doesn't seem to be any trick to getting any of our powers to work except wanting them to." He glanced at Sam for confirmation and she nodded. "You managed to teleport and go intangible earlier."

"Yeah, but that was to protect myself." Tucker looked down, dejected. "I guess that's what I really wanted, huh?"

Sam floated off the bed and landed on her knees in front of him. Peering up into his eyes, she gave him one of her rare, genuine smiles. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect yourself, y'know. And," she added with a hint of excitement, "if I'm right, that's what this is all about."

"What do you mean?"

"Like you said, those first few days after the accident, you couldn't stop transforming. It didn't matter where we were or what we were doing. You had no control. I'll bet what you really wanted then was to stop transforming altogether. Am I right?"

Danny's eyes widened. Tucker chewed on his lip thoughtfully.

"If that's the case," she went on, "then, in theory, all you have to do is start wanting to transform again and it should work. Eventually."

"Yeah, and then what, Sam? What if I go back to like I was before? I won't be able to leave my room! Never mind actually go to school or anywhere else."

"Well, you can't stay like this," she said firmly and rose to her feet. "Being afraid of yourself definitely isn't healthy. And besides, you never know. I mean, we're all making progress with our powers. I only floated in class once today," she added, chin lifted in pride. "And Danny didn't fall out of his chair. Or through it."

Sam extended both her arms towards Danny as if he were Exhibit A for well-adjusted ghost boys.

Danny decided not to mention what'd happened at breakfast.

"I mean…I'll try," Tucker mumbled.

Sam lowered her arms to her sides. "And we're here for you, though, no matter how long it takes you to figure it out. Right Danny?"

"Absolutely," he agreed. "There's just one small problem: we don't have time to wait for Tucker to get himself straightened out." Tucker's shoulders slumped but Danny pressed on. "There's still a ghost at school and we've got to do something about it, pronto."

Tucker wrinkled his nose. "I mean, do we have to?"

"Yeah, Tuck, we do. What do you think's gonna happen if we try to go back to school tomorrow? The moment she sees us, she's gonna flip out again. People will get hurt, maybe even killed! It'll be chaos! My parents will get involved."

Scowling, Sam leaned against the edge of Danny's desk. "So, what do we do about it? We can barely fight and unless you want me to, I don't know, cook her with my hair, we don't exactly have a lot of options."

Jazz came stomping down the hall, halting their conversation. Danny heard her door rebound off the wall with an impressive thud and slam shut with equal force a moment later.

Danny winced. "I think my parents might have accidentally turned the Xtractor on her."

"Accidentally?" Sam muttered.

"Oh, c'mon, Sam, they wouldn't do it on purpose!"

"Well, they certainly weren't helping her."

"Danny didn't either," Tucker pointed out.

Danny snorted and shook his head. "As the only one in this room with a sister, trust me when I say you cannot possibly understand why I left her there."

Sam's hands clapped together, startling both boys, though not half as bad as the glint in her eye did a second later. "That gives me an idea. Danny, what exactly does that extractor thing do?"

"Uh, if I remember right, it's supposed to suck ectoplasmic entities out of people."

A beat. Tucker looked repulsed. Sam licked her lips. "Does it work?"

"Thankfully, no."

"But some of your parents' inventions do!" She clapped her hands together again. "Tucker, get that list you've been making."

Tucker obeyed, though with some hesitation, and slowly pulled the PDA from his pocket. "Okay…"

Smirking, Danny leaned back on his hands. He knew where this was going.

Casper High was unnaturally dark.

Danny had passed by the school at night before and he knew there were always lights left on in the hallways, but as far as he could tell, there currently wasn't a single light on in the entire building. As if he needed another reason to suspect the Lunch Lady was still in residence.

She'd made it pretty clear before that she considered the Casper High campus her domain now. She didn't seem to mind the presence of humans, fortunately for the students, faculty, and staff who'd been present earlier that day, but how long would that last? Even if the half-ghosts kept their distance, the Lunch Lady was dead and the job vacancy she'd left behind had long since been filled. There was no place for her here and as soon as she realized that, she would undoubtedly get violent. Then the casualties would begin.

They met beneath the football bleachers, hidden from view in case anyone happened to drive by. As per the plan, Danny had snuck out of the house with as much functional Fenton tech as he could carry, which admittedly wasn't much, and they looked even less impressive once he spread them out on the ground for inspection. There was a gun that fired and reeled in a ghost-proof net, an ectogun the size of a shotgun, the (still nonfunctional) Fenton Thermos, and the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick (which was, as far as he could tell, just a bat with the word Fenton on it).

"Was this really everything?" Sam asked with enough disappointment to sink a freighter. "I thought your parents have been making anti-ghost weapons for years!"

"Well, yeah," said Danny, "but they keep most of it locked up in the weapons vault."

"You have a weapons vault?" Sam and Tucker replied in unison.

"Yeah and pretty much everything in there was made before the portal was up and running. None of it's ever been tested. I figured this stuff has a better chance of actually doing what it's supposed to, since it was made after."

Sam pursed her lips, picked up the Anti-Creep stick, and gave him a pointed look. "Danny, this is a regular bat."

"Well, if you don't want it…."

"I didn't say that." She twirled the bat a few times then brought it to rest against her shoulder.

Danny couldn't quite hold off a smirk. Picking up the ectogun and the thermos, he handed them to Tucker. "Take these. Stay out of sight as much as you can and when you get a clear shot, take it."

Tucker nodded seriously. He hooked the gun under his arm and held up the thermos. "Didn't your dad say this thing doesn't work yet?"

"I was hoping maybe you could figure it out."

"Me?!"

"Well, sure. You're the techno geek here, remember?" Danny grinned. "Besides, a fresh pair of eyes might be just what it needs."

Tucker's brow furrowed and he frowned at the thermos but Danny could see the wheels already turning behind his eyes.

"And," Danny went on, picking up the Grappler, "if all else fails, we can catch her in this and haul her back to the portal by force!"

"But Danny, you don't have a weapon," Sam pointed out.

"Don't need one."

"Bull."

"Hey, my mom's a black belt. She's taught me a few things."

The darkness which had permeated the entire school from the outside vanished the instant they entered the building and they became eerily aware of how far the Lunch Lady's influence had stretched in just the few short hours she'd been left unattended. Everything seemed the tiniest bit off, in the same unsettling way as furniture in a familiar room being shifted one inch to the left. The walls a little too tall, the edges of the lockers a little too sharp, the doors spaced a little too far apart. The ever present posters and banners on the walls were distorted, askew. A faint glow seemed to radiate from walls themselves, and the sound of the air moving through the vents could very well be mistaken for a faint moan or wail.

It was, in short, creepy as all hell, and their ghost senses went off the moment they phased inside.

Tucker's first few footsteps seemed to reverberate forever. Without a word, Danny wrapped his arms around Tucker's chest, and hefted him into the air. Tucker grumbled about the position being undignified but he was quickly hushed by Sam. He allowed himself to be carried down the hall without further complaint.

The halls began to fill with blueish light the closer they drew to the cafeteria. When they rounded the corner and the cafeteria doors came into view, so, too, did the source of the light, almost obscenely bright, filtering through the windows on the door.

"Well," Danny muttered, "looks like we were right. You guys ready?"

Tucker flipped the switch on the ectogun, it powered up with a high-pitched hum, and then he turned invisible. Sam tapped the Anti-Creep stick against her palm and dropped out of visibility as well.

"Remember, should worst come to absolute worst, we call in my parents," Danny whispered then phased through the wall.

The entire cafeteria was glowing. The walls, the floors, all emanating an uncanny blue light. The air around the tables distorted as if they were radiating extreme heat but when Danny approached, he felt nothing. He set Tucker down by the table then floated higher into the air for a better look at their surroundings. The Lunch Lady herself was not present and despite the weird distortions, nothing seemed to have been animated like the ovens earlier.

The clang of metal hitting metal startled Danny so badly he had to slam his hands over his mouth so he wouldn't scream. He whipped around towards the kitchen but he could see nothing through the metal shutters covering the serving window. After a few moments, there came another noise, quieter than the one before. A rattling. Then a drawer closed. Danny lowered his hands, exhaled quietly, and started towards the kitchen. He was aware of Sam floating alongside him about five feet to his left, still completely invisible to his eyes.

He silently phased through the shuttered window and looked around. The stoves were on and going, but not alive (for the moment), and he saw pots of something cooking away on their burners. The Lunch Lady herself was floating at the counter where Danny often glimpsed lunch ladies dishing out fruit into little cups to be served. She was cooking. Just cooking. She had ingredients piled around her that she pulled from and put into the pot she was currently working on. Goulash, probably. Tomorrow would've been goulash day if the menu was as it should be. And she was humming to herself, a lively little tune that completely belied her eerie surroundings.

Danny…paused.

He had never really bought into all the facts his parents claimed to know about ghosts. According to his parents, ghosts were imprinted with instincts and memories from the life of the human they came from. Of course, they said a lot of other things on that topic, some of which Danny never bought into, but maybe, just maybe, they were right about this. How many days and hours had that lady spent in that very position, making that same goulash recipe from memory, humming to herself to pass the time.

It was kind of sad, really.

Giant meat monster, Danny reminded himself. Major damage potential. Will literally kill Sam if given the chance.

Still, it didn't seem right to just fire on her from behind.

Danny could feel Sam hovering just beside him and he threw her what he hoped to be a tempering look. He emerged from the wall and landed silently on the floor near the door. The Lunch Lady still hadn't noticed him.

So, Danny cleared his throat quietly and asked, "Are you making lunch for tomorrow?"

A slight stutter in her rhythm was the only indication the Lunch Lady had heard him but she recovered almost instantaneously and kept working. She did not acknowledge him.

"Goulash, right? Goulash day always comes after meatloaf day." Danny went on, watching her carefully for any sign that she was about to attack. "But it never tastes very good."

The Lunch Lady paused.

"I think it's the cook's fault. A lot of the stuff she makes isn't good. Could I try some of yours?"

And, finally, the ghost turned around and stared at him. She was probably sizing him up, weighing her options, and wondering where the others were. He tried to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible and wished he had pockets to shove his hands into.

"You aren't welcome here, child," she sing-songed after a moment.

Danny shrugged. "I've been a social pariah since the first day of kindergarten. Not being welcome is my default state. Can I try the goulash?"

The Lunch Lady considered him with a tilted head and narrowed eyes. "Where are your friends?"

"Around," he replied with a vague gesture of his hand. A thought flitted through his mind and he grabbed at it. "All that running earlier really took a lot out of us. I'm the strongest. So is that a no on the goulash?"

She said nothing.

"Oh well," he sighed, "I guess I'll never know how good it could be."

"Very well, dear."

He could practically feel Sam's eyes on the back of his head as he followed the Lunch Lady over to the stoves. She grabbed a plastic bowl and a ladle and scooped some out for him. Conjuring a spoon up from…somewhere, she held out both for him and Danny accepted them with a genuine smile. He peered down at the contents and stirred them around with the spoon.

"There's a lot in this," he noted, glancing up. "It isn't just noodles and hamburger."

"It's my recipe," she told him with a hint of pride. "I've always made it exactly this way. Go on, try it."

Danny shrugged once and lifted the spoon to his mouth. He chewed slowly to savor it and… "It's good," he realized aloud.

"No talking with your mouth full."

He finished chewing as contritely as possible, swallowed, then said, "Really good."

The Lunch Lady preened.

"Y'know, you could try and get a job here," he suggested. "I could put in a good word for you."

"Oh, that's very kind of you, sweetie, but I've already got it taken care of."

Not good. "You, uh, you do?"

"Yes, sweetie! Tomorrow morning, when the other lunch lady gets here, I intend to take over her body."

"Wait, what?"

The Lunch Lady looked at him like he'd sprouted a second head. "Like that body you're riding around in."

Danny frowned. "Huh?"

She pointed at him. "Just as you have taken that human's child body, I intend to take the body of the woman in charge around here as my own."

Danny looked down at himself, confused. What was she—oh. Ooooh. His parents had been right! Ghosts could take over living bodies. What had they called it? Possession? He didn't blame her for making that assumption. Hell, he probably would have too in her case.

He shook his head at her. "This is my body."

"And come tomorrow, I'll have my own body, too," Lunch Lady replied simply. Something about her tone caused the hairs on the back of Danny's neck to stand up. Or maybe it was the way the air around him suddenly seemed hotter and thicker, pressing in on him unpleasantly.

Damn. Well, there'd be time later to mourn the delicious lunches that could never be. "B-but what about her? Her life? That's not fair to her!"

"You say with stolen lips."

He pressed his lips together. She wasn't going to believe him even if he told her. "But you'll hurt her," he protested.

"The old bat only has a few years left in her. She'll hardly miss 'em."

She intended to be in it for the long haul, then. She was gonna ride around in that woman's body until she died and then move on to another one until it expired, too. And on and on and—no. No. Not on his watch.

Danny drew himself up to full height and tightened his grip on the bowl. "I can't let you hurt her," he warned.

Though her expression remained pleasant, the edges of her hair had begun to dance with flames and a strange gleam entered her eye. "Now, sweetie, you know students aren't allowed in the kitchen. So, why don't you take your goulash and go eat outside."

Danny took a deep breath, sent a silent prayer to anyone that might be listening, then threw the bowl of goulash into her face.

That did it.

Tucker was crouched out in the cafeteria near the door to the kitchen, wondering what the hell Danny was playing at in there, when there was suddenly a loud crash and his best friend came careening through the wall, hollering at the top of his lungs, and disappeared through the opposite wall.

Tucker leaped through the wall and into action, just in time to see Sam swing the Anti-Creep Stick right into the Lunch Lady's head. A human would've probably died on impact. The Lunch Lady was only sent careening into the nearest countertop. Undeterred, Sam was already bringing the bat back around for another swing.

He hefted the ecto-gun up to his shoulder and took aim.

Sam hit her again, this time in the shoulder, and the Lunch Lady let out an earthshaking bellow of rage. Stew exploded from the pots on the stoves, the ovens burst into flames, cutlery rose into a swirling dangerous torrent.

"You conniving little BRAT!"

The Lunch Lady began to swell in size. Sam, wisely, backed off, but twirled the bat in her hand in anticipation. And Tucker, knowing an opening when he saw one, pulled the trigger.

The ectogun kicked like a f*cking mule but the result was a softball-sized glob of green energy blasting the Lunch Lady right in the gut. She screeched and her eyes zeroed in on him, and so did the whirl of cutlery. Tucker dropped his invisibility, figuring there was no point now, and instead focused his efforts on remaining intangible.

Danny came tearing back into the room behind Tucker just as the cutlery came hurtling in their direction and barely managed to avoid getting skewered.

"Change of plan," Danny huffed. "Give me the ecto-gun, you focus on the thermos."

"Got it." He tossed Danny the weapon and then backed through the wall into the cafeteria. Danny shouted something at the Lunch Lady and the ectogun went off, followed by another roar. Tucker unhooked the thermos from his belt and held it up.

He'd had a few thoughts earlier but, really, there wasn't much to go on here. He had no idea how it worked, what it was made from, or what it was supposed to do beyond 'trap ghosts'. Maybe if he had an hour to take it apart—

No. No. Danny and Sam were counting on him. He could figure this out.

Tucker had known Danny, and by extension his parents, since they were in preschool. The elder Fentons may have been kind of nuts but they were brilliant inventors when they put their minds to it. The fact that they lived primarily off of patents they had made when they were younger could attest to that. This 'Fenton Thermos' was functionally sound, he had to believe that, it was just missing something. Something they hadn't accounted for, didn't have access to. But what?

Danny wondered if giving Sam the Anti-Creep Stick had been wise. She was having way too much fun with that thing. For the first minute or so, the Lunch Lady didn't seem to know what to do against a teenager armed with a baseball bat and absolutely thriving. But giving the ghost hell had been the goal, so, objectively, the Anti-Creep Stick had been a good idea. Except now Danny wasn't sure they'd be able to get it away from her when it was over.

But all things considered, he thought the fight was going very well.

Until it wasn't.

More specifically, until the Lunch Lady figured out that the bat was literally all Sam had going for her and started to give chase. She flew close to the smoke detector and the damn thing started screeching and flashing and then the sprinklers had the audacity to kick in and add half a dozen torrents of water into the mix. Sam started swearing up a storm and the Lunch Lady yelled at her for her language and Danny took the opportunity to fire the ecto-gun at her again.

It was, in short, utter pandemonium. Not to mention the sudden added pressure of the imminent arrival of the fire department.

The Lunch Lady snarled at him and went intangible and began sinking into the floor. Danny fired again and the blast hit her right in the chest and knocked her flying. She flung a barrage of knives in his direction and Danny, panicking, held the gun up to shield himself. Some glanced off the sides but he felt three distinct impacts, the force of which shook him. He lowered the gun to assess the damage. Three glowing knives had imbedded themselves in the gun, one in the barrel, one just above the trigger, and the third in the energy core. He pulled the trigger and the gun's only reaction was to become searing hot beneath his hands, letting out a high pitch whine that grew in intensity with every second that passed. Thinking fast, he flung it like a frisbee at the Lunch Lady then retreated to Sam's perch on the industrial-grade vents over the flaming stoves.

The Lunch Lady went intangible long before the gun reached her and didn't even turn to watch as it exploded against the wall.

"This isn't going well," Danny commented.

"Oh, ya think?" Sam snapped. "As fun as this is, I can't really do much damage to her with this thing."

The Lunch Lady grinned at them and lifted her arms into the air. The air around them began to swirl, taking the water with it. Food burst forth from the fridges and cabinets, rose up from the floors and counters, mixing with bowls, plates, trays, and pretty much anything else not bolted down.

"I've had just about enough of you little brats!" She shouted. "You need manners, discipline, respect!"

Danny and Sam gaped at her. What now?! If Sam tried to charge her, she'd get hit with a barrage of the dangerous mix swirling around them. There was no way the Fenton Grappler's net was big enough to hold her when she was nine feet tall and the ecto gun was shot. And the fire alarm, which continued its ear-shattering screeching, warned of the fire department's imminent arrival.

Suddenly, the door to the cafeteria burst open and there was Tucker, leg extended like he'd kicked it open, which he probably had. He dropped his leg and, eyes glowing an unnatural blue, held the uncapped thermos out in front of him. "HEY, UGLY!"

The Lunch Lady rounded on him with a furious growl. She spotted the thermos and screeched, "No! Soup's not on today's menu!"

"Man, screw your menu!"

Tucker squeezed his eyes hut and his entire body began to glow blue. The light passed to the thermos and a beam of pure light shot forth from its mouth. It hit the startled Lunch Lady dead on and she let out an unholy screech as it began to draw her in. She writhed and struggled, her body distorting as she struggled against the pull of the thermos, screaming denials, threats, and vows to return, before her words became inaudible over the whirl of the thermos and the blaring alarms.

She disappeared inside the thermos and Tucker slammed the lid on top. The wind in the room abruptly died as the ghost's connection to the physical world was terminated, the light faded from the walls, the flames in the ovens sputtered out, and everything that had been whirling through the air crashed against the nearest surface with a deafening clatter.

Soaked through with water, goulash, and god-knows-what-else, the three teenagers gawked at each other wordlessly through the gloom pierced only by the painfully bright flashes of the fire alarm.

Tucker found his voice first. "Holy crap it worked!"

The flashing lights outside the cafeteria announced the arrival of the fire trucks and Danny was forced to leave the scattered pieces of the ruined ecto-gun behind.

The teenagers beat a hasty retreat to the rooftops across the street from the school and watched, invisible, as more firetrucks showed up, then police, and Principal Ishiyama herself not long after. Danny lost his transformation not long after the police turned up and Sam's fell away a few minutes later as well. They were too far away to hear anything distinct and there was nothing they could do anyway, so when the news vans began rolling up, they decided it was time to dip.

The incident at Casper High was, predictably, the top story for the morning news. Danny sat on the couch with his parents and sister, slowly munching on cereal, as the reporter on screen cataloged the damage that had been done.

"Police have informed us that they are still working to identify the vandals' point of entry into the school, as all doors windows were locked, and, so far, they have found no signs of forced-entry."

"Jack…" Maddie said slowly. "You don't think…?"

He did think.

Danny forced himself to sit there and chew his cereal while his father took off like a madman towards the lab to get their gear and prayed the remnants of the ecto-gun he'd left behind were untraceable.

Chapter 3: Paranormal Activities

Chapter Text

The choice to keep their powers a secret from their parents had been made within the first twenty-four hours of the Accident and boiled down to the fact that they'd go ballistic.

Sam wasn't sure what her parents would freak out about more: the fact that she was in a lab accident, the fact she was half-ghost, or the fact that she had some weird psychic connection to two boys. They'd probably resort to moving out of state if that was what it took to get her away from the Fentons. Tucker's parents were a lot more reasonable but even they would probably forbid him from seeing Danny again. As for Danny's parents, well, who even knew? But as time went on, their behavior only solidified the decision in his mind. Their disdain for ghosts ran unnaturally deep for two people who'd never seen one until a few weeks ago and, if they thought Danny was a spirit possessing the body of their son, he wouldn't put it past them to do something regrettable.

The decision to try the whole superhero thing came the day after they'd destroyed the Casper High kitchen. School was canceled while police investigated, and the half-ghosts congregated on top of the Fenton Ops Center to discuss what the f*ck they were supposed to do now.

Even if Danny could figure out how to turn the portal off, his parents would just fix it. Rebuild it if they had to. The damn thing had doors but they must've ended up haunted because they opened and closed whenever the heck they felt like it, and it was going to take his parents a while to come up with a stable locking mechanism that could successfully function in proximity to a hole in reality. In the meantime, the proverbial front door was wide open for all sorts of ecto flotsam and jetsam to come through at their leisure.

Given that every ghost they'd seen thus far had picked a fight or caused property damage, they had to assume that any ghost coming through would be looking to do the same. Leaving them for squishy, breakable humans to deal with was out of the question. Not even the Fentons, for all their years of paranormal research and weapon designs, were prepared for the active threat they now faced. Hell, they hadn't even realized the threat was even here yet.

So…that left them, three teenagers that were somehow both ghost and human, to deal with the problem. And one of them couldn't even transform. f*ckin' A.

"If we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to be smart about it," Tucker said seriously, "and we gotta go all in. Plans. Strategies. Protocols. Gotta protect our secret identities, too, so we need code names."

"Which means no more Fenton Anti-Creep stick," Danny agreed with a pointed look at Sam. "Give it back."

"Yeah, guess a bat with your name on it would be a bit conspicuous, huh?" Sam mused with a rueful frown. Then she shrugged. "Sure, I'll bring it by later. But we are going to need weapons. That ecto-gun last night was cool while it worked, but it's way too big for us to haul around. Do your parents have anything small?"

"That was the small one," Danny admitted with a grimace. "Other than that it's just stuff like the Grappler, which isn't actually a weapon, and this." Danny held up the now-functional containment device and turned it back and forth for inspection. "Good job, by the way. How'd you get it to work?"

Tucker smiled with pride. "I basically gave it a jump. Like a car."

Danny blinked owlishly. "Alright then. Think you could do it again?"

"Sure, probably. Why? Are there more?"

"I don't think so. We'll need at least three for all of us." He sighed. "I wonder if I can convince them a ghost stole this one to get them to make more."

"Well, okay, so we have something to catch the ghosts in, but we still have to fight them," Sam pointed out. "And for that, we need weapons. No offense, mister my-mom's-a-black-belt but you did jack last night."

"Hey! I threw a bowl at her face. That counts."

Sam's eyes flicked skywards and she inhaled through her nose. "Goulash is not a weapon."

"You've never eaten the school goulash or you wouldn't say that," Tucker intoned gravely and Danny nodded.

"Oh yeah I'm sure it'll be real funny when the next ghost turns us into goulash!" she snapped.

"You mean ghoul-ash."

"Danny Fenton, I swear to god I will finish the job."

He cackled, utterly unabashed. Her eyes flashed yellow, and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. But he didn't apologize.

"So much for being serious about this," she grumbled, folding her arms, and leaned against the support column behind her.

Tucker heaved a sigh. "I hate to say this, but Sam's right. We might be half-ghost but we really don't have anything going for us here. The Lunch Lady was the worst ghost we've faced so far but what if she's, like, average for a ghost and all the other ones were just weaklings? I mean, she's the first one that actually looked and acted human."

"And if she'd been able to meat-up again, there's no way we would've gotten her without some serious damage to the school." Danny agreed. "And us. I don't know. I'd rather fight with my fists. I just need practice. But if you want to keep the bat thing, going, you should go get a metal one so you don't burn it to a crisp with your hair."

Sam touched the ends of her hair thoughtfully. As a ghost, it lingered somewhere between hair and flames, leaning more towards the latter the angrier she got, and her ponytail was constantly on fire. She'd already set a poster on fire by leaning against it, the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick probably wouldn't fare any better. "I'll do some research," she said.

Danny nodded once then turned his gaze to Tucker and Sam mirrored him. Tucker glanced between them, uneasy. "What?"

"You can't get into a fight until you can transform."

"Hey!"

"Look, Tuck, we all agreed our ghost forms are more durable than our human ones. You can't even fly like this! Never mind the fact you'd be recognized."

Tucker's shoulders slumped and he folded his arms. "I am trying, y'know. I tried last night at the school, on the roof, and at home. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong! I want to transform!"

Danny and Sam glanced at each other. "It's going to take longer than eighteen hours to figure it out, Tuck. You need to, um… process your fears. I think that's what Jazz would say. But in the meantime, you have to stay back, no matter what happens."

Tucker's frown hardened in determination. "I'll figure it out."

They used Nasty Burger as an excuse to get close to Casper High around noon. A sizable crowd had gathered behind the police tape cordoning off the whole premises, most of them students and reporters. Over half a dozen vans with various company logos were parked in the parking lot, along with a couple cop cars, a firetruck, and a few sedans which probably belonged to the faculty currently on campus. The Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle was parked just up the road but Danny couldn't see any sign of his parents, which either meant they were being kept far from the scene…or they were already indoors.

Tucker whistled quietly. "It looks like they've called in a small army. Was it really that bad?"

"The sprinklers got set off. There's probably tons of water damage," Sam pointed out. "And that's assuming they only went off in the kitchen and cafeteria."

"Well, I didn't expect to see you three here."

The three teenagers startled at the imposing tone of their teacher's voice. Mr. Lancer wasn't quite glaring daggers at them but it was a near thing. "If I were you, I would've stayed far away for as long as possible."

Sam folded her arms and lifted her chin, radiating defiance the way her ghost radiated heat. "Why? I didn't do anything."

Lancer let out a neutral hum. "You two, however."

Danny shrugged. "We were worried about her. It looked like she'd been hurt during the fight." And you weren't listening went unspoken but all present heard it nonetheless.

"And so you decided to cut school for the rest of the day."

Sam raised her eyebrows but otherwise said nothing. Neither did the boys. Another moment of glaring and Lancer seemed to realize he wasn't going to get anywhere right now. "We'll discuss this later. I expect all three of you in my office first thing tomorrow. Or whenever we reopen."

"Do they know what happened?" Tucker asked with just enough enthusiasm to pass for a teenager excited his school had been wrecked.

Lancer exhaled through his nose and shook his head. "The official story for the moment is that vandals broke into the school and destroyed the kitchen and cafeteria. Which reminds me: Miss Manson, unfortunately, the school board has decided to pull the menu program."

Her glare deepened into a full on scowl and she let out a sound of disgust.

The next day, after relinquishing the Anti-Creep Stick, Sam dispatched Danny with fifty bucks and a shopping list while she braved the massive sporting goods store that had just opened in the mall. She'd spent the night before researching what kind of bats would suit her needs most so she would go in prepared. She ended up learning way more about major league baseball than she'd ever wanted to but at least she would be able to make her purchase without needing to chat up an employee and remain unmemorable.

After carefully determining which bat would be her new partner in not-crime, she headed to the camping department where she purchased three robust multi-tools with price tags that would probably make the boys wet themselves. She also picked up some cans of mace (no matter what ghosts were made of, eyes were eyes, right?) and securable carabiners. Next she went to the army surplus store and bought three black utility belts and three black accessory pouches for storage. Finally, she went to a pharmacy, and bought the largest first aid kit she could find.

She met up with Danny at their designated spot near the park and he eagerly presented her his bounty. Two bags full of supplies she'd requested and some color swatches for heat resistant spray paints to choose from. She selected a metallic black that, according to the description, would have a slight blue sheen in the sunlight, and sent Danny back to buy it.

Tucker still hadn't returned their calls by the time they were done so they went to Danny's house instead. They hid most of their purchases in the trunk in Danny's room then retreated to the Ops Center roof. They spread out the newspapers and trash bags to protect their work area and then Sam proudly presented her bat for inspection.

Danny took it, testing its weight and balance, even swung it a few times like he knew the first thing about baseball, and finally returned it to her with an approving, "Nice."

They donned their protective masks and goggles and got to work. Danny dutifully ripped pieces of masking tape which she affixed to the grip of the bat. He held the bat upright on its knob while Sam sprayed on primer with an ease which could only come from experience. Not that it really surprised him. She didn't always tell them everything she got up to but this definitely tracked.

The bat had to be held steady for ten minutes while the primer set and dried and while they waited, their conversation quickly turned to the subject of what she'd bought. So she phased through the roof and returned half a minute later with her bags, which she began to unload. His jaw. D dropped.

"Holy crap, Sam, this must have cost a fortune!"

Sam shrugged. She wasn't so spoiled as to say something like 'it was only three hundred dollars' but the fact was, she didn't consider three hundred very much at all when it came to their safety. "I've had a lot of allowance saved up." And it wasn't even a lie, really. She did save a lot of her allowance. Her allowance was just significantly larger than most kids her age.

"And it's worth it," she added.

"You gotta let me pay you back for some of this."

"Nope."

"But Sam! This is…"

"Consider it an investment in our longevity and security. And don't even try to give me any money," she added sharply, pointing her finger directly at his nose. "I'll just put it back in your room when you're not looking. You have to fall asleep at some point."

He nodded, still uncomfortable, but wisely opted not to press the subject. But that didn't stop him from muttering, "You act like I won't feel you coming from a mile away."

Of all their new, strange abilities, the peculiar sixth sense they had for each other was perhaps the easiest to come to terms with. It had taken them a while to notice it, since they had hardly left each other's sides for two days after the accident. It wasn't until Tucker and Sam's parents finally demanded they come home that they realized anything had changed. The moment they left his house, Danny became keenly aware they were gone. For the first minute or so, he thought it was nothing, just an after effect of having spent the better part of sixty hours with them. Except it didn't go away. Danny could feel Sam and Tucker moving further and further away. A frantic three-way call confirmed that they all felt it.

It wasn't telepathy (they'd tried) but more of an awareness of each other. With a little concentration, they could determine which direction each other was in, and they could always tell when the others were close by. It was unlike anything they'd ever felt before and not something they could easily articulate. It was just something they knew. The way one might look at the sky and know if it was day, each of them could look inwards and find the others.

But it also meant they were always well aware of each other when they were close by. They each knew the exact moment when they came within a thousand yards of one another and the closer they were, the easier it was to pinpoint their location. Hide and seek was a total bust.

Sam's answering grin was almost predatory. "Wanna bet?"

Tucker turned up around one o'clock, apologized for not returning their calls, and presented them with a large pizza and a 2-liter of co*ke to make up for it.

"Busy morning?" Danny asked as Tucker set their lunch down on the ground.

Tucker grinned and promptly blipped out of existence. Sam gasped and Danny's head snapped up. That wasn't invisibility. Danny and Sam glanced at each other then scrambled to their feet. Danny spotted a flash of yellow after a moment searching and raced to the edge of the rooftop to get a better look.

And there was Tucker, grinning at him from the rooftop across the street. Tucker waved and then blipped out again, only to reappear half a second later right behind Danny, who whirled around with a laugh.

"You can teleport!"

Tucker beamed and turned to Sam. "Did you see that, Sam?"

"Enough," she replied, "where did you go?"

"Just across the street." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "I spent hours last night working on it. So long as I have a clear destination in mind and it's not too far, I can get there."

"That's actually awesome."

Tucker grinned again.

While they ate pizza, Sam brought out her purchases again for Tucker to inspect. Like Danny, he nearly had a stroke when he tried to calculate how much she'd spent. Sam brushed off his stammered offers to help pay for it and shoved one of the belts into his hands.

"You were the one who said we needed plans and strategies and here's my contribution: tools." She held out one of the multitools for him to take as well and, after a moment's hesitation, Tucker accepted it.

Neither boy said anything apart from thanks as she finished distributing everything between them. When she got to the first-aid kit, she paused. She intended to take this back to her house for her own use but…. With a shrug, she opened it, riffled through until she found gauze packs and disinfectant wipes and gave the boys one of each. With that out of the way, lunch resumed in earnest, and the conversation moved onto a lighter subject.

"Y'know," Danny began around a mouthful of pizza. He swallowed, smacked his lips, then continued, "I've been thinking about the code names thing. And I know it's cheesy but hear me out. We should have ghost-themed names."

Sam took a swig of the co*ke they were sharing, smacked her lips, then deadpanned, "Ghost-themed."

"Yeah like uh. Phantom. I was thinking Phantom."

"Just 'Phantom'?" Tucker wrinkled his nose. "That's not very superhero."

"Oh so Flash, Speedy, and Robin are valid superhero names, but Phantom isn't?"

Tucker opened his mouth to argue but then closed it. Sam co*cked her head, mulling it over with twisted lips. She took another swig from the two-liter then passed it into Tucker's outstretched hand. "Phantom."

Danny mirrored her position. "Yes?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm just trying to imagine calling you Phantom. I guess it's not that different from Fenton."

He grinned. "That was where I got the idea from."

"Ooh, ooh ooh!" Practically bouncing in his seat, Tucker threw his arms out to stop both of them. "I got it. Call me…Ghouly."

…

Sam wrinkled her nose. "Isn't that a bad sci-fi movie from the 80s?"

Tucker blinked, lowered his arms. "That's The Ghoulies."

"You mean The Goonies?" Danny asked.

"No!"

"No one is going to take you seriously with a name like that." Sam warned him in disdain. "And that includes me."

"But isn't that a good thing? If no one takes me seriously, they'll never see it coming when I kick their butts!"

She considered that, inclined her head in agreement, and then shrugged. "I guess it is your name. But I'm just saying, it's not very intimidating."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Alright then, what about you?"

Sam puckered her lips and leaned back on her hands. She deliberated for a moment then replied succinctly, "Lilith."

Danny shook his head almost immediately. "Uh uh. No way."

"Hey!"

"Sam, you cannot go flying around named after the literal mother of demons."

Sam started to grin. "You remember!"

"I pay attention when you tell us things… Most of the time."

"C'mon, it'd be cool."

"Sam, I cannot even begin to describe to you the frenzy my parents will descend into when they find out where that name comes from."

Her grin turned wicked and she folded her arms, leaning towards him. "Sounds like my kind of party."

"Aren't you Jewish?!" Tucker protested. "Isn't naming yourself after a demon, like, against the rules or something?"

"Even more reason to do it, honestly."

Danny buried his face in his hands with a groan. His parents going nuts would only be the beginning. There would be conspiracy theories. Exorcisms. Cults.

"Buuuut," Sam drawled, "I guess it's more demonic than ghostly."

Danny glared at her. She smirked back.

"You weren't really going to go by Lilith were you?"

"Nah."

"Sam!"

Among the mess left behind by the vandals was a peculiar green substance which the police could not identify in the time between its discovery and dissolution nearly a full day later. And, so, nearly thirty-six hours after the first responders initially arrived on scene, the police decided to humor the 'paranormal investigators' loitering beyond the police line. The Fentons were allowed into the kitchen while the officer in charge of the scene, two detectives, and a CSI looked on in amusem*nt.

The ectoplasm itself may have long since dissolved but the Fentons weren't forerunners in their field for nothing. After less than a minute on the scene, Maddie Fenton, holding some manner of scanner in one hand, pointed to a discolored patch on the wall and asked if they'd found a glowing green substance which had dissolved after twenty-two hours.

Their smiles faded.

And Maddie, who had known from the first that she was merely being humored, had to use every ounce of self-restraint within her body to not smirk at the members of law enforcement. Finally, she had their attention. The CSI took careful notes while she described ectoplasm and its behavior and how to preserve any future samples they might acquire. The detectives, on the other hand, were less than thrilled when she told them that their perps had probably quite literally walked through the walls.

"Ectoplasm!" Maddie squealed in the middle of their kitchen. "Can you believe it?! The destruction in the school was caused by ghosts!"

"Uh, Mom? You maybe want to sound a little less excited about that?" Jazz asked, glaring over the edge of her book.

(No. No she did not.)

A scream shattered the peaceful night air like a fist through a drum and woke half the block.

"GHOST!"

Even though he'd planned for his dad to spot him, Danny still let slip an undignified yelp. He whirled around, clutching the thermos to his chest, and stared down at the man glaring at him through the open window. He grinned, gave Jack a friendly little wave, then disappeared before he could go for an ectogun. He waited a few minutes then slipped back into the house, transformed back into Fenton, and dropped into bed with a satisfied grin.

The following morning, Jack was combing through the entire lab for the Fenton Thermos, which, of course, was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Maddie went down to help him look.

Danny…waited.

And waited.

Finally, twenty minutes after his mother joined in, he casually made his way down to the basem*nt and peered around at the mess of inventions, boxes, and whatnot scattered across every available surface and parts of the floor. The weapons vault was wide open and he heard his father moving around within. His mother was perched in the computer chair, arms folded, scowling.

"Did you guys find it?" he asked, playing the role of the doubtful but dutiful son to a T.

Maddie exhaled through her nose and shook her head.

Danny's jaw dropped. "You don't think…?"

"I think," she said slowly, a dangerous edge to her voice, "it's time we got to work making that ghost shield.

School resumed the following Monday with an assembly in the auditorium that all students and staff were required to attend. Principal Ishiyama explained what had happened the previous week, as if there was anyone left who didn't know, and gave them exactly nothing new. Which was exactly what the police had.

Neither Danny, Sam, nor Tucker were fooled. They knew the police suspected student involvement but had nothing to pin anyone with, which was what this assembly was really about. And, sure enough, when the police chief took the stage, he dangled a metaphorical carrot over everyone's heads with the promise of a cash reward for any substantial tips which helped lead to an arrest. As expected, the student body quietly salivated at the prospect.

Tucker let out a whine so quiet that the human sitting to his right couldn't hear it, but the half-ghosts to his left absolutely could. Oh, this would torment him for a while.

Lancer caught them as they were filing out with the rest of the student body and asked them to come to his office during lunch. Nothing they hadn't expected, really, but at least Lancer didn't look particularly upset.

Morning classes felt odd. Everyone was a bit out of it after an unexpected week off, and the teachers outright admitted they were going to be compressing lessons so they wouldn't fall behind schedule too badly. Danny, for his part, kept his head down and, short of turning invisible outright, tried to do nothing which would draw the attention of any of his regular bullies. He so did not want to give Lancer a reason to be mad at him later.

He and Sam shared third period world history, and Danny was uncomfortable the moment he set foot inside the classroom. It was like butterflies in his stomach and the strangest feeling of something intermittently squeezing his body. No one else seemed to be acting unusually. Sam would shift oddly in her seat every so often, as if uncomfortable, but it was hard to tell if she was feeling what he was or if she was struggling with floating again.

Their teacher was focused on the board.

Danny quickly scribbled a note and slipped it onto her desk. Sam opened it surreptitiously and her lips twisted as she read it. Without a word, she folded the piece of paper back up and tucked it between the pages of her notebook. She glanced at Danny and gave him a discreet nod.

So she did feel it.

The lesson forgotten, Danny tried to figure out what exactly was wrong with their classroom. It couldn't be a ghost, their senses would've gone off. Was it a lingering effect of the haunting? He tried to picture the layout of Casper High in his mind, where they were currently, and ooooh. The kitchen was literally thirty feet away. Sure there were a few walls and a bathroom between it and them but this was as close as they'd been to it since last Monday. That couldn't be a coincidence.

Danny and Sam were the first ones out of the room when the bell rang and they practically tripped over themselves trying to get as far as they could as fast as they could. By the time they had put an entire hall's length between the kitchen and themselves, the unease finally faded. This was where Tucker found them three minutes later, on his way towards Lancer's office.

He took one look at their faces and asked, "You guys okay?"

Sam told him to go take a walk down the hall. He was confused but did as instructed and they both watched him like hawks while he sauntered along the hall. About halfway down, his steps faltered. Another twenty feet and he stopped dead in his tracks. He stood there, completely still, while throngs of students brushed past him in annoyance on the way to the cafeteria. Then without warning, Tucker spun on his heel and practically scurried back up the hall to them.

"What in the actual hell is that about?" he demanded.

"Oh, good," said Danny, "so we're not crazy."

"I would be if I had to sit through a whole period of that." Tucker folded arms. "What the hell?"

"Those bathrooms down there? The kitchen is on the other side."

Tucker's eyes widened. He turned to give the hall another appraising look and then shuddered. "No thank you. What gives? Did your parents do something?"

Danny shook his head. "Not that I know of and, trust me, if they'd been allowed to ghost-proof the space or something, they would've told me and Jazz."

"Twenty bucks says the Lunch Lady did it," Sam said with a scowl.

"How do you figure?"

"She was alone in there for hours and you remember what this place looked like when we got here. The whole school had changed, and the way the cafeteria glowed. I'd have been more surprised if there wasn't some trace left."

"But then, why didn't your parents detect anything?" Tucker asked Danny. "They have all that fancy equipment."

"I think they might have," Danny replied thoughtfully. "They said they'd found leftover ectoplasmic residue but I thought it was just because of the exploded ectogun. Maybe it was more than that."

"And maybe we're more sensitive than their equipment," Sam said simply.

Tucker nodded. "Cool, cool. Now, how do we get rid of it?"

"I suppose I can ask my parents," Danny offered for lack of anything better.

"You do that," Sam said. "I'll do a bit of research. See if I can't find anything about purifying a haunted building or something."

"Pfft. How are you going to find something like that?" Tucker asked.

Sam arched one dark brow and crooked a single finger at her face. "Goth."

Tucker looked between her and Danny in confusion. But apart from a sage nod on Danny's part, he got no clarification, so he sighed. "Whatever. We goin' to Lancer's or what?"

Or what might have been the preferable option.

"Miss Manson, Mr. Fenton, Mr. Foley, come on in," Lancer greeted and stood aside for them to enter his office. He wasn't alone. A cop leaned against the wall, way too casually for a man in full uniform. Danny nearly had a heart attack. Tucker did an immediate 180 but Sam snagged his arm before he could leave, and dragged him inside.

"This is Officer Graham," Lancer introduced and the other man waved.

"Hey there, kids."

Sam was having none of it. "I thought we were here to talk about the whole food fight thing."

Lancer nodded. "Indeed we are. Have a seat please." He gestured to three chairs waiting in front of his desk just for them.

Danny went to take his seat but Sam, and therefore Tucker, did not budge. She stared at the officer pointedly.

Lancer and Officer Graham exchanged a look. "Would you mind waiting outside while my students and I discuss things?"

The cop nodded and quietly excused himself from the room, closing the door behind him. Finally, Sam relaxed, and released Tucker's arm. They took their seats without a word.

"I apologize," Lancer said as he sat down. "I realize how that must have looked. I assure you, his presence here has nothing to do with the three of you. He is simply here in the event any students choose to come forward with information about the incident."

Sam folded her arms. "Sorry. My parents taught me not to say a word when the police get involved without our lawyer present."

Lancer inclined his head but did not seem surprised. Unlike her friends, who glanced at her and each other with quiet incredulity. "I see. Well, then, let's get down to business. We have multiple eye-witnesses who claim you, Mr. Fenton, were the one to instigate the food fight last Monday. From beyond the football team," he added pointedly.

Danny sighed. There was no point in denying it. "Yeah."

"You admit it?"

"Yeah, it was me." Danny sat up straighter. "But Sam and Tucker had nothing to do with it."

"Actually," Sam cut in tersely, "I did, sort of. Dash was ticked off about my lunch menu and picked a fight with Danny over it because we're friends."

Lancer raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. Surprised none of your eye-witnesses mentioned that."

"Actually, some did." His mouth twisted in displeasure. "However, that does not excuse your actions, Mr. Fenton. Nor does it excuse sneaking out of my office or skipping school. Speaking of which, how did you get out?"

Danny shrugged. "You've seen Dash play. He's a lousy guard."

Lancer fought a smile and almost won. "I see."

"And we were justified. We told you, we were worried about Sam."

"Ah, yes, that reminds me. Miss Manson. Were you hurt during the fight?"

She shook her head. "Got hit in the head with a milk carton but that was about it. But we did get separated and, considering why Dash came after Danny to begin with, you can't blame them for being worried about me on my own."

Mr. Lancer inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Be that as it may, you should not have left my office."

"You wouldn't let us get a word in edgewise!" Danny snapped, his temper flaring. "Maybe if you'd actually let us tell you what was going on, we wouldn't have had to!"

"Careful, Mr. Fenton."

Danny folded his arms and looked away.

"And as for you, Mr. Foley." Lancer gave him a look of pure weariness. "Just… why?"

Tucker licked his lips. Opened his mouth. Closed it. "I lost a bet."

Lancer let out a long sigh. "And I don't suppose you'll tell me who put you up to it?"

"Nope."

The boys got after school detention.

Chapter 4: Homecoming Spooktacular

Chapter Text

The ghosts started coming more regularly. It was as if the Lunch Lady had gone back and told everyone about the new stable portal she'd found. Which, in actuality, might have been exactly what happened. Or perhaps word got around in their world, and ghosts long trapped were flocking to Amity Park to take advantage of a way out. Danny wouldn't mind if they just wanted to pass through, except none of them did.

But there must have been some other way out of the Ghost Zone, how else could ghosts have been here for humans to learn about them to begin with? And Danny wasn't always the first one to be alerted to their presence. More than once, he got a frantic call from Tucker or Sam at an odd hour for him to bring the Fenton Thermos for a ghost his sense hadn't detected. Meaning it hadn't come from his house.

Jack finished another Thermos. Danny waited a full day before making off with it, this time leaving behind a note in handwriting as different as he could manage from his own.

We got them working! Thanks!

Sam had thought it a poor idea but Danny didn't see the harm. At least his parents wouldn't get the wrong idea…and, oh, how they'd freaked. Apparently ghosts being able to write in English wasn't something they'd expected. Oh well.

Sam got to keep the second thermos.

As for Tucker…. Two weeks after they'd defeated the Lunch Lady, he still couldn't get his ghost form to respond. It was a bit of a morale killer for all of them. Even Danny was beginning to wonder if Tucker would never be able to transform again. The rest of his powers were functioning, he was even managing short bursts of flight, but his ghost half was conspicuously absent. Perhaps if there had been someone they could talk to about it, they might have figured it out, but… well. To his credit, at least, Tucker never stopped trying.

And suddenly it was Homecoming.

Danny had been looking forward to his first high school dance… Before. Like many things about high school that he'd anticipated Before, the dance didn't really rate on his priorities list anymore. That didn't mean he wouldn't like to go… but his popularity status had not budged an inch from middle school, and there wasn't a single girl in school who would give him the time of day if he asked, and he damn well knew it.

He briefly considered asking Paulina to the dance (along with every other straight guy at Casper High), but Dash staked his claim early on there and Danny wasn't suicidal.

But then he wondered if, maybe, he should just ask Sam? She wouldn't mind just going as friends, right? While he was working up the courage to ask her at lunch, Sam made it a point to declare how much she didn't want to go, and Danny, relieved that he'd been too much of a coward to ask sooner, did not broach the subject again. It was fine. There would be other dances. And this way, he could focus on Tucker! Transformation or no, he wouldn't remain shuffled to the sidelines for much longer, and Danny wanted to be sure he had enough practice in human form to not be a safety risk.

But it seemed fate had other plans.

Two days before the dance, Danny went down to the lab to use the computer, only to find his dad parked in a chair a few feet from the portal, wearing his soda hat and fishing vest, with a new fishing rod and line he'd designed specifically for ensnaring ghosts. Ghost fishing. Literal ghost fishing.

"Quiet now," Jack drawled, drawing his arm back. "Don't wanna…spook em." And then he cast his line back through the portal.

Danny could only stare in disbelief. He already had enough on his plate and now his dad was actually trying to lure ghosts to their world? What was he even using as bait?!

Jack sat up suddenly. "Whoa! That soda goes through you like Sherman through Georgia! Here, hang on to this!" He shoved the pole into Danny's unwilling hands and took off before he could utter a word of complaint. "I'll be right back after I visit the Fenton Urinal!"

Oh, so, their toilet had a name now. Nice.

Danny sighed, folded himself into the vacant chair to wait, and wondered if he could convince his dad to leave him be while he used the computer or if he should just cut his losses and go.

The pole jerked in his hands, and he tightened his grip reflexively. Something tugged on the line.

"Oh no."

Now, if he were a smart budding superhero who kept his cool, Danny would've simply let the line go, slammed the button to close the portal, and done everything in his power to convince his father to never do that again. But then his ghost sense went off and the tingling cold it left in his throat sent him into a panic. He held fast to the line and prayed, prayed, it was some poor dumb fish ghost.

The line snapped.

Well, crap.

The surface of the portal rippled and suddenly five massive green claws were digging into the floor of the lab, attached to an even bigger blue arm which disappeared inside the portal. Then came another hand immediately after. Danny let out an undignified yelp and abandoned the rod, his dignity, and all pretense of heroism in his frantic scrambling to get away from the portal. The chair clattered to the floor, and, were it not for his quick reflexes, he would've ended up on the floor, too.

Danny was abruptly cast in shadow. Behind him, a low growl rippled through the air, and he shuddered. He flipped over onto his back and…. Oh. That was a dragon. A ghost dragon but, uh, yep. Definitely a dragon.

It dropped the fishing line and bared two rows of glistening white teeth at him in the draconic approximation of a smile. And it was not-friendly one.

Danny whimpered.

"I want to go!" Its voice was terrifying, deep and rumbling and it echoed in the otherworldly way that all ghost's did. It began crawling its way out of the portal, its claws digging into the floor with every step and yet leaving not a trace behind.

Danny scrambled to his feet and bolted, only to find himself snatched up by a large, clawed hand before he could make it more than a few feet. The air was squeezed from his lungs and he gasped, or tried to, but there was no room for his chest to expand in the dragon's iron grip. His hands scrabbled frantically at unyielding scales as thick as his fingers. Free—have to get free!

"I have to go!" the dragon insisted like he had the power to—

Oh, duh.

"Nope, sorry!" Danny shouted over his shoulder.. "Bathroom's occupied!" And transformed.

The dragon's grip slackened the tiniest bit and Danny moved. He wasn't entirely sure what he did but he was free of her grip and that was good enough for him. He rounded on it and caught a glimpse of genuine surprise on its face before it bared its teeth at him. So, like any reasonable human being, he bared his teeth in return.

Below them, Danny's phone began to ring in his backpack. Who the heck was calling him now— Pain exploded in his side and Danny went flying. He slammed into the wall with so much force that it would've probably cracked were it made from less-sturdy materials. He hit the floor like a sack of bricks and laid there, dazed. That…was new.

The dragon's shadow loomed over him and growled.

"BACK OFF!"

That was Sam! Wow, he must've really not been paying attention if he'd somehow failed to notice she was close by. Danny raised his head and blinked twice to clear his vision. Sam, in her ghost form, floated between him and the dragon with her bat raised threateningly. Well, at least she had a weapon.

The next few moments passed too quickly for Danny's brain to fully process it. The dragon lunged at her but Sam was quicker. She brought her bat down on the dragon's exposed neck and hit the back of the amulet it was wearing instead. The clasp must have given way under the force because the next thing Danny knew, something golden and glowing was falling to the floor and the dragon slumped to the floor like someone had cut its strings. It fixed its miserable gaze on Danny as it began to rapidly shrink in size and frame.

What was left in its place was a young woman with blonde hair, green skin, and doleful red eyes. Medieval, from the look of her dress. "All I wanted," she whimpered, "was to go to the ball." And she buried her face in his hands.

Danny pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Yeah, me too."

Sam whipped her head towards him with a look of surprise. "You do?"

Danny nodded and the world spun a little. He decided to stay down for a minute.

The ghost peered over her hands and blinked. After a moment, she seemed to come back to herself, and her doleful eyes cleared. She gulped. "Oh, saints preserve. Not again."

Sam sank towards the floor, stopping just a few inches shy of the tiles, and her tail coalesced into legs. "Uh. Hi?"

"I, erm." The ghosts eyes darted nervously around before settling on her amulet a few feet away. She rose to her feet, brushing her hands over the corset and skirts of her blue gown, smoothing out wrinkles which really weren't there, and gave them a curtsy. "Forgive mine intrusion into your home, my lord and lady. I would fain beg your forgiveness and the return of mine amulet."

There was something he was missing, Danny was sure of it, but his brain felt slower than usual. So he shrugged and said, "Yeah sure."

The ghost woman peered at him with undisguised curiosity. "I thank you, sir."

She took a step towards her amulet and abruptly found herself blocked by a shiny black bat. She blinked at it then followed its length to Sam, who glared.

"Not so fast there, lady. Who are you, what was all that, and why should we give it back?"

The woman balked but composed herself with practiced efficiency. "Forgive my rudeness." She dipped into a formal curtsy and declared, "I am Princess Dorothea, sister of His Highness, Prince Aragon, ruler of the Kingdom of Mists."

Danny whistled quietly. Sam wasn't impressed. "And the whole dragon thing?"

Princess Dorothea averted her gaze. "An unfortunate accident. Seldom do I lose control of my emotions in such a way but we all have our moments of weakness. Once more, I beg your forgiveness, madam, for I was not of my own mind. I mean neither of you any harm nor bear you any ill will…but the amulet is my most treasured possession."

"Uhuh." Sam gave her a long, considering look, then slowly lowered her bat. "Alright, you can take it, but you need to leave. Right now."

"Yes, of course." She shuffled past Sam and scooped her amulet from the floor.

Danny floated into the air and re-oriented himself to land on his feet. The movement startled the ghost princess and she hovered uncertainly in place for a moment. Realizing Danny was only going to lean against the wall, she hurried forward to scoop up her amulet and fastened it around her neck once more. The glow surrounding her swelled for a few seconds then faded to normal.

The princess curtsied again to Danny then to Sam. "Might I know your names?"

"Danny Phantom," he greeted with a mock salute. "Nice to meet you, uh, your highness."

Sam threw a concerned look his way before fixing her gaze on the ghost princess once more. "I'm Wraith."

"I thank you, Sir Phantom, Lady Wraith. I leave in peace."

With that, she turned her back on them, and flew over to the portal. She paused just before entering and glanced over her shoulder at them. There was something unreadable in her expression but she disappeared through the portal before either of them could think to stop her.

Sam was at Danny's side immediately with a worried cry of his name. "Are you okay?" She asked, already feeling around his head. He winced when her hands found a tender spot.

Was he okay? All his limbs were intact. "I think so? My…head feels real weird. How did you know—"

"How's it going down there, Dann-o?"

Both teenagers tensed at Jack's voice and the sound of the door opening at the top of the stairs. With a quiet curse, Sam gathered Danny in her arms, turned them both invisible and intangible, and flew them through the ceiling of the lab. They phased through his room and returned to tangibility. Sam set him down on his bed, her bat on the floor, and urged him to lie down. He obeyed without protest and let go of his transformation and whoooooooaaahh.

His head began spinning almost immediately and he slumped against the pillow, closing his eyes. The flash of Sam's transformation startled them back open and he stared. Her hair was completely down, held back from her face by a dark green headband, and she had on actual makeup.

"You look pretty," Danny blurted out. Sam's cheeks turned pink and she scowled at him.

"Oh yeah, you definitely have a concussion."

"What, cos I think you're pretty? I always think you're pretty. Bet you'd be the prettiest girl at the dance if we went."

Sam looked at him like he'd suddenly grown a second head. "Stay here. I'll go let Tucker in and get your backpack. Who else is home?"

"Just Dad."

"Cool. I mean it, stay right there."

"Yes ma'am."

Wait. Tucker? Danny focused on the part of his mind where there was always a sense of Tucker and, sure enough, he was practically outside his house. Huh. Maybe he was concussed if he'd missed that.

Sam came back a few minutes later with his backpack, an ice pack, and Tucker.

"A dragon?!" Tucker blurted out.

"Yep," Danny replied, popping the 'p', and held his hands up in the air. "Big one. Blue. Actually a princess, though. She was nice."

"Wow. You did hit your head."

"I hit my whole body. Got knocked into a wall."

Sam dropped his backpack and sat down on his bed. "Alright, ghost boy, lift up." He floated into the air obediently and she rolled her eyes. "Good enough." She felt around for the bump on his head then eased the icepack beneath it and he lowered himself back to the bed. Tucker took off his own backpack and sat down on the other side of the bed.

Danny glanced between them and cleared his throat. "So, um, not that I'm not grateful, but how did the two of you get here so quickly? I thought you went home."

"Dude," said Tucker, "we did. I was on my computer. But then I…I felt…it was like…."

Sam studied her hands in her lap with a tense expression. "I felt like you were calling out. I just knew you needed help."

"Yeah," Tucker agreed. "Like how I always just know where you guys are. I knew something was wrong."

Danny smiled. "And you dropped everything and came running."

"Yes," they said in unison.

"Aww," he crooned, settling his head back down on the ice pack, and closed his eyes. "I love you guys."

Sam sighed and Tucker patted his arm. "We love you too, man."

"Can you watch him for a few minutes, Tucker?" Sam asked and he felt her weight disappear from the bed. "I didn't exactly tell my parents I was going anywhere. Or grab shoes."

"Yeah, sure"

"Don't let him fall asleep. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Got it."

The sound of her transformation drew Danny's open once more. Her hair was back to normal. Well, normal for her ghost form, which was exactly the style it had been in when the accident happened. Her makeup was gone, too, and it was just the lipstick again—not her favorite purple, which he remembered her wearing that day, but black. Funny how that all worked. But apart from her face, she looked the same as him. Black jumpsuit, white gloves, belt, and boots. He'd given her and Tucker two of his suits to wear when they came in the portal with him. What would she look like if he'd given her Jazz's old one? Or one of the dozen some odd orange ones they had for visitors?

Maybe it was the concussion talking but it struck him then just how alike they looked in ghost form. Tucker would, too, probably, if he could get his ghost form to come out and play, differences in skin color aside.

Sam floated into the air and Danny realized she hadn't answered his question before. "Saaam, I wasn't kidding earlier."

She paused, confused, and he saw the exact moment comprehension dawned. "Wait you were serious?"

"As a head injury."

She frowned at him but she didn't seem angry. More…contemplative. That was good, right? After a few moments, she sighed. "Ask me again when your head feels better and we'll see."

That was fair. "Okay!"

Sam turned intangible and flew through his ceiling without another word. It was quiet for exactly one full second and then the bed creaked as Tucker slowly leaned into his field of view. Danny shifted his head so he could look at him properly.

"Soooooo…."

"What?"

"What did you ask her?"

"To the dance."

Tucker let out a noise somewhere between a snort and a wheeze and honestly it might have been both trying to happen at the same time. Danny frowned. (Pouted, more like, but he wouldn't ever admit it.)

"What?"

"You got thrown into a wall by a giant dragon then asked Sam to the dance after she came and rescued you?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh my god. Danny."

Tucker and Sam stayed with him well into the evening. Long enough for Maddie to decide to have them stay for dinner before they headed home. About three hours after the time of injury, Danny was feeling well enough to be up and moving around. The swelling had gone down after an hour and took most of the pain with it. His head no longer felt fuzzy, either. By morning he'd be completely fine at this rate, which, from what he knew about head injuries, was not humanly possible. Apparently they weren't just robust as half-ghosts.

They worked on their homework together as Danny's condition improved, and, since Sam brought her laptop, he didn't need to go back down to the lab to use the computer. With his luck, his father would catch something else while he was down there. But, of course, the more his head cleared, the more his mouth-to-brain filter reasserted itself. And with that came the mortification. He didn't regret asking Sam to the dance…but, damn, why'd he have to go and do it like that? Idiot.

Going to the dance could be fun, a nice way to de-stress for an evening. And for all she'd been complaining about the dance before, she hadn't outright said no…. Did that mean she wasn't as opposed to the idea of going as she'd been letting on? And what about Tucker? Sure he hadn't been going out of his way to find a date or buy a ticket but he was more wrung out than either of them by all this. And if they all went as friends…!

He waited until after dinner to ask. Sam and Tucker were still wary around his parents and this would be the longest they had been around them since the Accident. He didn't want to add any potential awkwardness to their already inflated nerves. So when they were back in his room packing up their things to leave, he struck.

"So, my head's feeling better," he began, and Sam stiffened but otherwise continued shoving her things into her backpack. Tucker, on the other hand paused, looked at Danny with a question written on his face, and glanced significantly at the door. Danny shook his head and motioned for him to wait. "Aaannnnd now that it is, I think we should all go to Homecoming together."

Sam whipped her head around.

Tucker straightened up. "I mean, are you sure it's a good idea? The dance in general. Not us all going together. What if there's a ghost attack or something?"

"It's not like they happen every night," Danny pointed out, "and it's our first high school dance. One night off isn't going to be the end of the world and I think it'd be fun! No dates, no pressure, just a couple friends having fun. And, let's be honest, we need a break."

A small smile appeared on Sam's face. Tucker folded one arm across his chest and rubbed his chin with his other hand. "Do I have to wear a suit?"

"You better." Danny folded his arms. "And I'll have you know I am very high maintenance."

Sam let out a sputtering laugh. "Oh, what, was that supposed to be news?"

"Hey!"

Tucker grinned. "Alright, I'm in. Sam?"

Sam heaved a sigh that even Danny could tell was exaggerated. Her cheeks were pink again.

"Oh come on, Sammy." Danny folded his hands together in front of his chest and gave her his best puppy dog eyes. "Come to the dance with your best friends!"

Tucker clasped his hands against his cheek and batted his eyes at her. "Pretty please?"

Sam put her hands on her hips. "Seriously, you guys?"

"Pleaaaassee," the boys chorused and she squinted at them.

"Fiiiine. Fine! But only because I haven't made plans yet!"

It took Danny until the literal moment they picked Sam up at her house to realize she'd probably wanted to go to the dance all along. Not even she could find a dress like that overnight. And after all that energy she'd put into insisting she didn't want to go—actually, for someone who supposedly didn't care, she'd brought it up a lot. Talk about mixed signals. Girls were so confusing.

But Sam looked prettier than he'd ever seen her and Tucker cleaned up nicely, too, even if he was still wearing his beret. So he offered them each one of his arms and they marched off to the school together. Literally, in Sam's case, because she'd worn her favorite boots under that dress. A beret, combat boots, and, well, he couldn't really judge them, could he, because he had a Fenton Fisher tucked away in his inner jacket pocket.

They arrived a few minutes after the scheduled start time to a massive line and muffled music in full swing. It seemed as if the whole school had turned up, minus Jazz. They kept their arms linked while they moved through the line and the librarian taking the tickets cooed over them for a few moments before ushering them in.

The gym was decked out in streamers, ribbons, and bunches of balloons that were definitely not the school colors. Off to one side of the room sat a long table covered from one end to the other in snacks and cups of punch scattered around a large punch bowl, which was being guarded by Ms. Tetslaff herself. Neither ghost nor man would make it past her. The punch would be safe throughout the night. Probably.

Tucker broke off from them with the promise to bring back snacks and punch, leaving Danny and Sam to mill about awkwardly near the door.

"Well," Danny said.

"Yep," Sam agreed.

They glanced at each other. The tension broke and they found themselves laughing at themselves and each other.

"So," Danny said once he got control of himself, "this is a Homecoming."

"This place looks ridiculous. Who even picked out this color scheme?" Sam gestured to a cluster of blue, red, and purple balloons nearby.

He nudged her elbow. "Hey, hey, we should be lucky they even had the budget left for this thing after they had to fix the kitchen and oh crap, Dash just walked in."

"Do not make eye contact," Sam warned, tightened her grip on his arm, and pulled him further away from the door. They kept to the wall, well out of sight from where the more rambunctious and social members of the student body would be congregating, knowing Tucker would be able to find them without a problem.

"So, wanna dance?" Danny asked.

"Eh, sure, why not? But I'm warning you right now, if the Macarena comes on, I'm out."

Of course, everyone knew that when it came to the Macarena, it was not a matter of if but when. The DJ seemed to have wanted to give the stragglers plenty of time to turn up and at the forty-five minute mark, he started rolling out everyone's favorites. True to her word, the moment Sam recognized the opening notes of the Macarena, she disappeared off to the bathroom, leaving Danny and Tucker to abandon whatever remained of their dignity with the rest of the student body.

Sam was just finishing washing her hands when Paulina, Valerie, and Star walked in. She sent a quick prayer in both directions that the other girls would leave her be long enough for her to get out. But from the way Paulina's nose wrinkled at the sight of her, Sam knew it wasn't going to happen.

"You hiding from that, too?" Star asked, not unkindly, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb.

Or not? Sam turned the faucet off and smiled at her in the mirror. "Absolutely."

Star laughed and then disappeared into a stall. Valerie didn't even acknowledge Sam, just leaned against the wall near the door and stared out at the dance floor.

Paulina, on the other hand, decided she just had to open her mouth. "Nice dress, Sam, where'd you get it? The Halloween store?"

And here we go. Sam turned and flashed her a wicked grin. "Why, looking to upgrade yours?"

Valerie raised her eyebrows but didn't look around. Paulina scoffed. "I'm not sure I would call whatever you're wearing an upgrade from anything."

Sam rolled her eyes and started for the door. "Okay, Paulina. Well, when the day comes that I want an opinion from the shallow end of the gene pool, I'll be sure and let you know."

Valerie finally glanced at her then with eyes as round as saucers.

Paulina realized she'd been insulted just as Sam was brushing past her and she threw her arm out to stop her. "Oh no! You did not just call me shallow, did you?"

Sam looked down at the offending arm and then up at its owner. "If you mean, do I think I can stand in a puddle full of you and not get my feet wet, then yeah."

"Excuse me?!"

"You're excused," Sam retorted then ducked beneath her arm and stormed out of the bathroom, ignoring Paulina's demands for her to get back here!

The Macarena ended. Sam found Danny and Tucker right where she'd left them, out of breath but laughing. Danny had also apparently ditched his jacket while she was gone and Tucker was halfway to joining him, not a care in the world, either of them. She didn't leave their sides for the rest of the night.

Chapter 5: Fright or Flight

Chapter Text

When Tucker finally transformed, he wasn't even really trying. He was just sitting on the grass in the park late at night, watching the glowing forms of Danny and Sam fly circles around each other fifty feet in the air. And then, for a single instant, what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to join them. More than he wanted to protect their secret or their town, more than he wanted to study for their test tomorrow, fiddle with his PDA, or even draw his next breath.

And finally, finally, his ghost half responded.

The flash of light startled him. He lifted his hand to rub at his eyes and froze when he saw a glowing white glove. It took him a few seconds to process what he was seeing, then he looked down at himself and the black and white jumpsuit identical to those of his friends above.

Tucker didn't waste another moment. He grinned, braced his feet against the ground, and then rocketed into the air. Flying, he quickly realized, was ten times easier in this form. His body wasn't nearly as heavy like this or maybe he was simply stronger, it was hard to say. But boy could he move!

Neither Danny nor Sam noticed his approach until he was right up on them. Sam spotted him first and gasped so loud that Danny whipped around in full battle mode. But his aggressive stance, along with his jaw, dropped immediately.

"T-Tucker!"

"You—!"

"I did it!" Tucker crowed, punching the air with both fists.

Sam zipped in a circle around him to get a good look at him. Not that there was much to look at, in Tucker's opinion, since their suits were completely identical. Well, almost identical. Tucker had been wearing his favorite beanie when he'd gone into the portal and unlike the clothes under the suit, it had converted over. Come to think of it, he hadn't actually taken a look at it when he was transforming in the beginning, only felt it. He could feel it now, too, and he reached up to pull it off. When it didn't immediately slip off his head, he felt a surge of panic and tugged harder. It came off...but he definitely hadn't imagined that moment of resistance. He filed that little piece of information away for later and held his beanie up for inspection.

Huh. It was white. He would've expected the colors to invert like the rest had, but maybe that wasn't how it worked?

Danny snickered. Tucker peered over his hat at him. "What?"

"Your hair is white."

"Uh, so's yours?" Tucker pointed out.

"Well yeah but yours is hidden under the hat so it—it just looked funny when you took it off." He snickered again. "I'm sorry."

Tucker shrugged and held his hat up so he could rub his cheek against it. Texture wise, didn't feel any different than before but the material itself seemed lighter. Weird. He shrugged once more to himself and put his hat back on. The moment it slid into place, a small tingle raced along his skin where the hat made contact.

Sam zipped around Tucker again, and her legs did that thing where they sort of fused to become a single wispy tail. Danny did it sometimes, too. They had to know they were doing it but was it a conscious choice? Instinctive? He looked down at his legs and wondered if they'd do it, too.

"How are you doing that?" he asked. Sam drew herself upright next to Danny and co*cked her head. He pointed at her tail. "How do you make it change?"

Sam looked down at her tail and pursed her lips. "Y'know, I'm honestly not sure. I just do it? It's like breathing."

"You'll get used to it," Danny assured him. "In this form, all the stuff we have to focus on in human form is like breathing. Intangibility, invisibility, all of it."

Tucker raised his hand to eye level and the thought that he wanted it to be intangible had barely formed when his body obeyed him. He startled and his hand blipped back to normal. "Freaky. But awesome."

"Oh, you wanna see awesome? We can show you awesome." Danny darted forward and tugged on his hand. Sam looked in the direction Danny was indicating and grinned.

"What? Where are we going?"

"You'll see! Come on!"

Flying as a human took a certain level of concentration and will. Not only did he have to want it, he had to focus on the place within him where his ghost side lurked and let its power flow through him. Flight as a human was a chore. Flight as a ghost was freedom. It was joy, exhilaration, fearlessness. It was drawing a breath and letting it out. It was effortless. It was living.

And his friends, they knew it, they'd embraced it. They kept pace with him as they flew, in tune with the sky and each other. It was as fascinating up close as it had been from below, the way Danny and Sam could flit around each other without colliding. Their wispy tails flicked and flickered, never the same shape or length from one moment to the next. They flew close enough to him that their arms would bump and brush every so often, silently urging him on.

Their destination quickly came into view: the bay.

Danny arced his body and dove for the water in one smooth moment. Tucker tried to mirror him but ended up doing a somersault in the air and rolled off course. Then Sam was there steadying him with her hands on his shoulders.

"Easy," she cautioned and then put her fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle in Danny's direction. Turning back to Tucker, she squeezed his shoulder. "At that speed, the slightest shift in your shoulders can change your entire trajectory. So when you want to do a dive like that—"

Danny flew up beside them, concerned. "Everything okay?"

"Just teaching him how to dive," Sam explained. "He did the same thing you did the first few times. So, Tucker, if you want to change direction like that, you have to roll your body from head to toe. If you stay bent, you'll end up flipping like that."

"And don't forget the arms." Danny held his out in front of him. "We don't just stick our arms out like this 'cos it looks cool—which it does—but, if you lead with your hands, it's easier for the rest of your body to follow. Does that make sense?"

Tucker pressed his lips together, running through what they'd told him once more. "I think so. I just need to try it."

His friends grinned at him and Sam clapped him on the back. Danny began to drift backwards. "It's easier to fly down an angle, like this." He held up his hand and tilted it down at about a forty-five degree angle. "And when we get down to the water you'll want to basically do this…." He moved his hand downward at the same angle then curved his fingers upward and the rest of his hand followed, continuing out parallel to the ground.

Tucker nodded. "Got it."

Danny took off again, slower than before, and this time Sam brought up the rear with Tucker between them. When Danny arched his back to dive, Tucker watched closely, and then repeated the motion and this time he found himself shooting towards the surface of the water instead of aimlessly through the air. He felt himself beginning to pick up speed as they hurtled towards the water but Danny remained a steady distance ahead so Tucker didn't slow, and he risked a quick glance over his shoulder to confirm Sam was still there.

He looked down just in time to see Danny level out with the surface of the water. Tucker licked his lips, exhaled, and braced himself. The water was thirty feet away. Twenty. Ten—

Water sprayed into the air from the force of his descent but he did not fall in. He let out a whoop and Sam laughed behind him. Danny circled back around to meet them, grinning from ear to ear, and pointed down at the water. Though what lay below the surface was nothing more than indistinguishable darkness, the surface of it glittered under the light of the moon and their own ghostly auras.

He lowered his hand towards the water and let his fingers skim along the surface, sending up a steady stream of water droplets as they flew.

Sam shot past them, going intangible, and dove into the water. She reappeared a moment or two later twenty feet ahead of them, shooting out from the water like a dolphin. She flipped over mid-air and continued flying along on her back and waved at them.

"Alright," Tucker shouted over the wind, "you were right! This is awesome!"

"Told ya!"

And it probably would've stayed that way, if they hadn't circled back around towards the marina. Because that was when their ghost senses went off.

The spirits of the dead were as myriad as they were numerous, but every last one of them fell into one of two categories: Those Who Remembered and Those Who Forgot. From there it got a bit messy.

Those Who Remembered were, as implied, those who could recall any significant portions of their human lives. How much of the human personality remained varied from ghost to ghost but, if suitably motivated, any of Those Who Remembered could tell you of the mortal they had once been. The Lunch Lady who had once been a woman named Dorothy was but one of infinite examples.

Those Who Forgot were the exact opposites. Any ghostly scholar worth their ectoplasm knew that the only thing strong enough to erase one's entire sense of self from their core was the will of the person themselves. The Forgotten had done so by choice. Those whose desire for a new life free of their old one won out in those eternal instants betwixt mortal death and their spirit taking root in the Zone. With no facet to Form around, these ghosts were as infants upon formation, slates blank of everything but the most basic of information, the most poignant of which was either the cause of their death or that which they had craved most in life. Hardly fair, given that they could not remember these lives, but it was what it was.

The Box Ghost was one such spirit. An absolute blank slate from the first, neither knowing nor caring of what came before, except that boxes had been involved. Or maybe it was a singular box. Who knew? He did not. (Of course, most modern ghosts could take one look at him and know what he had been in life but none of them bothered to tell him. It wouldn't matter. Also, he was annoying.)

Did Ol' Boxy care? Nope. He didn't care for much if boxes weren't involved. A bit on the extreme end of things, even for one of the Forgotten, but he was annoying and nobody could be arsed to deal with him long enough to help. And, so, he was left to his own square devices.

Devices which, unfortunately for the three new half-ghosts, now extended to the mortal world and its plethora of objects both cardboard and square.

"BEWARE!"

"Well, guy's got guts." Danny muttered. Sure, he, Sam, and Tucker didn't look like much, but there were three of them and this blue guy was alone. And nowhere near intimidating enough to start off with such a warning.

"THIS IS MY WAREHOUSE! GET YOUR OWN!"

"And pipes," Sam added.

"Why is he yelling?" Tucker asked no one in particular, then raised his voice. "Dude, chill! You wanna let the whole marina know you're here?"

"NO! I WISH FOR YOU TO LEAVE!"

"Yeah, no, not gonna happen." Danny folded his arms. "You need to go back to the Ghost Zone, A-S-A-P."

"NEVER!"

And the ghost darted through the wall behind him.

Danny heaved a sigh. "Just once, I wish that would work."

Sam clapped him on the back. "At least this will only take a minute."

"But you don't even have your bat." Tucker pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but there's three of us now! And we have our thermoses." To prove her point, she unclipped hers from her belt and waved it in the air. "Come on. Let's do this."

The building the blue-collar ghost had disappeared into turned out to be a processing warehouse for a local shipping company, filled to the brim with countless cardboard boxes. The three half-ghosts came through the ceiling, hoping to spot the ghost from above before he could spot them, and settled down on the rafters.

They spotted him immediately. Not just because he was glowing. He was taking absolutely no pains to hide himself. He drifted along the rows of boxes, humming to himself while he looked up and down the stacks. Nothing menacing at all.

"What's a ghost doing haunting a place like this?" Tucker wondered, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.

"Uh, Tucker? We fought a ghost haunting our school's cafeteria," Sam pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but she worked there all her life."

"Well, maybe this guy worked here."

"What are the odds that we get two ghosts in the same month who died in Amity Park?"

"Well, maybe it was somewhere else," Danny reasoned, "and this was just convenient. It doesn't seem haunted though. Not yet."

"Which means he must've just showed up," Sam reasoned. "'Cos if he'd come out of the portal while you were at school, this place would be lit up by now."

"Give it an hour," Danny muttered. "Alright. Let's do this."

"Do we really have to, though?" Tucker asked. "He's just…chilling."

"Yeah, and what do you think happens when this place opens tomorrow and humans start showing up? Either he'll chase them out or take someone over, like the Lunch Lady wanted to."

"I still don't get how she planned to possess someone," Sam muttered.

"Me either, but, point is: he's gotta go."

"Alright. I'll follow your lead."

Danny pretended not to notice the significant glance she threw Tucker who sighed. "Yeah, alright. So how we doing this?"

"Sam, give Tucker your Thermos. You and I will fly down there and distract him while Tucker, you sneak up behind him and catch him."

"And how do we distract him?" Sam asked, passing the Thermos to Tucker, who accepted it eagerly.

"I think just us being here will be distraction enough. Come on!"

He dove down from the rafters with Sam right on his tail. They flew down towards the ghost who, still, did not realize he wasn't alone. That, or he didn't care that he was treating them to a hummed rendition of The Wheels on the Bus.

"What's up?" Danny called.

The ghost startled and spun around, flinging his hands out wide, and bellowed, "NO! YOU CANNOT BE IN HERE!"

"Sorry not sorry, but we are."

The ghost looked baffled. Nothing at all like the Lunch Lady. He was territorial for sure but he didn't seem to know what to do when his initial blustering didn't work.

"I'm gonna regret this," Sam muttered, then asked, "Who are you?"

The ghost puffed out his chest and placed his hands on his hips. "I AM THE BOX GHOST! I HAVE POWER OVER ALL CONTAINERS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE! WHO ARE YOU!?"

Danny and Sam glanced at each other. "Uh, I'm Phantom and this is Wraith, we—"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH MY BOXES?"

"Nothing—" Danny started to say but Sam cut him off.

"These aren't your boxes though. Come tomorrow, they'll all be moving someplace else."

"WELL, DUH! AND THEN NEW BOXES WILL ARRIVE! ALL FOR ME!"

Danny sighed, dragging his hand across his face. "Could you just, maybe, please stop yelling?"

The Box Ghost threw his arms and legs out wide. "NEVER!"

"Okay we're done here. Hey Tucker, lets go!"

Tucker appeared directlybehind the Box Ghost with a grin on his face. "And goodnight everybody!"

The Box Ghost whirled around with a yelp, which elongated into a furious wail as he was caught by the blue beam of the Thermos. Tucker capped the Thermos and grinned smugly.

"Perimeter secure."

"'Perimeter secure'?" Sam scoffed. "What are you, a Navy Seal?"

"No." Tucker tossed her the Thermos, which she quickly swapped with Danny for his empty one. He was the one who had to put the ghost back in the Zone, after all. "But now that I am a full member of this team, it's time to start going by my code name."

"Which is…? I swear, if you expect me to call you 'Ghouly'—"

Tucker shook his head. "No, no. I got one better." He paused, hands in front of him, then flicked his fingers out for dramatic effect. "Specter."

Danny and Sam considered it, and him. They glanced at each other. Danny shrugged. "I like it," he said. "It works."

Sam nodded slowly for a few moments. "Wraith, Phantom, and Specter. Ghostly protectors of Amity Park."

"That's us!" Tucker crowed.

"Kill me now."

Two hundred feet away, another ghost watched the girl's mouth form those words through a pair of binoculars and chuckled to himself. No, he would not kill her. He wouldn't kill any of them. Half ghost, half human, those children were the rarest creatures in existence. Whichever he took would be the jewel of his collection.

At first the hunter thought to take the boy and girl he had heard about. They were obviously pair bonded, and if the rumors were true, where one was, the other was not far behind.

But, then, tonight, he saw the third boy transform and realized they weren't a pair but a pack! How fortuitous! He couldn't take them all, of course. Only a hunter of poor principles would take an entire population for himself. One would do. So long as he left two of them free, the girl and one of the boys, there would eventually be little ones. It was nature's course, after all.

Ah, but, which to choose? That question had plagued him as he followed them from a distance. If the rumors were true, they could sense other ghosts who got close. Didn't want to alert them to his presence just yet.

After just a few minutes of observation, he was sure he knew the hierarchy within their group. The darker boy was their junior, clumsy and unsure in his movements, relying on guidance and instruction from the other two to even navigate competently. He had been under the impression they were all the same age but perhaps not. Or perhaps he was weaker than the other two. After all, he had known nothing of him before tonight.

Capturing him would not prove any manner of challenge. There was no thrill in capturing weak prey and these children had proven themselves quite capable for ones so young.

The other boy, then. The paler one. The unspoken leader.

Yes. He would make a fine addition to the collection.

Danny woke up in a good mood. Last night couldn't have gone better. Tucker had finally transformed, they'd gone flying for over an hour, the one ghost they encountered hadn't resulted in a fight, and he had enough steam left to finish his homework before crashing around eleven.

Today was going to be a good day. He could feel it.

His mother was tinkering at the breakfast table as usual and his father was in the middle of devouring a bowl of cereal beside her. Danny grabbed the milk and cereal box and poured himself some of each, then sat down at the table across from his mother.

"You're looking awfully cheerful this morning," Maddie noted, peering at him from behind her red goggles. "Get a good night's sleep?"

Danny smiled, his mouth full of cereal, and nodded. He swallowed and pointed at the device she was working on. "What's that?"

"It's called the Ghost Gabber!" Jack boomed, startling them both. "It takes the mysterious sounds that ghosts make and translates them into words you and I use every day."

He reached for it but Maddie held up her hand to stop him. "It will, once it's finished. The circuit breaker still needs some work. Don't want to risk an ectoplasmic power surge frying it!"

Danny frowned a little but shrugged and took another bite of cereal. Ghosts weren't incomprehensible, at least none that he'd met so far, so it would probably be another bust.

"Aw, Maddie, it should be safe enough for a little demonstration, right?"

Maddie pursed her lips for a moment then nodded, withdrawing her hands. "Alright, but only for a moment!"

Jack grinned and snatched it up, flipping the power switch in the same moment, and held it up to his mouth. The two lights on top of it flicked on and off and it began to emit a steady beeping. "I am Jack Fenton."

A pause, then the same robotic voice he was used to from most of their talking inventions answered: "No spectral frequencies detected."

Smiling, Jack held it out to Danny. "Now go on, say something!"

Crud.

A wordless scream of delight saved Danny from having to tempt fate and Jazz came hurtling into a kitchen in a blur of ginger and blue. "They! Said! YES!"

Danny pushed the Ghost Gabber away from his face and quipped, "Who said yes? The person you asked if you were a conceited snob?"

"No, Genius Magazine said yes!" She thrust a magazine out for them to see. Pale green and adorned with gold, it looked fancy, he had to admit, but his interest dipped when he saw the letters 'IQ' right in the middle. "They got my letter and they wanna put Mom on the cover!" She squealed, hugging the magazine to her chest.

Maddie tapped her chin. "I think I've heard of Genius Magazine."

"What is it?" Jack asked. "…Is it the swimsuit issue?"

Both teenagers shuddered.

"Dad no," Jazz snapped while Danny wrinkled his nose in revulsion. "Genius Magazine is for women geniuses, by women geniuses, and about women geniuses! Also never, ever imply anything about mom appearing on a swimsuit issue. Ever. For the rest of my life."

"Seconded." Danny piped up.

Jack grinned again. "Oh, you kids would be surprised. Back in the day, your mother was—"

"WOW!" Danny yelled, pushing back from the table. "Look at the time I would love to stay and chat but I'm meeting Tucker and Sam before school so I gotta go congrats on the magazine thing or whatever Jazz BYE!"

He could've flown out of there, and it wouldn't have been fast enough. Still, he kept his body visible and his feet on the ground until he was out the door and safely in the alley beside his house. Then he transformed and took off invisibly towards school.

His mom getting recognized by some prestigious magazine was cool. Being put on the cover was even cooler. He wondered what Jazz had told the editors about their family, though. The scientific community didn't have a high opinion of people in his parents' field. She must have omitted a few things or stretched the truth. Oh well, not his concern. His concern was the midterms he had looming.

Right now they were averaging one encounter per day. He and Sam had been taking turns dealing with the ones that popped up near school and now that Tucker was officially on the roster, the number of times they would have to leave during or outright ditch class would be lower per person. If they were lucky and played their cards right, they could get through the semester without failing. Maybe by then his parents would have an actual working lock on the portal and the ghosts would stop coming.

Midterms were spread throughout the week to avoid overwhelming them too much. Of course, those were considerations made with human students in mind, and human students didn't have super powers or have to deal with errant spirits popping up at all hours. The half-ghosts expected the week to be a bit crazier for them. But, hey, there were three of them now, and they could take proper turns on ghost duty. Or so they told themselves.

The first two days of midterms passed without incident. The ghost scene was quiet. Hauntingly quiet, as Danny might say. (Which he did, to Sam's disgust.)

A ghost lion turned up near Sam's house on the third evening but the worst part of that was the verbal thrashing she gave Danny for allowing the ghost to sneak past him. Like it was his fault his ghost sense didn't wake him out of a dead (ha ha) sleep. It happened again the next morning, too, with a ghost tiger near Tucker's. Except Danny had been wide awake this time and he was absolutely sure that his ghost sense had not gone off. Which meant either it and the lion had gotten out at the same time, or these animals had another way out of the Ghost Zone. Danny zipped over to Tucker's with the thermos to trap the ghost then zipped back home to finish getting ready for school.

That evening, Danny's ghost sense went off while he was working on his homework in his room. He sighed, grabbed the thermos, and transformed. He checked the lab first, invisibly, and sure enough the portal was wide open, and both his parents were in there. Danny sighed. His dad was one thing, but how had his mom failed to notice a ghost sneaking past her less than ten feet away?

And this, he thought, is why we can't leave the ghost hunting to them.

Even though his ghost sense had not gone off again, he could still sense that the culprit was nearby. Withdrawing from the lab, he headed up and out of the house, and several dozen feet into the air to survey the neighborhood. The green and white wolf wasn't too difficult to spot, nor did it seem to be taking any pains to conceal itself. He wasn't surprised. None of the animal ghosts they encountered so far had been anything more than dead versions of their living counterparts, showing no sentience or intelligence beyond the expected norm.

Danny cracked his knuckles and dove after it.

The hunter watched from a safe distance.

When he unleashed the lion on the female the night before, he had done so with the intention of observing her capabilities, logging the leader male's response time to the threat, and observing their teamwork. What he hadn't expected was for the female take down the lion herself with some manner of black baton. She then visited the leader male's home directly, likely to return the specimen to the Ghost Zone herself. Following her discreetly, the hunter discovered that the leader male had been sleeping the whole time.

Her ferocity was admittedly impressive and she displayed no signs of hesitation but otherwise her performance was underwhelming. She did not utilize any form of ectoplasmic energy, not even the most fundamental of blasts. Was she flawed? Disabled in some way? Or did she deem the lion so far beneath her that it wasn't worth it? All viable considerations.

The junior male had taken the tiger's appearance with significantly less grace. And he didn't fight it so much as he kept it busy. He used a handheld device, likely one of those phone things, and kept trying to spray…something at the ghost from a tiny canister. Whatever it was, it either had no effect or was not finding its mark. Two minutes later after the boy put the phone away, the leader male had come tearing in to deal with the tiger.

His prior observations had been more accurate than he'd realized. The junior male really was quite helpless. All signs indicated that they had Formed at the same time so why was this one significantly weaker? None of them displayed any ecto-energy abilities but at least the leader male and female could fight! The hunter considered killing him just to put him out of his misery.

Each altercation had given the hunter valuable information. Enough to exploit. Weak or no, the halfbreeds had numbers and containment devices. If he attempted to capture one of them from their midst, it would lead to an all-out brawl, and he was not interested in such a wager. No, he would isolate the leader male from the rest.

So he chose three of his finest specimens, waited for the halfbreeds to leave their place of human education and part ways, then released them. To the female he sent a horse so swift that the hunter himself had needed to rely on traps to catch it. To the junior male, an eagle with talons sharp enough to pierce the hunter's armor. And, finally, he returned to the leader male's home and released a wolf. Eight feet tall, elegant and strong, once the leader of a pack of his own before the hunter had captured him.

The leader male had taken longer than expected to emerge from his home but once he had, he located the wolf with ease. As the hunter expected, the leader male did not hesitate to charge and the wolf, sensing the threat, rose to meet the challenge.

The hunter smiled and moved in.

Chapter 6: Time for the Haunter to become the Haunted

Chapter Text

Danny wasn't sure how it happened. One second he was chasing a dire wolf across the rooftops of his neighborhood and the next he was caught in a glowing blue net. His cheek burned where it had scraped across rough roofing tiles and the fibers of the net dug painfully into his skin as he tried to wriggle himself free, to no avail. But who could've shot him? Even if his parents had somehow realized what was going on there was no way they could've gotten high enough. And their nets were green, not whatever this blue was—

"Hello, ghost child."

Danny tensed at the unfamiliar voice. Smooth, masculine, practically a purr, yet more menacing than anything he'd ever heard in his life. Grunting, Danny managed to flip himself onto his back, and looked up into the face of his attacker. At first glance, it was some sort of giant angry robot, but its mane and goatee were made of vicious green flames, the same color as its pupil-less eyes, and its entire body radiated a faint glowing aura, just like every other ghost. Except unlike every other ghost, this one was attacking him deliberately and without provocation.

"Wh—who are you?!" he snapped, hoping he sounded braver than he felt. "What do you want?!"

The ghost's answering smile would have made a normal person shiver. "I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, and a collector of things rare and unique. And you, ghost child, are that and more!"

"Uh, thanks?"

"Pity, though. As the alpha male of your little group, I had hoped you would put up more of a fight, at least more than the female would."

Danny's breath hitched. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence but there was only one person he could be referring to. "What did you do to her?" he snapped.

"The female? Rest assured, child, I have done nothing to harm her. But, in case you're entertaining any hopes of a rescue, I've sent her on a merry chase. Her and that weakling. By the time they realize you're missing, you'll already be in your new home, ghost child."

Well, that didn't sound concerning at all. He could feel Sam and Tucker off in the distance and, if he focused, he could tell they were both in motion, but neither of them were calling out like they'd described so he could only assume they were okay for the moment.

"My name," he growled, "is Phantom!"

He turned intangible and dropped through the roof. Re-orienting himself before he was even in the room below, he gauged roughly where Skulker was, and shot back up through the ceiling. The ghost was still there, baffled, and Danny's fist collided with his chin with enough force to send the other ghost flying.

"And I'm not going anywhere with you!"

He didn't wait around to see what happened next and sped off in the opposite direction.

Sam, Tucker, he thought as hard as he could. We have a problem. We have a serious problem! Help help help!

Behind him, Skulker roared wordlessly.

Danny let out a yelp and turned himself invisible. Hopefully that would be enough for now. He had to get to his friends. The ghost hadn't come after him until he was sure they would be alone. That had to mean something. If he could just get to them then—then he'd be safe and they could go from there. Right? Right.

He called me the alpha male, Danny thought and then shuddered at the implications. That ghost, that hunter, had been watching them long enough to read their dynamics. Not that he thought himself to be any sort of 'alpha male,' but with Tucker being so new to things, he might seem that way in comparison. But he knew where Danny lived. He probably knew where Sam and Tucker lived, too.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. The ghost wasn't anywhere in sight but that meant absolutely nothing, but he could feel Sam coming closer so his call must have worked. Tucker didn't seem to be coming towards him but he wasn't moving further away, either. He exhaled in relief and steered himself towards Tucker. Sam would catch up in no time.

As he neared the park, Danny realized that Tucker must have tried to lure the 'distraction' away from people. Smart idea, especially now that this big ghost was here. Danny glanced over his shoulder again. Skulker still wasn't visible but he could see Sam as a smudge of darkness against the setting sun. He wanted to signal her somehow but he couldn't risk becoming visible. Not until he got to Tucker.

He found him in the middle of the woods grappling with a bright green eagle the size of a Great Dane whose shrieks could wake the dead. On the ground, his arms locked around the eagle's neck, and his legs around curled around the eagle's. The eagle was trying its best to dislodge him by flapping its ridiculously huge wings.

"Tucker-I-mean-Specter!" Danny shouted in a rush, reaching for the thermos on belt. "Fly up!"

Tucker's head whipped from side to side in confusion but then Danny's words registered. He released the eagle, shoved its body away from his own, and rocketed into the air. The eagle righted itself far too quickly to be natural and its beady red eyes locked onto its prey once more. It didn't see the blue beam until it had already been enveloped and it screamed the whole way in.

Capping the thermos, Danny let go of his invisibility and landed on the ground, looking up into the sky for either of his friends or Skulker. No sign of the ghost or Sam, but Tucker was floating about thirty feet above him.

"Dude!" Tucker yelled. "What's going on?! Are you okay?!"

"NO!" Danny replied then hooked the thermos back to his belt. "Get down here now!"

Something in his voice must've convinced Tucker of the seriousness of the situation because he flew down without another word. Sam cam hurtling into the clearing a moment later with her teeth bared and most of her hair aflame.

"What the hell, Danny?! There's this stupid horse running around and—"

"It's a trap!" Danny interjected, grabbing her forearms, and pulled her down to the ground beside them. "Both of those ghosts were just to keep you guys busy. There's another, a big robot ghost who caught me in a net and tried to kidnap me!"

"What?" they both yelped at the same pitch.

"Sam, were you visible on the way here?"

Sam sputtered incomprehensibly for a moment and then her teeth clicked together and she nodded.

"Crap," Danny whispered. "We have to hide. Grab my hands and go invisible."

They did as instructed, Sam taking his right and Tucker his left, and disappeared. Like this, they could at least see each other despite their bodies being invisible to the rest of the world, at least they hoped. They hadn't had a chance to really test it yet. (Not that it'd do much good if the ghost had heat sensors or something but Danny was trying not to think about that.)

They lifted off the ground and Danny led them through the trees. "We have to stay hidden. He could be anywhere."

"We'd sense him," Sam pointed out but Danny shook his head.

"Not if he doesn't get close enough we won't. He's been watching us for who knows how long."

Tucker shuddered. "Okay, I do not like that."

"It's not you he's after, though, Tuck."

"Didn't feel like it just now."

"That was just to keep you busy. He told me himself."

"Okay, hold on. Time out," Sam interrupted sharply. "You said there's a big ghost robot after you?"

Danny nodded. "He said his name was…. Skulker? I think? Maybe Shulker. But he's a hunter and collector of rare stuff, and I'm pretty sure he knows what we are, and I think he wants to freaking…keep me or something!"

Sam scoffed. "So he knows where we live, what we are, and can stalk us from a distance. Terrific."

"Then we shouldn't be running," said Tucker, surprising them both. "He'll just wait until we're alone and try again."

Danny groaned. He was right. Until they taught this ghost the lesson of his afterlife, they wouldn't have any peace. Best case scenario, he'd keep releasing animals from the ghost zoo or whatever. Worst case, Danny would end up in the zoo himself. They had to fight and they had to make it on their terms this time.

"You kids need anything before we go to bed?" Maddie asked in the doorway, smiling at the three teenagers scattered across her son's room.

Danny smiled at his mother. "Nah, we're good. Thanks, Mom."

"Alright. Don't stay up too late, and no shouting if you start playing video games."

"Us?" Tucker clutched at his chest. "We would never!"

She gave him a look. "Of course not. Silly me." Then she smiled at Danny. "See you in the morning, sweetheart."

Danny's embarrassed expression was only slightly forced. "Goodnight, Mom."

Maddie left, pulling the door shut behind her, and the three teenagers held their breath until the sound of her footsteps faded and they heard the door to her bedroom close. Then they exhaled in unison and it was back to business. Tucker pulled the Fenton Grappler from where he'd wedged it between his leg and the beanbag chair. Sam's thermos returned to visibility on her lap. Danny pulled his thermos out from beneath his pillow.

"Man, I'm glad your mom actually knocks," Sam said, setting the bat on Danny's desk. "My parents just barge in if I don't lock the door."

Danny grimaced in sympathy. It was an absolute miracle she hadn't been caught floating above her bed when she was still doing that most nights. Their intrusive behavior was one of the big reasons Danny and Tucker had never been invited over.

Neither of his friends had stayed the night since their recovery period after the accident. The idea of sleeping in the same house as ghost hunters was unsettling for them, and Danny knew where they were coming from. But with Sam's house completely off limits, and Tucker's parents' habit of engaging with their activities, Danny's house was the only option. At least his parents didn't check on him while he was sleeping.

Not that they intended to do any sleeping for a while.

Ten minutes after Jack and Maddie went to bed, they could still hear Jazz moving around in her room but Danny was reasonably certain she wouldn't bother them. So he turned a movie on and set the volume to low while Sam and Tucker unrolled their sleeping bags on the floor. They shoved their bags inside to make it look like they were in there and Danny stuffed some things under his bedsheets. Just in case.

Finished, the three half-ghosts transformed across the room from the windows, just in case anyone happened to be looking up. Danny couldn't help but note, and not for the first time, that the moment Sam's ghostly form took hold she rose a few inches off the ground. It wasn't something he did, or Tucker, now that he was actually able to transform. He wasn't sure if she was aware of it, but considering how often she'd floated while sleeping, it wouldn't surprise him if she wasn't. For all that she was the most pragmatic of their group, she almost never had both feet on the ground anymore.

Tucker hooked the Fenton Grappler to his belt and Sam attached her thermos to hers then reached up to adjust the strap of her new holster on her shoulder. A recent acquisition though he had no idea from where, it was black and held her bat securely against her back.

Danny shook his head to clear it, looked between his friends, and exhaled. "We ready for this?"

"To kick the butt of a ghost who captures sentient beings for his own personal menagerie?" Sam scoffed. "Danny, I was born ready."

Tucker raised his eyebrows at her. "I don't think I'm that ready, but let's do this."

"It's time for the hunter to become the hunted," Danny declared, going intangible. The others followed suit and they slipped out of Danny's house entirely unnoticed.

Sam figured those ghosts from before were still loose in the city, assuming Skulker had not simply caught them himself, and Danny was prepared to bet that he hadn't. They were the perfect bait after all. They were all sure that if the ghosts had been causing havoc that it would've at least made the nightly news, which meant that if they were still loose, they were somewhere they weren't going to be noticed. Namely, the park.

Danny knew Skulker was probably watching his house already, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. If he thought they were just going out to hunt the other ghosts, he would probably follow, lest an opportune moment pass him by. They just needed to make sure he didn't strike until they were well away from Danny's house. Preferably away from people altogether.

The moment they phased through the walls, they were off like a shot towards the park. They kept close, practically on top of each other, in case Skulker tried to pull anything while they were commuting. So close, in fact, that when a Casper High senior smoking on his rooftop saw them and snapped a photo on his Nokia to show to his friends the next day, they looked like a single glowing blob.

They had barely entered the park when their ghost senses went off and it didn't take them more than a few seconds to spot the ghost horse galloping across the lawn like it was free on a prairie.

"Careful," Sam warned and they slowed. "That's not even half as fast as it was going earlier. We need to surround it if we're going to have a chance."

Danny pressed his lips together thoughtfully and tried to remember what his Aunt Alicia had told him about the hunting the last time they were in Spittoon. Most of it was where to aim if you were trying to bring down a deer or coyote but there had been some useful in her brutally blunt lecture.

He folded his arms and eyed both his friends critically. "Sam—"

"Code-names," Tucker reminded him.

He sighed. "Wraith, you're the fastest. You think you could herd it?"

Sam quirked her lips and mirrored his position. "What are you thinking?"

"If you can herd it towards Specter and I, we could capture it in a thermos."

She narrowed her eyes at the horse and said nothing for a long moment, then nodded and unclipped the thermos from her belt. "Yeah, I can do that. Here catch." She tossed it at Tucker. "But where am I herding it to?"

"Well, assuming it doesn't leave the park, it has to turn around at some point, right?"

They chose the playground, figuring the ghost would see it coming and swerve to avoid the gravel and twisted metal contraptions in favor of open grass. And if not, well, then they could pincer it in the middle. Danny hid on one side of the park under a seesaw and Tucker on the other, half-intangible beneath the merry-go-round. They knew the moment the horse spotted Sam by the enraged neigh which pierced the night without warning. Then silence.

They waited. Sam was coming closer.

Danny's ghost sense went off, and he tensed, bracing himself for action.

The horse came galloping over the hill faster than a race car, with Sam hot on its heels. Hooves? Even from a distance, Danny could tell it was pissed. He flipped the cap off the thermos and coiled to spring the second the horse chose its path.

It turned intangible and barreled onto the playground without any sign of slowing. Danny didn't wait, he launched himself off the ground, his hand already on the trigger. The horse swung its head towards him and brayed, a deep, ugly sound and to Danny's great surprise, it skidded to a halt right then and there and reared into the air. If it was trying to intimidate him, it worked. Danny yelped and swerved upwards. Ten feet into the air he remembered what he was supposed to be doing and squeezed the button on the thermos for dear life. The blue beam exploded outwards towards the horse —

Hold on why is it coming at me—

"WHAT THE—"

"—HELL DID YOU DO, TUCKER!?"

That…was a good question.

Tucker looked at the spot where Danny had been floating a moment before and then at the spot where the horse had been rearing up. Neither were there anymore. He looked at Danny's still-smoking thermos on the ground. He looked down at the smoking thermos in his hands, at the little green light on the side which indicated it was in use. Looked back at Sam. Licked his lips.

"Caught a ghost."

"Oh my god let him out!"

"Uh." Tucker looked down at the thermos. He hadn't had a chance to sit down and play with one of these yet. Danny promised he'd have his own as soon as his parents made more but that wasn't helpful now.

"There's a switch on the side," Sam said, pointing at the underside of the thermos, "that turns it from capture to release."

Tucker flipped it over, located the switch, then pressed the trigger button again. The thermos emitted a high whine like it was priming a charge and then it shuddered in his hands and spat out a monochrome blur. The blur solidified into Danny .2 seconds before he smashed into the ground. Tucker surreptitiously capped the thermos and hid it behind his back while Sam floated over to the undignified heap of black and white limbs that was their best friend.

"Earth to Danny. You in there?" She prodded him with the tip of her bat. "Phantom?"

Danny raised his head and threw her a withering look. "Did I just get thermosed?"

"Yep."

Danny turned his glare onto Tucker who smiled innocently. "Your thermos privileges are revoked."

"Hey! I wasn't expecting you to fly up like that!" Tucker protested. "I was aiming for the horse."

With a roll of his eyes, Danny opened his mouth to retort, but a new and wholly unfamiliar voice cut in before he could.

"You know, for the alpha of your group, you are remarkably easy to capture, ghost child."

Sam swore. Tucker nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around, holding the thermos in front of himself like a weapon. Floating perhaps fifteen feet above them was a giant robot. A ghost robot. With green flaming hair. The hunter.

He balked.

"Perhaps I ought to reconsider," the hunter ghost went on, sounding almost thoughtful. He turned his eyes—the same vicious, ectoplasmic green as Danny's all the way through—to Sam. "The female seems to be the worthier challenge."

Tucker couldn't see Sam's expression but from the acid in her words, he could take a good guess. "Excuse me? Female?"

The ghost actually paused to reconsider. Gears whirred as he tilted his 'head' to the side. "Did I misjudge? Are you not a female of your species? It can be difficult to tell with humans sometimes."

Tucker licked his lips. The ghost was distracted. This was his chance. The thermos was still on release mode but if he could just switch it back to capture…he could get the ghost. The switch was near his pinkie. He couldn't risk turning the thermos around to get a better angle, movement would only attract attention, but if he could play it off as natural shifting….

"Uh, dude," said Danny's voice from somewhere behind him, high enough that he must have lifted off the ground. "It's actually kind of rude to refer to girls as 'females'. Especially to their faces."

"It…is?"

"Yeah, come on, man, even I know that. It's demeaning."

The ghost blinked, processing this, then its strange features which were clearly metallic like the rest of him yet malleable like flesh and muscle, shifted into a frown. "Regardless, I believe she would make a far worthier opponent than you, boy."

"Opponent?" Danny scoffed. "You didn't seem to care about a fight when you shot me with that net earlier."

"Oh, that was merely to get your attention. I expected you to put up a fight but instead you turned tail and fled!" The ghost shook his head. "A pitiful display."

"Was it fleeing? Or was it regrouping? Besides—Shulker, right?"

"Skulker," the ghost snapped.

"My bad, Skulker. You want to talk about pitiful? You lured my friends away and used a trap to catch me instead of facing me head on in a fair fight."

"Yeah!" Tucker agreed and Skulker narrowed his eyes at him. Tucker flinched, shifting the thermos in his shaking hands. It worked, because Skulker's attention immediately returned to the others and Tucker's thumb was now on the switch.

"A fair fight, you say?" Skulker mused. Then he threw his head back and laughed like some sort of cartoon villain. It was almost cringe-worthy but it was also the perfect cover for the sound of the switch flipping back to capture mode.

"Very well, ghost child! If it is a fair fight you want then I, Skulker, Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, will give you one! But know this, boy, should I gain the upper hand, I will not hesitate to subdue you by any means necessary. And if your friends interfere," he threw a nasty look in Tucker's direction, "I will not hesitate to dispose of them with extreme prejudice, and rest their pelts at the foot of my bed."

"Okay," said Sam, "that's just gross."

Skulker only grinned. (Seriously how was a robot doing that?)

"Sam. Can I borrow the bat?" Danny asked in a clipped voice.

"Ab-so-lutely."

Tucker heard her toss it through the air and the metallic thump of Danny catching it. "Alright then, Skulker." His voice was like ice. "You and me, right now. You can use whatever you got, I can use whatever I got. If I win, you go away. Agreed?"

Skulker nodded. "Agreed. And when I win, you will spend the rest of your life in a cage on display among the rest of my collection."

Then he dropped into a crouch, legs spread and panels began to open across his forearms, biceps, and shoulders. From them emerged an array of guns, rocket launchers, arrow launchers primed with arrowheads the size of one of Tucker's hands. Skulker bared two rows of white metal teeth in a predatory grin.

"Oh that's bullsh*t!" Sam shouted.

"Uh…Specter?" Danny called, voice wavering.

"Yep!" Tucker replied and smashed his finger into the thermos's trigger. It hummed to life. Skulker only had a split second to look his way in surprise before the ensnaring blue light shot towards him.

"What the—!"

The light caught him but he must've known what the thermos would do because he immediately ignited some sort of jetpack on his back leaned against the pull. It was enough to resist but not enough to escape. Tucker sucked in a sharp breath and tightened his grip on the thermos as it began to heat beneath his hands. The flames burned brighter, the ghost grunted, and slowly he began to move away from the thermos.

Danny flew over their heads and dove down behind Skulker, beyond the reach of the thermos. "Oh no you don't!" Tucker heard him shout over the roar of the rockets, followed by a metallic clang, and suddenly the robot was hurtling towards the thermos.

"CHEAT!" Skulker howled. "THIS WILL NOT BE FORGIVEN! I WILL HAVE YOUR HIDES FOR THIIIIIIIS!"

Tucker slammed the cap on the thermos and let out and let out a breath of air he didn't know he'd been holding. "Holy—!"

Sam tackled him from behind, throwing her arms around his shoulders. "God I was hoping you were doing what I thought you were doing!"

Tucker grinned proudly and leaned in Danny's direction, extending one arm out beside his head. "I'm sorry? What was that about my thermos privileges being revoked?"

Drifting through the air towards him. Danny rolled his eyes but he was grinning regardless. "Reinstated! Nice job, Tuck!"

"Dude, were you really gonna 1v1 him if I hadn't gotten the thermos ready?"

Danny reached up to rub the back of his neck, sheepish. "Uh, maybe? I thought I could at least dent his armor or something. I wasn't expecting all the guns and stuff. But I figured Sam would at least jump in to kick his butt if things got dicey."

"You bet I would've," Sam growled. "What a prick. And what was all that about our pelts?"

"At the foot of his bed," Tucker added, tossing the thermos lightly into the air and catching it. "Can't forget that part."

Danny and Sam's eyes followed the thermos up and down as he continued tossing it. Without a word, Danny reached out and caught it before Tucker could. "Yeah how about we don't tempt fate tonight?" he suggested and handed Sam both the thermos and her bat.

"So, that's two ghosts down," said Sam as she returned each item to its place on her body. "Now we just have to find the wolf."

Tucker pressed his lips together thoughtfully and flew about ten feet into the air. He spotted the treeline about five hundred yards to the west. Covering roughly half of the entire park, those woods were plenty big enough for a single ghost to hide in, and tempting besides for a wolf. For Tucker, not so much. He'd never been a fan of them and only ever went in when one of his parents wanted to go on a nature hike or something, which wasn't often. If they were lucky, they'd find it quickly.

Sam and Danny drifted up on either side of him and the three of them regarded the woods quietly for a few moments.

"So, how exactly are we supposed to find a wolf ghost in all that?" Danny wondered aloud. "Did we ever figure that out?"

Tucker shook his head. They didn't even know the wolf was in there to begin with. It could be anywhere by now, even beyond the city limits.

"Well, it is a wolf," Sam pointed out. Then she drew in a breath, cupped her hands over her mouth, and let out a long, loud, "AWOOOOOOOO!"

Tucker and Danny glanced at each other, shrugged, and then followed suit. Their voices carried far, echoing through the park—

(and beyond, they would later realize)

After ten seconds of howling, the three teenagers feel silent. Listening. Waiting. And then, not far to the north, came a reply. Sam exhaled a laugh and held her hands out to her sides for some high-fives, which the boys enthusiastically gave.

"Come on!" Danny cried and they dove for the woods.

Chapter 7: Here For the Boos

Chapter Text

By Monday, news of the park had spread through the entire teenage population of Amity Park and a good portion of the young adult population as well. Someone had managed to snap a photo of a weird blur of light in the sky and it had been shared hundreds of times through text, IMs, chatrooms, MySpace, a disgustingly long email chain, and half a dozen conspiracy blogs. As the photo spread, so, too, did stories from people who lived near the park who were awoken by the sounds of unearthly neighing and, later, howling. One person claimed to have seen multiple little lights zipping around the park.

It wasn't quite the talk of the school but none of the half-ghosts could go an hour without hearing at least something about it. They weren't concerned, exactly. They had no intention of keeping their existence a secret and they knew word would get out eventually, but it was still strange hearing people talk and speculate. Even more so since one was even close to being right.

Aliens were a popular theory. Government involvement was another. Apparently, one email chain was dead set on convincing everyone the lights were angels and the noises were demons they had defeated. Not one mention of ghosts except an offhand comment that maybe the park was haunted. Then there were the skeptics. Many were inclined to believe in rational explanations like flashlights, loudspeakers, and teenagers out past curfew. And some people just thought the whole thing was just a hoax and none of it happened period.

Danny and Jazz decided individually that they weren't going to so much as hint about it to their parents, which they thought would decrease their odds of finding out as neither Fenton parent really used the internet. Or had many friends. But apparently they had underestimated their parents' connections to the paranormal community because come Tuesday afternoon, not only did they Know About Friday but they were gearing up to go stake out the park. Danny sent a quick text to Sam and Tucker warning them to stay inside tonight.

His parents were at breakfast the next morning, groggy and discontent, lamenting how long it had taken them to find out about the sightings. All they'd managed to get were faint ectoplasmic readings on the playground, where the confrontation with Skulker had taken place.

"We'll need to be more aware of what's happening ourselves," Maddie resolved.

"And how are you going to do that, Mom?" Jazz asked, for once not sounding totally exasperated. "I didn't even know until Monday."

Jack nearly dropped his spoon. "You knew and you didn't tell us?!"

"Why would we?" Danny asked, speaking for the first time since he'd sat down. "It just sounded like some people being weird on a Friday night a few weeks before Halloween. Even Sam didn't think it sounded interesting or spooky."

Maddie sighed heavily. "I understand, kids, but things are different now. You have to realize that."

Jazz rolled her eyes and started to return to her cereal but Maddie snapped her fingers in front of her face and she startled.

"Jasmine. I know you aren't very…enthusiastic about our work, but like it or not, you can't pretend this isn't happening. If you hear of anything strange, even if it's just rumors, you need to tell us!"

"Exactly!" Jack agreed with his usual aplomb. "How else am I going to test out all our new inventions?"

Danny met Jazz's gaze from across the table and he saw some of his own concerns reflected back at him. Their family was…tolerated by the community. Eccentric but harmless enough and given a wide berth when possible. He and Jazz had managed to skate by thus far but if their parents started making spectacles of themselves, that would all be over. Well, Jazz's insufferably sunny disposition and intellect would probably be enough to earn her a 'pass' so to speak, at least long enough for her to graduate and get the hell out of dodge. But Danny? No chance in hell. Elementary school had taught him that.

On the other hand, if enough people became convinced that there actually were ghosts on the loose, his parents might actually be taken seriously. But the only way to convince people of that would be a big ghost fight or something and he didn't see that going well.

Either way, he was screwed.

He unenthusiastically delivered his report to his best friends on their way to homeroom. Sam's response was difficult to gauge, but Tucker seemed unbothered and Danny had to agree. Them detecting traces of ectoplasm was hardly newsworthy. But they would need to be careful from now on. Danny in particular would have to be prepared to let them know immediately if his parents decided to go out hunting or whatever. They suspected ghosts were loose in Amity Park but, for now, they had no solid evidence of anything.

After school, they headed to the Nasty Burger to eat and do the homework for their shared classes.

Tucker took a long swig of his co*ke and set the cup down on the table. "So, do you think it's safe to go out tonight?"

Nibbling on the tip of his eraser, Danny stared at the question on his assignment. He knew this, he knew he did, he remembered Mr. Lancer saying the answer in class…but what—? Right, Tucker had asked a question. "Um…I'm not sure?" He glanced between them. "They were pretty tired this morning so I don't think they'll try going out two nights in a row. I'll have to check when I get home."

"You do that," Sam muttered then exhaled loudly. "I really don't like the idea of your parents just…being able to lock us down like that."

"Hey, better safe than sorry," Danny pointed out. "If there had been time we could've come up with a plan or something but it was so last minute."

"We should, actually," said Tucker.

"Should what?"

"Come up with a plan. That won't be the last time your folks go out like that and there's no guarantee you'll be able to warn us before they do. Like, what's the protocol if we run into them while they're out?"

Sam cleared her throat and looked around pointedly. "Maybe we don't talk about this here?"

Danny twisted around in his seat, checking the nearby booths. No one was sitting directly behind or beside them yet—the perks of being social outcasts—but that didn't mean they wouldn't be overheard.

Tucker glanced around, too, then nodded. "Good point."

Sam merely inclined her head then stabbed at her salad with her fork. She said nothing as she took a bite and Danny turned his attention back to his homework.

"So," Sam said and Danny sighed but set his pencil down. "I know it's only Wednesday, but what are we doing this weekend?"

Tucker shrugged. "I don't know, does it matter?"

"It's probably going to be the last warm weekend of the year," she pointed out. "We should do something fun." She grinned at them, waiting for approval, but Danny merely reached for his drink.

Tucker took the bait. "Such as?"

"We never got around to hitting the amusem*nt park's new roller coaster. I heard it has a free fall that'll take three years off your life expectancy!"

Danny rolled his eyes, swallowed a mouthful of soda, and replied, "Uh, Sam, aren't you forgetting something? Something we are very capable of doing ourselves any day of the week without paying admission or waiting in line?"

"Well, yeah, but, I don't know." She shrugged. "It's a different feeling and I bet it could still be fun."

Tucker shook his head. "No thanks. It costs forty bucks just to get in there, not to mention food and stuff." Leaning back in his seat, he rested his elbows on the back of it. "I'm not wasting that kind of money on the off-chance it doesn't even do it for us anymore."

"Hey, if you're tapped out, I can lend you the cash," she offered.

"Lend means 'repay' and repay is out of my reach. Right, Danny?"

"Uh…" Danny glanced between his friends nervously. He could probably get the money from his parents no problem but he stood by what he'd said before. "I don't really think—"

A cry rose up from a gathering of Casper High students on the other side of the restaurant and spared Danny from having to answer. The three of them turned to see what the commotion was and spotted Dash Baxter handing out light purple cards to every member of the crowd. Danny groaned in realization and slumped forward, propping his chin up on his fist. In the wake of everything that had been going on, he'd completely forgotten the annual parties Dash had been throwing since seventh grade. Though he'd never been invited to one, he'd always heard they were such a hit that even high schoolers turned up, and when you were in middle school, that was about as big of a deal as being invited to a high schooler's party yourself.

Sam twisted around in her seat with a look of disgust, which softened a little when she spotted Danny. "C'mon, Danny, it's not that big of a deal."

"Debatable."

"Why don't we get invited to the really cool parties?" Tucker asked as if either of them had an answer. "We've got style, charm, good looks—at least I do, anyway."

Sam scoffed. "Dream on. On the social circuit, we're completely invisible."

Sensing an opportunity, Danny sat straight up. "You might say we're—"

"No."

"—like ghosts."

"Danny, no."

"Danny, yes."

Tucker sighed dramatically. "Ten bucks says that's the reason we don't get invited to parties."

"Hey!"

Tucker opened his mouth to reply but then his eyes widened in surprise and he cleared his throat significantly. Danny and Sam turned to seewhat he was looking at, only to realize that Dash was coming their way. And looking right at them. Sam turned away, hands curling into fists on the table, and gave Danny a pointed glare, but he didn't look away from Dash. There had to be a reason he was coming over with invitations still in his hands. And sure enough, Dash stopped at their table.

"Uh, hey, Dash," Danny said hesitantly.

"Yeah, whatever," the jock replied and shoved an invitation into Danny's face. His hands shot up to grip the piece of paper before he even fully processed what was happening. "Make sure your sister gets that."

Danny blinked down at the little piece of paper which declared itself to be an invite to Da Dash Bash. His brain caught up to him after a moment. "M-my sister? Wha—"

"Couldn't catch her before she left after school. Make sure she gets it and nobody gets hurt."

"Wait, you're inviting Jazz? To a party?"

"Duh, Fenturd." With that, Dash spun on his heel and started to walk away.

"What about us?" Danny blurted out.

Dash threw them a withering look over his shoulder. "My house has a strict policy against twinks, geeks, and freaks."

"Gotta be hard considering you live there," Sam commented dryly.

He whipped around. "The hell'd you say?"

Anyone else might have been intimidated, but Sam's answering smirk was borderline predatory. "You heard me."

Tucker made a quiet noise in the back of his throat and began gathering up his homework. Danny was inclined to agree with his assessment of the situation but it wasn't like they could make a break for it now. Even if he somehow could make it out of the booth and past Dash without getting snatched up, he couldn't leave Sam to her fate. She was tough as nails in her own right, but Dash had at least fifty pounds of pure muscle on her and her powers wouldn't do her much good here.

Dash slammed his hand on their table so hard the whole thing rattled ominously. The chatter around them died as heads swiveled towards the commotion. Tucker jumped in his seat and began shoving papers, books, and napkins indiscriminately into his bag, but Danny remained frozen in his seat. Sam leaned forward, every inch of her absolutely oozing a challenge, daring Dash to make a move.

"You wanna say that to my face, Manson?" Dash growled and, oh hell, Sam wasn't backing down.

Danny had to do something. Now. "Dash—"

"HEY!" came a furious shout from behind the counter. "If you kids got a problem or something, you go on and take that sh*t outside, we ain't doing this on my shift!"

"Yeah, Dash," Sam drawled. "You're making a scene."

"Listen you little—"

"Outside!" shouted the manager. "Or I'll call the cops!"

The threat of police seemed to snap Sam out of…whatever that was. The moment Dash turned away, her eyes flicked to Danny and Tucker and she jerked her head towards the door. Without a word, she snatched up her backpack, shoved her pencil into her textbook and slammed it shut. Danny grabbed his backpack, their tray, and the three of them quickly exited their booth. Dash watched them go with gritted teeth but he made no move to stop them.

"What the hell, Sam!?" Tucker demanded the moment the door shut behind them. "What in the actual hell?"

Sam sputtered something unintelligible, frantically tugging on the zipper of her backpack.

Whether it was some sort of ghost instinct or just a good ol' human gut feeling, something told Danny to look over his shoulder. Dash had gathered a few of his buddies and they were marching towards the door, and even from this distance Danny could see they were coming for blood. "Crud." He grabbed both his friends by their elbows and began pulling them around the back of the building. "Time to go!"

"Oh, no, I am not running from Dash!" Sam objected, tugging against his hold.

But Danny wouldn't budge and continued hauling her and Tucker towards safety. If they could just get behind the dumpsters, they could turn invisible without anyone seeing. "And you're also not about to fight half the football team in the Nasty Burger parking lot! Now let's. GO."

Sam's only further protest was something that sounded like a growl in her throat and she let herself be pulled away. Dash shouted their names as they were ducking around the corner but they didn't stop. They ducked behind the dumpsters to turn invisible but Danny didn't wait around to watch the jocks arrival. He jumped into the air and, to his immense relief, Sam lifted off the ground as well. The three of them flew away, leaving the football players to stew in their fury and confusion. There would be a reckoning for this, of that Danny was certain.

They landed in an alley a few blocks away from the Nasty Burger, turned visible, then strolled out onto the sidewalk. Apart from a few cars going up and down the street, they were alone.

"Are you out of your mind, Sam?!" Tucker exploded. "Why'd you goad Dash like that? There's no way he's gonna forget this by tomorrow."

"Probably not," she agreed, nowhere near concerned enough for the situation, in Danny's opinion. "But Dash doesn't scare me."

"Yeah, 'cos you're not the one he's gonna wail on for this," Danny snapped.

Sam at least had the decency to look contrite. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't think—I didn't mean—"

Danny shook his head. It wasn't fine but she couldn't control what Dash did. "But seriously, Sam, what was that? You've clapped back before but that was weird."

"I don't know what came over me, honestly, I was just…" she trailed off, frowning, and lifted her eyes skyward. "I got pissed off."

"You were practically daring him to pick a fight," Tucker retorted. "I'd say that's a little more than 'pissed off'."

Sam could only shrug. "He could've given Jazz the invitation tomorrow. He just wanted to be a jerk and rub it in. I saw an opportunity and I took it. And you know what? f*ck Dash, okay?"

Both boys' heads swiveled towards her in surprise.

"No really!" Sam insisted, incensed. Maybe it was a trick of the evening light, but her ponytail almost seemed to flicker like a flame. "f*ck him and his stupid party! There's nothing we could do at his house that we can't do at mine. Nothing worth doing, anyway. And we'd have more fun because it'd be just us."

Danny felt his jaw drop in surprise. "Your…house?"

Sam darted in front of them, arms folded across her chest, stopping their procession dead in its tracks. "Yeah. My house. This Saturday, you're both coming to my house. My parents won't be home and my grandma won't bother us. We're gonna watch movies, have snacks, dance, paint our nails, and whatever the hell else you guys wanna do."

Tucker and Danny exchanged baffled looks. They'd never been to Sam's before. Any time they'd broached the subject, she'd outright refused to let them over, for one reason or another.

"Was that an invitation or an order?" Tucker asked.

"Absolutely."

Assuming they could even make it to Saturday.

Danny felt nothing but dread as he approached Casper High on Thursday morning. He didn't see Dash or any of his cronies but it was only a matter of time. By now he had surely rationalized going after Danny in place of Sam, but even if he hadn't, Danny wouldn't sit by and let him do something horrible to her. He just really wasn't looking forward to what came after.

First period passed without incident, as did second, and the butterflies in Danny's stomach grew more agitated when he and Sam were forced to part ways with Tucker for third period. But it, too, passed without incident. After the bell, they regrouped with Tucker near his classroom, then made their way towards the doors which lead out to the lawn where they liked to spend their free period before or after lunch. Soon the weather would turn miserable and the lawn would be off limits until next spring, as no teacher wanted to sit outside and supervise them in the bitter cold.

They headed down freshman hall to deposit their books in their lockers on their way outside…only to find Dash leaning against his locker, waiting for them, if the predatory grin which crossed his face was anything to go by. Danny took a deep breath, and his eyes flicked across the students in the hall. He counted one, two, three, four members of the football team. Star and Valerie were nearby, too, but who knew if they intended to get involved or were simply there for the show?

"Keep walking," Sam muttered to them. Danny gulped and clutched his supplies tighter to his side.

Dash waited until they were only a few feet away before sneering, "Hey, Manson."

"Yeah no," Sam replied flatly, her usual scowl firmly in place.

He pushed off from the lockers and sauntered directly into their path. For a moment, Danny considered simply turning intangible and going through him. Sam's stride didn't even falter, and she walked around him like he was little more than an obstacle in her path and not, say, a viper poised to strike. And strike he did.

When Sam walked around Dash, Danny chose to follow her rather than breaking ranks. Dash's hand whipped out between them so fast that only his inhuman reflexes saved Danny from crashing face-first into solid muscle. With a sharp inhale, he jerked his chin up and stopped dead in his tracks. Dash's arm hovered less than an inch below his chin, and the jock sneered at him. Sam whirled around at the sound.

"Goin somewhere, Fenton-y?" Dash taunted. Danny sputtered.

"Dash!" Sam snapped, drawing his attention from Danny. "While I'd love to see whatever stupid sh*t you're planning on pulling, let me make one thing clear: if you lay so much as a finger on me, Danny, or Tucker, I will make you regret it."

Dash, Danny, and, well, everyone within hearing distance, really, gawked at her like she'd grown a second head. Or gone ghost.

"What the hell?" one of the jocks muttered.

Dash stared at her for a moment longer then burst out laughing, withdrawing his arm. Danny darted past Dash. Tucker followed after, flanking Sam on either side. She wasn't stupid and it wasn't like her to bluff with no way to back it up. Somehow, she had something on Dash.

Around them, some of Dash's friends were laughing along with him.

"Oh," Dash guffawed, "that's a good one." He opened his eyes, saw them standing in formation, and his smile turned ugly. He turned around, folding his arms across his chest, and leaned down towards Sam. "And how are you gonna do that, Manson?"

Danny risked a glance at Sam and had to press his lips together to stop himself from gasping. It was faint, maybe not even visible to humans yet, but her eyes had begun to take on a yellow hue. Dash was an idiot but there was no way he'd miss her eyes changing colors if this went on much longer.

Sam smirked and began to hum a tune Danny did not recognize but Dash…oh, Dash did. His eyes widened and to the utter shock of every single student watching, he took a step back. Tucker snickered. Whispering started up around them.

Glancing around quickly, Dash cleared his throat and his expression morphed into a scowl. "Yeah, right. As if anyone would believe that."

Her answering grin was all teeth and absolutely wicked. "Good thing I have pictures."

Dash's jaw clenched but he said nothing, nor did he make any move towards them, clearly trying to decide whether or not he wanted to call her bluff. After a moment, Sam took a step back, then another, and finally she turned and walked away. Danny and Tucker followed, and, to Danny's amazement, Dash let them go. The whispers followed them down the hall, fading only once they'd rounded the corner out of sight.

At that exact moment, Tucker burst out laughing. "Holy crap! How? How did you know?!"

Sam seemed to be trying to hold back her own laughter, though her eyes shone deviously. (And, thankfully, entirely in their natural shade.) "Dash isn't as subtle as he thinks he is."

Danny looked between them, utterly mystified. "I don't understand. What exactly do you have on Dash?"

"That song she hummed back there?" Tucker jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "It was the My Rainbow Bears theme song."

Danny's eyes widened. "No."

"Yes," Sam hissed.

"How did you know? More importantly, how long have you been sitting on this?"

"Since summer. I caught Dash buying one of the bears at the store. Must've been limited edition or something because he forked over quite a bit of cash for it. He was trying to be all incognito, but I recognized him and snapped a few pictures when he wasn't looking. He never even knew I was there."

Danny was amazed and more than a little impressed. No wonder Dash had backed down. If something like that got out, it'd be like throwing a bucket of chum into shark-infested waters. Even if he managed to somehow disprove it, the blow to his reputation wouldn't soon fade.

"I've been saving them for something like this," she went on smugly. "I know it won't last forever, but I figure we'll get at least a week off."

Hmm. Yeah, better add terrified to the list as well. Who knew what other deep dark secrets Sam was just waiting to expose?

"Glad you're on our side," Danny said.

They pushed the doors open and stepped outside into the warm midday sun. A handful of students were already seated at the picnic tables or on the lawn. The teacher on watch, a woman in her thirties that none of them had a class with, glanced at them as they walked down the stairs then turned her attention back to the lawn.

"Y'know," Tucker drawled as soon as they were far enough away, "Now that we've got powers, it'd be really easy for us to get dirt on that whole crowd. Think about it. We can go invisible, intangible, and we can fly! All we'd have to do is pick our targets and I bet you within a day we'd have something on 'em."

"Uh, I don't know, Tuck," Danny said slowly. He glanced at Sam, who looked about as uncomfortable as he felt at the idea. "That doesn't seem…right."

Tucker frowned. "What do you mean? Those guys have been horrible to us for years. We should be allowed to haunt them."

Arriving at their preferred table, Tucker took a seat at the bench closest to them. Danny walked around the table to the other side and Sam followed.

"It just seems like a really shady thing to do," Danny explained as he sat down. "It's basically stalking, no matter what you call it. We're trying to be heroes, right?"

"All things considered, I know I don't really have a leg to stand on here," Sam said, "but I'm gonna have to agree with Danny on this one."

"Oh, come on Sam. If the roles had been reversed, Dash wouldn't have hesitated to out you to the entire school that day. We wouldn't be doing it to be mean, we'd be…." He paused, lips twisting thoughtfully as he sought a way to justify it. "Acquiring insurance." Danny frowned and Tucker let out an exasperated sigh. "Come on, Danny. You can't tell me you don't like the idea of getting Dash off your back for the rest of high school."

"You mean until people figure out there's no way for us to know the things we know without literally stalking them or breaking and entering," Sam pointed out.

Tucker folded his arms with a loud sigh and scowled. "I still think they'd deserve it," he muttered but didn't argue further.

She might not have thrown the chum to the sharks, but Sam sure as hell poked the hornet's nest with her little stunt. By the time lunch was over, every single kid who'd been invited to Dash's party seemed to be aware that they hadn't been. Oh, no one came at them directly, and Dash certainly didn't make a reappearance, but suddenly they were being jostled a little more than usual during passing period. Accidental bumps, normally unavoidable in school halls, were too frequent to be anything but deliberate. Popular kids, or anyone who might be considered on the fringes of the group, were making a point of looking at them while whispering behind hands or laughing loudly.

And it continued on Friday, as well.

Danny could ignore the jeering, the pointed looks, and the elbowing. He'd dealt with worse. But what he couldn't stand was the whispering. Everywhere they went, alone or together, the whispering seemed to follow in the background. It was annoying. The last thing he wanted though was for people to realize they were getting to him, so he kept his head down and purposefully avoided searching for the source of the whispering.

On the way to third period, Kwan decided to barrel past Danny so fast that he lost his grip on his supplies and they went tumbling to the floor. Sam stopped to help him gather his things and Danny's ears fair burned from embarrassment under the whispering, which had swelled in intensity. As a result of the whole thing, they were almost late to class. The teacher was engrossed in a conversation with a pair of students at the front of the room and didn't even notice Danny and Sam slip in mere seconds before the bell. They took their seats in the second to last row and unpacked their supplies. Sam tore out a blank page from her notebook, scribbled a message, and slipped it to Danny just as their teacher called the class to order.

When we were picking your stuff up, there were only two people still in the hallway. Who was whispering? Where's it coming from?

Danny's jaw nearly hit the floor. He glanced at Sam's intense expression and pressed his lips together. Thinking back on it, she was right. The whispers might've died down as they left the scene of the crime, so to speak, but they hadn't truly stopped until they entered the classroom. The only people out there had been fellow stragglers, certainly not anyone who would bother to stop and gossip. That really only left one option, didn't it?

How is it, he thought to himself, as he scribbled down his reply to Sam, that my life has gotten to the point where 'ghosts' is actually a valid answer?

He slipped her the note when their teacher was writing on the board and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod minutely.

When they met up with Tucker after class, they filled him in on their realizations as they made their way towards the lawn. Like yesterday, they headed for freshman hall to drop off their stuff, hopefully without any interruptions this time. As they rounded the corner, the whispering swelled once more.

"You hear that, right?" Danny asked his best friends. They nodded. He looked up and down the hallway. Most of the kids were busy at their lockers or chatting with friends like everything was normal and there weren't voices whispering loud enough to be audible even over the din.

Wait…no. Danny grabbed his friends by their arms and stopped dead in his tracks. He frowned, squeezing his eyes shut, and strained his ears. Not voices, plural. A single voice, whispering the same word over and over, echoing and overlapping endlessly with itself.

Bullies…bullies…bullies…!

Danny sucked in a sharp breath, eyes flying open to see Sam and Tucker staring at him with identical concerned expressions. "I think," he muttered, letting go of them, "it's saying 'bullies.'"

Sam furrowed her brow and then closed her eyes. After a few, long moments, her eyes snapped open once more. "I hear it, too."

Tucker folded his arms, seeming to take their word for it. "A ghostly disembodied voice, audible only in the halls, especially this one, talking about bullies…." His eyes suddenly widened and he gasped. "Holy—you don't think the legend of Locker 724 is real do you?"

Sam gasped, too, but Danny merely frowned. "The what now?"

Tucker threw him a withering look. "Hello? Locker 724? How do you not know the legend of Locker 724?"

"Uh. What?"

He heaved a sigh, grabbed Danny by the bicep, and pulled him down the row of lockers until they reached 724. He recognized it immediately, of course. Casper High's lockers were hardly immaculate but 724 was weathered and rusty, its paint job faded and heavily chipped. No one had bothered to maintain this singular locker in a very long time, never mind actually used it. He'd noticed it on the first day but considering everything else that had been going on at the time, he hadn't really bothered to learn why. Or care.

Danny glanced between the locker and his friends, who were eyeing it like it had teeth, and he almost might've thought they were crazy if he couldn't hear the voice clearer than ever before.

"Bullsh*t," Sam whispered.

"C-can we get out of here?" Danny stammered. "This is freaking me out."

"How have we never heard this before?"

Tucker shrugged and made a noise of confusion. "How should I know? Maybe because he's never spoken before?"

"Whoa whoa wait." Danny held up his free hand. "He?"

Tucker heaved a sigh. "Seriously. Danny. How do you not know? Locker 724 used to be owned by a kid named Sydney Poindexter back in the '50s. Dude was the victim of more cruel pranks than anyone in the history of Casper High School. Apparently, picking on him was a graduation requirement."

As he spoke, Danny's eyes flicked to the dilapidated locker in front of them. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the whispering had quieted. Like it knew what Tucker was talking about.

Tucker followed his gaze and frowned at the locker. "He got stuffed into his locker so many times, it's believed his spirit still inhabits it to this very day. Or so the story says."

They regarded the locker in silence for a long moment. The whispering continued around them but the words had begun to change. Danny furrowed his brow as he strained to make out what the whispers were saying, but all he could catch were snatches of words, except for one, which seemed clear as day.

Hello?

Danny shuddered. Oh god. Was there really the ghost of some poor dead kid trapped inside? What kind of hell had his high school years been for him to end up here of all places? God, had he died in there?

"Uh, Tucker?"

Danny blinked, coming back to himself at Sam's worried tone. Tucker had taken a step forward and his hand gripped the dial on Locker 724, like he was about to try unlocking it.

"Hey, guys, get to where you're going!" a teacher's voice called down the hall. "Bell's in one minute."

Danny let out a huff and tugged on Tucker's arm. "Come on," he muttered, jerking his head in the opposite direction of the teacher. "Let's get out of here."

"Can't you hear him?" Tucker asked.

"Not really," Sam replied at the same time Danny said, "Sort of."

Sam glanced between them and frowned.

"He kept repeating three numbers, 20-9-15. I think it's the combination. He wants to be let out."

Danny shook his head. "Tuck, I don't think—"

"Get a move on!" the teacher called.

Danny sighed and raised his hand at the teacher in acknowledgement. "Come on, guys," he hissed. "We can hide in the bathrooms and go invisible."

With an acknowledging wave at the teacher watching them, the three headed down the hall like they were heading for the lawn. Luckily for them, a pair of bathrooms were situated just around the corner from the outside door, and they slipped inside their respective ones without a word. Danny glanced around to make sure no one was in there then turned invisible. Tucker followed suit. The bell rang not long after and Tucker and Danny exchanged glances before slipping out of the bathroom to join Sam. The teacher was already gone when they made it back to freshman hall and each quickly returned to their lockers to stow their stuff. The whispering continued all the while.

They met back up in front of Locker 724 and Sam, ever the pragmatic one, had brought her Thermos along. They stood invisibly a few feet from the locker, eyeing it with varying levels of wariness.

"I don't know about this," Danny muttered. "Sure, he's trapped, but what if someone did it purposefully? If this kid was bullied to death or something, he's probably a vengeful spirit."

"Or he's a tormented soul that's been stuck in a locker for fifty years," Tucker retorted. "Either way, there's three of us and one of him, and Sam has a thermos."

"Maybe we should wait until school's out," Sam suggested.

Tucker scoffed. "Come on, Sam. I don't think just opening the door is gonna do anything. Kids probably break in all the time. If the door was the only thing keeping him in there, he'd have been out years ago."

Without waiting for permission, Tucker turned visible and reached for the dial once more. Still invisible, Danny and Sam exchanged nervous looks and Sam uncapped her thermos. They turned visible as Tucker tried the latch. It creaked far too loudly in the empty hallway and the whispering abruptly ceased. Danny heard Tucker suck in a breath before pulling the door open. It groaned as it opened, the hatches rusty and warped from years of disrepair.

Danny and Sam crowded up behind Tucker to peer inside over his shoulders. The inside of Locker 724 was just as worn as the outside. Faded, dirty, and there was even a spiderweb in one of the corners. Ick. But the real oddity was the mirror affixed to the back of the locker. How long had it been there? Had it been Sidney Poindexter's?

"Whoa," Sam murmured.

Wordlessly, Danny reached over Tucker's shoulder and pressed his fingers to the mirror's surface. His fingers tingled, and he pulled away with a hiss of surprise.

"Danny?"

"I felt something…."

Tucker reached out to touch the mirror himself and Danny felt him shiver. Sam's arm snaked in alongside his to touch it, too, and she gasped.

"Something's definitely going on here," she declared. "It feels…alive."

"Or something," Tucker muttered with an expression of intense concentration directed at the mirror. "Are you, uh, are you in there, Sidney?"

Nothing. Not even the barest hint of a whisper. Danny frowned and leaned away from Tucker. This was sketchy as hell.

"Sidney?" Tucker tried again. "Or, uh, somebody else? Hello? We're here to help. I-if you want it, I mean."

"Annnd of course nothing's happening," Sam drawled, taking a step back, and folding her arms. "I swear, Tucker, if you let him out just by opening the locker…."

"I didn't," Tucker replied, sounding less sure of himself than before. He tapped his finger against the mirror. "Come on, Sidney, dude, if you're there, give us a sign or something."

He tried to wedge his fingers beneath the mirror, as if intending to remove it, but the mirror didn't even so much as twitch. Frowning, Tucker reached in with both hands and tried to pull the mirror out. It didn't budge, but a quiet hiss whipped through the air.

"Okay. Weird tingly mirror, fused to the wall, and hissing. That's normal," Danny deadpanned. Then he heard the footsteps. He turned his head towards the sound. Multiple people, heavy footfalls, walking fast. "Someone's coming!" he hissed.

Tucker leaned around the locker door to look. "What do we do?!" he whispered frantically.

"Hide!" Sam replied at the same volume then turned invisible, Danny followed. Tucker eased the door closed but didn't shut it all the way and disappeared as well.

Seconds later, a group of three boys in letter jackets rounded the corner. In the front was an upperclassman that Danny couldn't name. The other two were Dash and Kwan. The upperclassman lead them right to Locker 724 and Danny promptly turned intangible, floating into the air. He could see the vague forms of Sam and Tucker follow suit.

"This one here," the upperclassman said, pointing at the locker, then stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, yeah, this piece of sh*t," Dash drawled. "They were staring at it?"

"Yeah," the upperclassman replied. "Looked kind of freaked, too."

Dash let out a quiet 'huh' then peered closer. Without a word, he stepped around the other jocks, reached for the door Tucker had left slightly ajar, and pulled it open. His eyes flitted around the empty locker intently before settling on the mirror in the back.

"Weird," he declared after a moment.

"Hey so, uh," Kwan began nervously, "but isn't this locker supposed to be haunted?"

Dash let out a derisive snort. "You actually believe that crap?"

"No! But y'know, Fenton might. O-or Manson."

Dash didn't look convinced. He reached inside the locker and tapped his finger against the mirror. The whispering resumed, louder than ever, with a decidedly aggressive undertone, but Dash gave no indication that he could hear it. None of them did. But the hairs on the back of Danny's neck bristled. Something was about to happen. He could feel it.

"Well, they're not here," the upperclassman drawled, pulling his hands from his pockets. "I'm going to lunch. Later, guys."

"Later, man," Dash replied with a wave, not looking away from the locker.

"Later, thanks," Kwan added as the upperclassman walked away, leaving the two freshman alone with the three invisible half-ghosts and a pissed off locker spirit. Kwan nudged him. "Dude, c'mon. There's nothing here."

Dash frowned and his arm moved. Danny couldn't see what he was doing from the angle he was floating at but then suddenly the voice, which had only ever whispered before, swelled into a roar.

NO!

It may have not reached Dash and Kwan's ears but the startled gasp which burst from Danny's mouth sure did. They startled then whipped their heads toward the sound, eyes darting around the empty hallway first in alarm and then confusion.

"You heard that, right?" Kwan asked.

"Yeah," Dash replied, taking a step back from the locker, clutching the mirror in his hand.

One moment Tucker's faint form was hovering in Danny's peripheral vision and the next he was down at Dash's level and tugging on the mirror out of his grip.

"Hey what the f*ck!?" Dash yelped as the mirror was yanked out of his hands by an invisible force. Kwan swore and literally leaped backwards. They gawked at the mirror with mounting horror for a few tense seconds and then Tucker turned it invisible.

Kwan let out a scream of terror and was halfway down the hall before the sound faded. Dash bolted after him, screeching, "WHAT THE FUUUUCK!?"

A door up the hallway flew open and a teacher darted out into the hallway. Another door opened half a second later and then another and another, all seeking the source of the screaming.

"Guys," Sam hissed, "time to go!"

She did not have to tell them twice. They shot through the ceiling, up through the second floor, then the third. Sam must have transformed somewhere between floors because when they returned to visibility outside, she was Wraith. Danny and Tucker landed on the ground but Sam remained hovering in the air.

"That was stupid," Sam said without preamble.

"You're one to talk," Tucker retorted. "Besides, who's gonna know? Everyone's just gonna think it was the locker ghost. And did you see their faces?! Totally worth it!"

Danny was inclined to agree but before he could voice his opinions on the matter, the mirror in Tucker's hands began to glow a vicious green. The whispers resumed with a vengeance, rising in volume as the glow swelled in size, coalescing into a single, nasally shout.

"BULLY!"

Tucker let go of the mirror with a startled cry but rather than plummeting to the ground, it remained floating in midair. An explosion of light erupted from the mirror and the three teenagers threw their hands up to shield their eyes. When the light faded, they were not alone.

He was their age, maybe a little older, skinny as a board, with a long, narrow face, and glasses. He looked like he had just stepped out of a TV show from the fifties in more ways than one. His clothing style was dated and, for a word, nerdy…and he was entirely monochrome. No hint of the ectoplasmic green which had comprised at least one aspect of every ghost they had seen thus far, not even in his eyes. But he was very much a ghost, his transparent, floating form could attest to that. As could the mirror which he held firmly in his hands.

All four teenagers exchanged shocked looks but it was Sidney who found his voice first. His head whipped from side to side and his lips parted in a wide, buck-toothed grin. "Hey! I'm free! Finally, I—" He paused then his head swiveled towards them and his eyes narrowed. "You. You were messing with those poor kids."

"S-Sidney…Poindexter?" Tucker asked tentatively.

"Yeah, that's me. What's it to ya?"

"Holy sh*t," Sam whispered.

"Wait a minute." Sidney rose higher into the air so he was eye-level with Sam. "You're a ghost, too. Why are you helping them bully kids?!"

"We weren't!" Danny argued, drawing the ghost's gaze. "Those guys are the bullies. They were after us when they showed up at your locker."

"They're the bullies?" Sidney repeated with a doubtful frown. "Then how come they were the ones who ran screaming?"

"Because we scared them off." Sam retorted, folding her arms. "Listen, I don't know how much you were able to see or whatever from your locker, but if you'd been paying attention at all during the school year so far, you'd know Dash and Kwan are assholes. I might not agree with what Tucker did—" she shot Tucker a pointed look "—but they definitely deserved it."

Sidney turned his attention to Tucker, looking him up and down pointedly, but said nothing.

"Look," Danny said, holding his hands up in front of him in a placating gesture. "We don't want to fight."

"Fight?" Sidney repeated, blinking in surprise. "Who said anything about fighting?"

"Pretty much every ghost we've ever met has picked a fight," Sam replied.

"But you're just a kid, like us," Tucker pressed. "And we know a lot of bad stuff happened to you when you were alive, and that you've been stuck in that locker a long time."

Sidney co*cked his head. "I wasn't in my locker, it's just where the doorway is. Or…was." He looked down at the mirror in his hands. "What year is it?" he asked suddenly.

"2004," Sam said.

"Two-thousa—" Sidney stopped mid-word, eyes wide, and then abruptly let out a long, loud sigh, deflating. He drifted towards the ground. "So long. I can't believe after all this time no one ever threw it away."

"There's a whole legend-slash-ghost story thing with your locker," Tucker explained. "No one uses it. I don't think anyone had even opened it in years before we did."

"No," Sidney agreed, "it's been a long time. I knew time was passing but, gosh, fifty years…."

Sensing that they were no longer in any danger, Sam lowered herself next to the boys and transformed back. The flash of light startled Sidney and he had to do a double-take then gasped. "HOLY SOCKS!" He let go of his mirror with one hand to point at them. "Y-you! You're halfas!"

Danny stood up straighter. "What-as?"

"Halfas! Everybody in the Ghost Zone has been talking about you! You're half-humans, half-ghosts! Halfas! You have all our powers on the human plane and—and you…" He looked down at his mirror again.

Halfas, Danny thought. There's a name for us.

"And you let me out," Sidney finished. "Why would you let me out when all you do is throw ghosts back in?"

Tucker and Sam seemed to be reeling from the revelation just as much as Danny was. A few moments passed before Tucker shook his head and replied, "We just wanted to help you, dude."

"We're only throwing ghosts back because they've all been trying to hurt people," Danny added then tilted his head, trying to make eye-contact with Sidney. The ghost met his gaze and raised his head. "If you're going to do that, you have to go back to the Ghost Zone. One way or another."

"I…" Sidney looked down at his mirror again. Licked his lips. Looked at them, then at the sky, clear and blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds. The wind blew around them, rustling a few leaves which littered the roof, and the clothes of the three…halfas. Voices drifted up from the lawn where students passed their free period in idle conversations. "I don't…want to hurt anybody. But I don't want to go back. Not yet, anyway. There's not really…anything good for me in the Ghost Zone, you dig?"

Tucker let out a tiny, almost imperceptible laugh, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Word."

Sidney co*cked his head. "W-word?"

"We dig."

The ghost's shoulders slumped in relief, and he grinned at them, showing off his too-large front teeth. He drifted down to stand on the rooftop in front of them. Tucking his mirror under one arm, he held out his other hand. "I'm Sidney," he said.

Tucker accepted the offer and shook the ghost's hand. "Tucker."

Sidney turned to Sam who shrugged lightly and said her name as she shook his hand. He turned to Danny last, offering his hand and a hopeful, expectant smile. Danny returned it and, for the first time in his life, shook a ghost's hand.

It was cold.

Chapter 8: Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun

Chapter Text

Miracle of miracles, Dash didn't bother them for the rest of the day. Dash didn't do much of anything, actually. Or Kwan. Sam overheard that the two of them had been taken to the principal's office after the incident in the hallway, but the truth of what happened was anyone's guess because no one in administration believed for a second their story about a haunted mirror, even if it was from Locker 724.

They didn't hear a peep out of Sidney, either, though their respective ghost senses went off from time to time throughout the day, so they knew he was still around. Not a problem for Danny, whose sense manifested in a cool wisp of air which he could easily hide behind his hand, or Tucker, whose hands only buzzed with small little shocks. But Sam's ghost sense was hot and the resulting puff of smoke which escaped her lips was thick and to the ignorant eye might resemble cigarette smoke. She'd only just barely avoided getting caught and even then only because she'd been sitting in the back of the class when it happened.

But at least it proved that Sidney was willing to uphold his end of the bargain: stick around, out of sight, and behave until school let out and he'd get a guided tour of twenty-first century Amity Park.

After the bell, Sam stopped at her locker long enough to put her things away and grab her backpack, then dipped into the bathroom to transform and flew to the roof. Sidney was not hard to spot. Even if he wasn't a splotch of monochrome in a world of color, it was hard to not notice someone floating on their back a few feet off the ground.

Sidney watched the sky with his arms folded beneath his head. Comfortable, relaxed, almost entranced. It was the strangest thing Sam had ever seen and as a goth, she'd seen some sh*t. He looked like he'd just stepped out of the TV from the 1950s family sitcom her parents liked to pretend their lives were. She could understand why he wore those clothes, but why was he in black and white?

He startled a little when Sam materialized but his eyes returned to the sky after only a few moments.

"You said your name is Sam, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Is that short for Samantha?"

Sam grimaced. "I prefer Sam."

Sidney nodded. "You can call me Sid, if you want. That's what my friends used to."

You had friends? Sam very nearly blurted out. From the story, it'd seemed like Sidney Poindexter was totally alone at Casper High. But of course, that couldn't have been right. There had to have been at least somebody he could talk to, others in the same boat as him. Nerds. Outcasts. Even if he was on the bottom of the food chain, he couldn't have been totally alone. Though he probably must've felt like it. The story wasn't specific on the details, but it was known that Sidney had never graduated.

"Alright," she said instead. "Sid it is."

Sidney grinned and patted the open air behind him. Sam floated over to his side and after a moment's indecision, decided to copy his position, and looked up at the sky. She enjoyed cloud watching sometimes but she got the feeling that wasn't what Sidney was doing. Or at least, not all he was doing.

"Have you been looking at the sky this whole time?" she asked.

"Mostly. I thought about going down to check out some of the classes but…plenty of time for that later."

"The sky isn't going anywhere," she pointed out, "and the forecast says clear skies for the next few days."

"And I haven't left the Ghost Zone in over fifty years."

"So?"

Sidney gave her a curious look but didn't immediately reply. Then something seemed to click, and his eyes widened almost comically. "Have you never been in the Ghost Zone?"

Sam shook her head. "No. We've thought about it but…no."

"Jeepers Creepers, how did you manage to avoid it?" Sidney sat up, still floating. "I would've thought…well, actually, come to think of it, I have no idea how it's even possible for you to exist. Any of you. But I would've thought you'd at least been in the Ghost Zone. It's…uh…." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "It's like…a void? I guess? Up or down depends on you and it goes on forever."

"Like space?" Sam asked.

"You mean like…outer space?" He co*cked his head. "I guess it could be, but no one's ever been to space, so who knows?"

"Well, actually…."

Sidney sat up straight. "Get outta town!"

Sam laughed and rolled upright, hovering just a few inches above the roof. "Dead serious. Astronauts went into space back in the '60s. We've been to the moon, we've got satellites in orbit around the planet, and some other stuff I can't remember, but Danny's super into space so he can tell you all about it if you ask."

Sidney's monochrome eyes practically shone with wonder. "Holy cats. What else have humans done?"

"Uh…" Sam wracked her brain. What would a kid from the 50s be impressed by and actually have a frame of reference for? "Oh, all TV shows and movies are in color now."

"Like the Wizard of Oz?"

"Better."

"Baloney! It was like you were in Oz with them!"

"Yeah, and I'm telling you, it's better."

When Tucker showed up a few minutes later to Sam explaining heavy metal, he quickly hijacked the conversation to tell Sidney about the technological advancements of the late 20th century. Including the internet. He'd just looped back to arcade games to build a foundation for what the hell computer games were when Danny finally arrived, citing his sister as the cause of his tardiness. He, too, jumped in on the conversation of video games.

"We should go to the mall," Sam said, drawing the ghost boys back to the purpose of their gathering.

Sidney was practically vibrating with excitement, eyes shining with amazement, as he turned to her. "Mall? What's a mall?"

"Did they not have malls in your time?" Tucker asked.

"Nope! What is it?"

"It's…." he trailed off and frowned, wondering how to articulate it, but fortunately, Danny was already on it.

"It's a huge indoor building with multiple different little stores inside."

Sidney co*cked his head.

"So. you know when you walk down the street there will be stores and restaurants in the buildings as you pass? Well, it's like that, except it's all enclosed in one big building."

"Ooooooh, sounds neat!" Sidney chirped, floating higher into the air. "What are we waiting for?"

"Ah, ah! Hold it, mister." Sam wagged her finger at him. "You can't just go flying into a public place like that. Most people don't believe in ghosts and the ones that do are gonna shoot first and ask questions later."

Danny grimaced but nodded in agreement.

That gave Sidney a pause. He placed one finger on his chin thoughtfully. "So, you mean to tell me, that no one knows about you three?"

The halfas shook their heads.

"How in the heck have you managed to keep it a secret?"

"Honestly?" Sam began.

"Not a clue," Tucker finished.

"Very carefully," Danny added, the little sh*t.

Sam threw him a look but continued without addressing his comment. "People have caught glimpses of us but no one except Danny's parents think we're ghosts."

Sidney gave Danny a funny look and received a shrug of his shoulders in response. "They're paranormal researchers. Ghost hunters."

"Yeowch. Tough break, man."

"No kidding," Tucker muttered.

"The mall?" Danny prompted and Sidney clapped his hands together. "Just stay invisible and close to us and we'll be good."

"You got it, Danaroo!" Sidney zipped into the air and disappeared, with the halfas right behind him.

Amity Park Mall was about as busy as one might expect at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. The oldest of the four malls within the greater city limits, its central location made it the most popular despite not being the largest, especially among teenagers and young adults. The food court was predictably packed, as were the stores which catered to the tastes of the youth. Catchy modern hits played over the PA and filled the space behind the general chatter of the patrons, though the former would be drowned by the alt rock coming through the open door of Hot Topic if one got close enough. Or by the energized dance music from the arcade which seemed to permeate half of the third floor.

For Sidney, the proverbial kid in the candy store, it was love at first sight.

He zipped around the mall, darting between storefronts faster than a jackrabbit, surveying the entirety of what the first floor had to offer before any of the halfas even realized they shouldn't be able to see him if he was still invisible.

Once more, Sidney was surprised at how little they knew about being ghosts, and so he explained. They could enter a state which rendered them visible, if somewhat transparent, to supernatural eyes, but completely hidden from the humans around them. Mostly hidden. If someone sensitive to the supernatural was around that'd be a different story, but none of them would be able to avoid detection anyway in that case, so it was a rather moot point. Besides, now that they knew such a thing was possible, achieving it didn't take more than a quick pitstop in an empty, locked room to work out how to do it themselves, then they were back out to the shops.

Sam figured Sidney would've preferred the large Borders Bookstore or perhaps the RadioShack, he'd been so fascinated by the technological advancements Tucker had spoken of, but to everyone's surprise, he led them to the candle store first. He weaved through the rows, never once straying from their sight, carefully sniffing each and every candle. He rendered lids intangible with a simple placement of his finger.

He caught Danny watching him with barely disguised curiosity and simply said, "I forgot how nice things could smell."

It made Sam sad.

Eventually, he deemed his olfactory senses suitably stimulated and allowed Tucker to lead him into RadioShack. At first he seemed interested in the various gadgets Tucker was pointing out to him, but the moment he spotted the array of TVs in the back displaying an episode of Power Rangers, it was all over. He floated towards them almost as if in a trance and stared, jaw slack. After a few minutes, he flipped so he was floating on his stomach, chin propped in his hands, looking like an ordinary kid watching TV.

For a while, Sam, Danny, and Tucker were content to watch him and the episode. But when the credits rolled, Sam finally floated up to him and said, "Told you."

"No kiddin'," Sidney replied without taking his eyes off the screen. "I want one of these."

"Uh, I hate to break it to you, but this thing's probably a couple grand, and they will notice if one of them suddenly disappears."

Sidney shrugged, unbothered. "Not like they'd find it."

"It also won't fit through the mirror."

At that, Sidney's face fell and finally he turned to look at her with big, soulful eyes. "Oh, yeah. I guess that's true." He sighed and turned back to the TV. It quickly entranced him once more, but she could see the disappointment still writ on his face…and it gave her an idea.

She pulled Tucker and Danny to the other side of the store and whispered her plan to them. Tucker was on board before she'd even finished speaking but Danny was less quick to throw his support. After all, they didn't really know how the Ghost Zone worked. For all they knew, technology that wasn't ghost-proofed would break in there and there was no way in hell he could get his parents to do something like that. But, really, there was only one way to find out. So Tucker went to work while Sam slipped off to the restroom to transform.

Danny kept Sidney's attention on him and the TVs while Sam and Tucker carried out their plan and only once Tucker gave him the thumbs up from across the room did he suggest they move on. Sidney looked mournfully between his new friend and the TVs and for a moment, Sam thought the TVs might actually win out.

But then Danny asked the fateful question: "Have you ever had pizza?"

Which was how they found themselves floating thirty feet over the food court watching a dead kid try his first slice of pizza in fifty years. Sam wouldn't have thought ghosts would be able to eat since they were, according to Danny's parents, made of nothing but ectoplasm, but Sidney wolfed it down like he was any other teenage boy and promptly flew back down to steal another slice. He came back with the entire tray of pepperoni pizza, leaving behind one very confused employee, and while Danny and Tucker accepted his invitation to take a slice for themselves, Sam politely declined.

Sidney's face fell. "Do you not like pizza?"

"Oh, no, I love pizza," Sam replied, "but I don't eat meat."

The ghost looked down at the remaining slice on the tray. "Where's the meat?" he asked, nonplussed.

"The pepperoni," she explained patiently, pointing with her free hand at the round cuts of salami embedded in the gooey cheese.

He let out a quiet 'huh' but then shrugged his shoulders, pulled the tray back to himself, and went back to eating.

When they were done, Sidney returned the tray to the Pizza House down in the food court and they took him to see the arcade where they proceeded to waste an entire hour. At first Sidney was content merely watching others play games but eventually the urge to play won out. Danny and Tucker transformed back, armed themselves with tokens, and carefully positioned themselves in front of the games Sidney wanted to try so no one would see that neither of them were actually the ones manning the controls. When they disappeared inside a racing simulator, Sam used the opportunity to slip away to the nearby video store. She wasn't sure what Sidney would like so she grabbed a few black and white classics, including season 1 of the Addams Family, and a DVD boxset of the most recent Power Rangers series. It was hard to tell, but she was pretty sure she recognized one of the villains on the back of the box from the episode he'd been watching earlier in RadioShack. Regardless, these were sure to keep him busy for at least a few weeks, assuming he had nothing else to do.

"Hey, Sam!" Sidney greeted over the music blaring from the speakers throughout the room. "Where'd you go? You missed it! Me and Dann-o raced!"

She looked past him to Danny and couldn't quite keep the smirk off her face. "Who won, Dann-o?"

Danny threw an annoyed scowl her way.

Sidney puffed out his chest and pointed to himself with his thumb triumphantly. "I did. …Even if he was going easy on me."

"Hey," Danny protested weakly.

Sidney waved a hand dismissively. "Don't even bother. There's no way I'd have won my first try and I know it."

"Well, guess that means you'll have to keep practicing," Tucker pointed out. "Guess we'll have to keep coming back."

Sidney grinned, dark eyes shining. "That'd be real swell." He faltered, glee fading into uncertainty. "That is—I mean—i-if you really want to. You don't have to go out of your way on my account, y'know."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, they love coming here."

"You don't?"

Sam shrugged. "It's not my favorite. But, that being said, I'll never pass up the opportunity to completely destroy them at DDR."

"What's that?"

Which was how they found themselves in line for the DDR machines. Tucker, of course, took Sam's statement personally enough to declare a challenge. Danny knew better. Sidney floated a few feet off the ground, staring raptly at the current match. By the time the halfas had reached the front of the line, Sidney had a pretty good idea of the game's objective and how to win. Danny took their backpacks, Sam pulled off her boots, and they stepped up onto the game.

She let Tucker choose the song and difficulty setting, though not without offering to let him reconsider challenging her on hard mode. But Tucker wouldn't have it. "I've been practicing!" he insisted and Sam didn't doubt it. Except, between the two of them, she was pretty sure only one of them had a DDR machine in their basem*nt.

"Wowsers, they're serious about this aren't they?" she heard Sidney ask over the din.

"Yep," Danny replied, almost smugly, and Sam smirked. "Just watch. This is gonna be good."

The opening sequence began to play on screen.

"…She can't really beat him though, can she?"

"She usually does."

"But she's a girl…."

The countdown began. Sam faltered under an unexpected flash of anger because, honestly, she should've seen something like that coming, he was from the nineteen-f*cking-fifties—

But then Danny laughed, as one might laugh at the ignorance of an impudent child, and the sound curled Sam's anger into something more productive: spite. "Sid," he said, "you got a lot to learn."

She didn't have time to turn to see Sidney's reaction but if he responded verbally it was lost beneath the fast-paced europop and Sam focused her attention on the arrows which were beginning to fly up the screen. It did not take long for the ghost to get into the hype and she heard his echoing cheers over those of the other onlookers who'd gathered at the prospect of a duel. Honestly, it was a miracle no one else realized something was off.

When it was over, both Tucker and Sam were breathing heavily, he was sweaty, and Sam knew her legs would probably be a little sore later, but the WINNER icon flashing across her screen was well worth it.

"Close!" Tucker yelled, pointing at his score which was only about fifteen points shy of her own.

"But not close enough!" Sam shouted back then hopped down from the machine, grabbing her boots, and headed away from the DDR machines towards the nearby benches.

Tucker took his bag back from Danny, fished out his water bottle, and collapsed onto the bench next to Sam, chugging at it.

"That! Was! Amazing!" Sidney crowed while Sam shoved her feet into her boots. "How'd you get so good at that?!"

Tucker stopped drinking long enough to mutter, "That's what I'd like to know."

Sam smirked at the transparent ghost floating in front of her. "Not bad for a girl, right?"

"I'll say! Jeez Louise!"

Sam ducked her head to hide her eye roll and focused on getting her boots re-laced. He was from the 50s, a product of his time. They could work on the sexism thing. Danny wordlessly rifled through Sam's backpack while she laced up her first boot and handed her her own water bottle. She accepted it with a thanks after finishing her second boot. She took a long swig then accepted her backpack from him. She paused only to check that the bags hiding her purchases were still secure before she tucked the water bottle back inside.

"What next?" Tucker asked, zipping his own backpack.

Sam turned to the boys fully expecting to see Sidney still floating in place with a manic gleam in his eye, but he looked…dazed. As she watched, his otherworldly glow seemed to dim and he slowly sank to the floor. When he touched down, his entire body slumped, head drooping like his neck could no longer support its weight.

Sam lurched to her feet. "Are you alright?"

Danny whipped around and inhaled sharply at the sight. "What happened?"

Sidney smiled weakly but it didn't reach his eyes. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Swell. Peachy. Just…feeling kinda tired…."

Understanding filled Danny's expression and he took a step closer. "You've never been in our world this long before have you?"

Sidney hesitated, and for a moment he looked like he wanted to deny it, before shaking his head. "Not since I died."

Danny nodded once then to Tucker and Sam explained, "My parents theorized that ghosts who spend too long in the living world will become weaker. That's what's happening here, right?"

Sidney bobbed his head weakly. "It's true…for some of us, at least. I thought I'd have more time."

"Maybe it's something you have to practice," Tucker suggested. "The more you're out here, the easier it'll be."

The ghost himself didn't seem too sure but he didn't disagree, either. Sam looked around for the nearest bathrooms and, spotting them across the hall from the arcade, she slung her backpack over her shoulders. "C'mon, we gotta scram."

"But we're having so much fun," Sidney objected weakly.

"Won't be fun if you melt into ectoplasmic goo on us or whatever," Danny retorted. "The mall's not going anywhere. We can come back."

This seemed to perk him up. "Really?"

"Promise."

"I'll hold you to it."

They slipped into the nearby bathrooms to transform and floated out through the roof. Sidney was barely floating an inch off the ground when they found him, so Tucker offered to help. Sam almost expected Sidney to refuse. Someone with his history probably didn't trust easily at the best of times, never mind while vulnerable. That he didn't spoke volumes. Tucker guided Sidney's arm around his shoulders and slipped his own arm around the ghost's middle for support.

"Wait," Danny blurted out, reaching for his backpack. "I've got an idea." He turned his hand intangible and rifled around inside for a moment before withdrawing his thermos.

"Oooh," Sam murmured.

"What," Sidney asked flatly, "is soup gonna do?"

"It's not for holding soup, it's for holding ghosts. My parents invented it. I don't really know how it works but I know it's some sort of stasis. If you go inside, we can carry you back to the school without risking you…uh…." He faltered. "It'll be safer."

Sidney regarded the thermos with trepidation but not, Sam was pleased to note, with suspicion.

"It doesn't hurt," Danny added. "Tucker sucked me into it the other day. Feels weird going in and a bit disorienting coming out but that's it. I promise."

"He wouldn't offer if we thought it'd hurt you," Tucker added, quietly.

Sidney was quiet for a few moments as he deliberated. Then, he said slowly, "I think I'd rather fly."

Danny held out the thermos for a moment longer, perhaps to see if Sidney might reconsider, but then he shrugged and clipped it to his belt. "Suit yourself."

The flight back to the school was slower than Sam would've liked but with Sidney barely moving by his own power, it couldn't be helped. She wondered if he really would dissolve like Danny said, he hadn't denied it, but maybe he didn't know himself. What would happen then? Would he die, again? Could he reform or something? It seemed insensitive to ask right now. But that was fine. She could wait. She had so many questions already, what were a few more added to the pile?

Casper High came into view and Sam breathed a little easier. Judging from the amount of cars in the parking lot, most of the staff had already gone home, and the football team was still practicing on the field. Good. The school would be nearly empty.

"This isn't my hallway," Sidney remarked when they flew through the wall. "Where are we going?"

"My locker," Tucker answered. "Things were a bit crazy earlier, so I figured putting your mirror back might get it broken or worse. It's in my locker."

"Oh." Sidney didn't quite seem to know how to take that. "Thanks."

"I can put it back if you want me to, or, need…me to?" he asked, voice pitching upwards at the end. "I assumed your mirror was the only important thing."

"I'm not sure," Sidney admitted. "I guess it's okay for now."

Landing on the ground, Tucker eased Sidney's weight off of his arm and reached out to enter his locker combo.

"Sam," Danny muttered, "are you gonna….?" He glanced at her backpack pointedly.

"Oh, crap. I nearly forgot." Sam slung her backpack around and kneeled on the ground before opening it. She carefully eased the two bags containing her purchases out and let her backpack slump to the floor. "Here, Sid, we got these for you."

"What is it?" Sidney asked. Sam glanced between his arms, both slung around the boys' shoulders, and decided to pull the box out of the bag for him.

"It's called a portable DVD player," she explained, holding it out to him. Sidney stared for a few seconds, then lifted his arms over the boys' heads and reached for the box. "It'll let you play DVDs wherever you want, even the Ghost Zone."

"We hope," Danny added.

"We hope," Sam echoed. "And these are some DVDs I thought you'd like. Movies, TV shows, there's a mix in here."

Sidney shook his head slowly. "I don't understand. You're just giving this to me?"

The halfas nodded. "Yeah," said Tucker, pulling his locker door open. "It was Sam's idea."

Sidney stared at her and shook his head again. "But why?"

Sam folded her arms and shrugged her shoulders. "Why not?"

"You barely know me."

She shrugged again. "And? Besides, it's a good way for you to catch up on the times, see what you missed."

"Ooohh, we should get him a library card." Tucker muttered.

"Don't you need an adult for that?" Danny pointed out. "And an actual address?"

Tucked rolled his eyes and smirked. "Not if you're me. Do you want a library card, Sid? They have all kinds of DVDs you can borrow, and not just movies. They'll have documentaries, too, and TV shows like Power Rangers."

Beaming, Sidney nodded his head. "That'd be real swell, uh, dude. Did I use that right?"

"Heck yeah."

"Heck yeah!"

"For the record," said Sam, "I got you the most recent Power Ranger series in here." She gave the bag of DVDs a little shake and Sidney looked ready to cry. He didn't though, whether from an inability to do so or a shred of self-control. He accepted the bag of DVDs from her with another word of thanks.

"What if it needs to charge before it can work?" Danny realized with a gasp.

"Charge?" Sidney co*cked his head to the side.

"You plug it into the wall and the battery inside absorbs power through the cord. It's called charging the battery. It might not be charged at all yet since it's still in the box."

"Oh." Sidney frowned down at the box. "It just needs electricity?"

"Yeah."

"I know a fella. A total square," he said as if he were not himself an outcast of literal legend, "but he knows his technology. I'd bet my peepers he can get this thing up and going." He nodded once, seemingly satisfied, then smiled almost bashfully at them. "I…I guess I'll be seeing you guys."

"Totally," Tucker agreed.

Sidney's retreat into the mirror was far less dramatic than his emergence. He simply turned intangible and flew straight inside, with nothing but a brief flare of light and a shimmer on the glass to indicate something otherworldly had occurred. The three halfas stood around Tucker's open locker for a few long moments, simply staring.

"So," said Sam. "We still on for my place tomorrow?"

Sam had lived in Amity Park since second grade

Her grandfather had passed away when she was barely eight, leaving behind grandma Ida all alone. There had been some arguments, Sam remembered clearly, but eventually her father persuaded her mother to let them move to Amity Park. Back in those early days, Sam was starting to claw her way out from beneath her parent's thumbs, and she'd seen the new city and school as the perfect opportunity to try something new. Especially now that she would be going to public school!

Sam was quick to establish herself as someone to be reckoned with on the playground hierarchy. She won the monkey bars by right of conquest and presided over them for the rest of the year. And she wasn't afraid to banish people from her territory, oh no. She kicked Ricky Marsh off for throwing up in her lunch box and didn't let him come back until Spring when it was warm enough for them to have outdoor recess again.

It wasn't until sixth grade that she ended up in the same class as Danny and Tucker. She recognized their faces, knew them from recess and other communal activities their grade did together, but she'd never tried being their friends, nor did she that year. Then they came back from winter break and found that their teacher had rearranged some of the desks, placing Sam's in the same group as Danny's and Tucker's. It still amazed her how quickly they'd become friends after that. Danny and Tucker were good, the Smart Kids in class, and she was…well, she wasn't a troublemaker, but she was a tomboy and far too outspoken for her own good. Yet, somehow, they'd clicked. And her social standing had taken a brutal hit for it.

Keeping her family's social status from her newfound friends had not been a conscious decision in the beginning. She never told them simply because she'd never told anyone. But then in March, Dash got PlayStation 2 at launch and Tucker was absolutely green with envy. Sam didn't understand. If he wanted one, why didn't he get one, too?

"'Cos it's three hundred dollars!" he'd exclaimed, like she was an idiot. Then Dash had made fun of him because his parents didn't make enough money to get him one, throwing in a couple jabs at Danny's parents, too, for good measure. And Sam had been too stunned to say anything. Later though, she'd sat down with her grandma and asked her about it, and Ida had explained that not everyone had money like her family did. In fact, most didn't.

Eventually she would make the connection between wealth and popularity. Eventually, the decision to hide her family's wealth became conscious and as far as she knew, anyone who might've known back in elementary school had long since forgotten it beneath the layers of black, combat boots, and the two dorks she called her best friends.

…Honestly, why was she nervous? They had ghost powers, being rich shouldn't be anything on that. Danny had a portal to another reality in his basem*nt. She was old money. There was absolutely no reason to be nervous. Really.

(Maybe if she told herself that enough times, she'd believe it.)

Her parents left at 4pm sharp, as expected, not due to return until Sunday evening. Ida kept to herself upstairs, leaving plausible deniability while the deliveries Sam had scheduled made their way to her door. Refills for the popcorn and soda machines, a box of donuts from the bakery they loved, several boxes of movie theater candy, all the ingredients of ice cream sundaes, three party-size bags of their respective favorite chips, and a copy of Dumpty Humpty's new album that didn't even officially drop til next Friday.

In between deliveries, she took advantage of her powers to get the basem*nt set up on her own. She plugged in the DDR and Pacman machines, dragged the foosball table out from the storage room, and plopped the biggest of their beanbag chairs and a pile of pillows between the two recliners in front of the TV. She stored the supplies for the ice cream bar in the mini fridge behind it, refilled the soda machine, and got the popcorn machine going.

When she was done setting up, she looked around and wondered if she wasn't maybe overdoing it. What if they thought she was showing off or…or…thought it was too excessive?

No, she told herself firmly. They're your best friends and they're gonna love it.

At 5:45, about fifteen minutes before the boys were due to turn up, Sam ordered their pizzas, and then there was nothing left to do but wait. She changed into an Evanescence t-shirt, red Casper High sweatpants, and black socks. She checked in with her grandma to make sure she was okay, and the older woman simply chortled and waved her off, telling her to have fun with her friends, and that she'd probably be down there to bowl later.

Sam sensed them before they arrived, of course, that subtle but notable shift from simply feeling them in the back of her mind to being aware of were together, meaning one must've swung by the other's house or simply met on the way. Sam checked herself in the mirror one more time, grabbed a ten-dollar bill from her wallet to tip the delivery driver, then hurried downstairs to meet the boys at the door.

The doorbell rang and she cleared the last few steps in a jump. Opening the door, she found Danny and Tucker, each dressed comfortably with an overnight bag. The former peered up at her house with his brow furrowed thoughtfully, while the latter grinned at her as if he hadn't even noticed anything usual about her house or neighborhood.

"Hey, Sam!"

"Hey guys, come on in." Sam stood aside to let them walk inside and was about to shut the door when she spotted a familiar brown sedan with the lit Crusty's Pizza sign on top pulling up to the curb. The driver, a skinny redhead upperclassman from school named Nate, got out and hurried to the door with the boxes in his arms and a smile on his face. "Hey," she greeted. "You have the best timing."

Nate's smile broadened, showing off his braces. "Don't I always? Sorry it took so long, we're swamped."

"You're all good, thanks, Nate." She took the pizzas in one hand and fished the ten out of her pocket with the other, handing it to him. "Be careful out there, and don't deliver anything to Dash's tonight."

Nate nodded seriously then looked down at the bill she'd given him. "Thanks, Sam." And with that, he turned and hurried back to his car.

"Did you just tip the guy a ten-spot?" Tucker asked in bewilderment.

"Uh…." Sam's first instinct was to lie, because she knew in her position that either of them would've tipped, at most, three dollars, but she stopped herself before she could. The cat would be out of the bag in a matter of seconds anyway. "Yeah, I did."

Danny was still peering at his surroundings with a mix of suspicion and awe. Her parents had extravagant taste—pristine white floor, a fancy rug, an ornate mirror, a table with a plant in a crystal bowl, not to mention the chandelier above them or anything he might glimpse further in the house. It was nothing like the Fenton house. With Jack around, Maddie couldn't put breakable decorative items on any surface even if she wanted to.

"Come on," said Sam, starting towards the stairs. "We're gonna be hanging out downstairs."

…

"Whoa…."

"This is your downstairs?!"

Sam set the pizzas down on the bar and glanced around. "What…too much?"

"Uh huh," Tucker replied, gaping at his surroundings, but he ventured further into the room regardless.

"Sam," Danny said slowly, and she knew from his tone that he'd figured it out,"don't take this the wrong way, but are you loaded?"

She smiled sheepishly. "Weird, huh?"

"Dude, what?!" Tucker spun around and his bag slipped from his shoulder to the floor with a heavy thunk. "No way!"

"I know I should've told you guys this years ago, but my family is kinda…filthy rich. Um. Yeah."

"For how long?!"

"A few generations."

Tucker looked at her like she'd sprouted a second, blonde head. "So, you've been rich the whole time you've known Danny and me?"

"Yes?"

Danny blew a raspberry and shook his head. "This explains so much. And I mean so much."

Sam frowned at him. "Like what?"

"Sam. You blew five hundred dollars on gear for us a few weeks ago like it was literally nothing and said it was allowance money."

"It was."

"Holy sh*t." Tucker laughed and vaulted himself over the back of the nearest recliner into the seat. "Exactly how rich are you?!"

Here it comes. Sam sighed, leaning against the bar, and folded her arms. "My great-granddad Izzy was an inventor. He invented that machine that twirls cellophane around deli toothpicks," she explained, twirling her finger in the air for emphasis. "And a few other things. And that's just on my mom's side. My Dad's side…um…" She cleared her throat. "Yeah. Uh. …Yeah."

"Duuude," Tucker drawled. "So like…do you go to fancy parties?"

"Yep."

"Do you know any celebrities?"

She shrugged. "A few, I guess. That's more my parents' thing. I met Marilyn Manson once though, that was pretty sweet. No relation," she added sharply when Danny opened his mouth.

"Hey, had to ask," he replied.

Tucker wasn't done. "Have you met the president?"

"Which one?"

"Is this your only house?"

"I don't think you want to know the answer to that," Sam said.

"Uh, yeah, that's why I asked!"

"Hey, Tuck, come on," Danny said, stepping in between them. "Cool it. You're getting too excited."

"No, you come on! How are you not freaking out about this?! Sam, our Sam, is stinking rich!" He threw his arms out wide for emphasis.

"Will you knock it off?" Sam snapped. "This is exactly why I don't tell anybody."

That, at least, seemed to get through to him. He lowered his arms, smile fading, and looked around again. "But I don't get it. If you've got so much money, why do you hang out with us? All you'd have to do is flash a little bling bling around and you'd be Miss Popularity."

She scoffed and turned away, wrenching the topmost pizza box open, and reached inside to grab a piece. "I don't need popularity, especially if I have to buy it. I hang out with you guys 'cos you're actual friends and that's the way I like it."

"So…okay. Two more questions, that's it," Tucker said. Sam squinted at him but nodded. "Are you richer than Dash?"

Sam snorted and nodded. "Absolutely. The Baxters are totally new money and not nearly as wealthy as he lets on."

Both boys looked rather pleased by that.

"And is all this—" Tucker gestured around the room in a sweeping motion "—for us?"

"Yep." She grabbed the remote for the stereo system off the counter and pressed play. "Let the 'f*ck Dash and His Stupid Party' Party begin," she declared and then the first track of the new Dumpty Humpty album began to play.

Chapter 9: Holy SHEET

Chapter Text

On Sunday Danny woke up with a weird tingling in his hands. At first, he thought he'd slept weird, and they were simply asleep—passing the hell out for eight hours on a beanbag chair could do that—but as he wiggled hands and flexed his wrists in an attempt to restore the blood flow, he realized they weren't numb at all. The tingling didn't fade, despite his efforts. If anything, it began feeling warmer.

As Danny described what he was feeling to his friends, a thoughtful look crossed Tucker's face. "That kind of sounds like my ghost sense." Tucker held up one hand and wiggled his fingers. "Except it comes in a quick buzz and goes away almost immediately."

Sam shook her head. "I've not felt anything like that. Maybe it's not a ghost thing?"

"What else could it be?" Danny asked.

"After effects of a sugar coma?" Tucker suggested. "Maybe your system went into shock at Sam being rich."

Danny exhaled sharply through his nose. "Tucker, I hate to break it to you, buthow do you think my parents could afford to build the portal in our basem*nt?"

Tucker's eyes widened, jaw going slack as his half-asleep brain began to process, nearly ten years late, how it was possible for two scientists with no day jobs to speak of to own a house, raise two kids, and spend years on R&D.

Danny huffed then turned to Sam, raising his eyebrows.

"It might be carpal tunnel," she suggested. "My grandma's had it before from bowling."

He frowned at his hands. He'd heard of carpal tunnel but didn't know anything about it, including what caused it. They'd played a game of bowling last night around 1am but, somehow, he didn't think that was enough.

"We could ask her," she offered. "She's definitely awake by now."

"Okay," Danny replied. He'd never met anyone in Sam's family and after all she went on about her parents, he didn't care to be introduced to them. For her grandmother, on the other hand, Sam had nothing but words of praise, pride, and affection. He'd been hoping he'd meet her this weekend, though a conversation about possible carpal tunnel was not how he saw it happening.

Tucker, still wrapped in the quilt he'd slept with like it was a shock blanket, let out an incoherent noise somewhere between a groan and a pterodactyl screech. "You're both rich! What the hell?!

"Well-off," Danny corrected. "I'm well-off. Sam's just freaking loaded period."

"I can't believe this. I feel. So betrayed."

"I can't believe you never figured Danny out," Sam retorted. "Where did you think his parents got all their materials and equipment? KMart?"

Tucker whined and pulled the blanket over his head.

"Yeah, okay," Sam muttered, pushing herself to her feet. "You stay here and process, Danny and I are going to find my grandma."

Apart from the entryway last night, the only part of Sam's house Danny had seen so far was the basem*nt, and after the sudden reveal of the bowling alley down there, he wasn't certain he'd even seen the entire thing. But from what he had seen, he had a feeling Sam had played a part in the general design of the room they'd spent all last night in. It was stylish but not lavish, comfortable, modern, and dare he say it, practical in its amenities. Once they crested the stairs from the basem*nt, that feeling vanished faster than a ghost into the Fenton thermos.

Sam had long complained that her parents were excessive and obsessed with image. He'd thought the entryway was so nice because it was simply her parent's way of showing off to visitors and the rest would be more down to earth. As she led him through the house, however, he realized that was not the case. The whole place just seemed to ooze wealth—and Danny knew all about oozing. Everything from the rugs to the furniture to the lamps screamed 'look at me, I'm fancy.' It was ridiculous. It was intimidating. If he so much as sneezed in here, it'd land on several thousand dollars' worth of stuff.

"This is…." Danny started to say but then trailed off. He honestly didn't have the right adjective for it.

"Tch, I know. But don't worry, the kitchen won't be as bad as you think."

Danny wasn't sure what to expect when they stepped into the kitchen. It was big and open, that was the first thing he noticed. The second were the appliances, all sleek and shiny, some with logos or names not even in English. The countertops probably cost more than his family's entire kitchen. Yet something about it struck him as homey. There was a simple table in there, too, which seemed an odd thing to have considering that they'd just passed a formal dining room on the way in.

Sitting at the table with a half-eaten sandwich on a plate and a scrapbook open in front of her was a petite older woman. Her white hair was pulled back in a ponytail atop her head and she wore a long brown cardigan over a yellow dress and white house slippers. A motorized wheelchair was parked directly beside the chair she sat in. She looked up, blinking dark blue eyes at him for a moment, and then a broad smile stretched across her face.

"Well, now, there you kids are!" she crowed. "I was beginning to wonder if I might have to hide the bodies before your parents got home."

"Good morning to you too, grandma," Sam greeted fondly. She crossed the room and gave her grandma a kiss on the forehead.

The old woman chuckled. "Good morning, bubeleh and…." Her eyes flicked to Danny over Sam's shoulder and she smiled. "You must be Danny."

Danny straightened up and he nodded. "Yes ma'am, Mrs. Manson."

"Oh, please, none of that. Mrs. Manson is my daughter in law. You can call me Ida. Or Ms. Ida if it makes you feel better. It's good to finally meet you. I was beginning to think Sam would never bring you boys around. Wait, where's the other one?" She craned her neck, as if she expected to see Tucker behind them.

"Having a mental breakdown in the basem*nt," Sam replied casually.

"As you do."

"We were hoping you might be able to help Danny." Sam stepped aside and motioned him forward. "He might have carpal tunnel."

Ida co*cked her head to the side. "Too many video games?"

Danny blinked. "That can cause carpal tunnel?"

She nodded. "I've heard about it happening in kids who play too many video games."

"But…I've never had a problem before?"

"Understandable. It can be caused by excessive repetitive motions. It's nothing to worry about," she assured him. "Do some exercises, take some Tylenol, and lay off the games for a bit and you should be fine. At worst, you might need a brace for a few days. The numbness should clear up."

Danny looked down at his tingling hands. "But they're not numb. They're tingling and kind of, uh, warm?"

"Both hands?" Ida sat up straighter, surprised. "Now that is unusual. Did you hit your head?"

"Not that I can remember." He looked at Sam for confirmation and she merely shook her head.

"Hmm. And it's not your whole arms?"

He shook his head.

"Strange…well at least we know it's not a heart attack. Bubeleh, get him some Tylenol and maybe a warm compress, see if that helps. You ought to consider the stretches, too, just in case. Tell your parents when you get home."

Danny nodded. "I will. Thanks, Ms. Ida."

"Of course, kiddo." She grinned. "You hungry? I figured Sam wouldn't have anything planned for lunch, so I ordered a sandwich platter for you kids. It's in the fridge. Danny, have a seat here and I'll show you those exercises."

Tucker wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later, having followed his sixth sense in their direction, while Ida was walking Danny through the last of three different exercises. He perked up at the sight of the sandwich platter sitting on the table and completely ignored everything else going on in favor of asking, "Are those for us?"

"Sure are!" Ida replied. "Help yourself. Oh, and before you start on that Mrs. Manson nonsense too, please, just Ida is fine."

"Okay," he said, stopping in front of the only side of the table without a chair, and held out his hand. "I'm Tucker."

Ida shook it with a cheerful, "I know! Sam's been tellin' me about you boys for years! I'm glad to finally meet you."

"Same. She says you rock."

"That I do. That I do. Oh, Danny, you can stop now, it's been long enough. You'll want to do each of those every few hours."

Danny let go of his hand and shook them both out. "Thanks, Ms. Ida."

Ida nodded. "You're very welcome. Well, I'll leave you kids to it!" She scooted her chair back and turned in her chair to face her wheelchair. Danny and Tucker immediately offered to help her, but Ida waved them off with a smile and a laugh. "Don't worry! I got myself out of this darn thing and I can get myself back into it!"

"She's good, don't worry," Sam reassured them, though her eyes tracked her grandma's movements carefully. "She bowls in that thing."

The boys stared in awe…and a small amount of fear. Ida laughed, dropping into her wheelchair. "I'd do a lot more, too, if Jeremy didn't worry so much. Later, kiddos!" she crowed and then cruised out of the room.

"I like her," Danny said as the sound of her wheelchair's motor faded.

Sam grinned. "She rocks."

"So did she help you with your hands?" Tucker asked.

"Eh, sort of. She said it's probably not carpal tunnel, but she showed me how to do some exercises to help with it anyway."

"And we know you didn't get hurt, so it probably is a ghost thing," Sam mused, folding her arms across her chest, and leaned back in her chair. "But then why don't either of us feel it?"

"Maybe you will and it's just happening to me first?" Danny suggested, glancing down at his hands. He curled and uncurled his fists, wiggled his fingers, then flexed them. The exercises hadn't helped. His wrists felt different but the tingling in his hands remained unchanged. If anything, they'd gotten hotter. It was weird.

Tucker's expression soured and he glared at the sandwich he was eating like it had insulted him.

"I hate to say it…but we need to consider the possibility…that whatever this is, it's not something good. Like a warning sign. A symptom." Sam swallowed and leaned forward, propping her folded hands on the table in front of her.

Tucker stopped mid-chew and glanced at her. "What do you mean?" he asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

"I mean—" she stopped, mashing her lips together, and glanced around furtively, as if expecting there to be someone around to overhear. She leaned closer to them and dropped her voice to a murmur. "We have no idea what the portal did to us. We think we know, but do we? Really?"

Danny glanced at Tucker, where he saw his own uncertainty mirrored. Sam was right. The long and short of it was, literally anything could have happened in that portal. Never even mind the effects of the ectoplasm, electricity, and whatever other energies had swirled around in there, they had been at the epicenter of a singularity. The fabric of reality had torn around them, through them. Life, death, eternity, entropy, and things he didn't know and couldn't name, all of it in that place and that time, with them. Who could even begin to theorize what had happened in there?

"For all we know," Sam went on, "we've been on borrowed time."

Danny shook his head slowly. "I don't know. But it—it…I don't know how to explain it, but I don't…I don't think… It's been three months. If it was gonna kill us, I think it would've already happened. Or we would've seen signs of it before now." He looked between his friends. "We've been getting stronger, not weaker. Maybe this—" he held up his hands and gave them a slight shake for emphasis "—is just a reaction to something changing in my body."

"Ghost puberty," Tucker whispered.

Danny paused, hands flopping onto the table, and glowered at Tucker. "I cannot believe you just made me hear those words."

The tension broke. Tucker cackled. Sam relaxed, shaking her head, and picked up the sandwich platter. "Okay. If that's the direction this conversation's going, we're going back to the basem*nt." And without another word, she turned intangible and dropped through the floor.

The boys made eye contact then they both burst out laughing and, after a few seconds, followed in her wake.

At the sudden use of his powers, the tingling in Danny's hands kicked into overdrive and the heat swelled, as if something had ignited beneath the skin. He became solid the instant he cleared the floor and ceiling and landed as quickly as he could.

"Ow!" he hissed, shaking his hands to dispel the unpleasant sensation. "Okay. This is definitely a ghost thing. My powers made it worse."

Sam, who had set the sandwich platter on the counter amongst the remainder of the food from last night, whirled around on the spot. "Does it hurt?"

"It's like my bones are trying to vibrate and holding my hands over an open flame at the same time."

Tucker's hands came out of nowhere, encircling Danny's, and he carefully, but firmly, turned them from side to side. "I don't see anything. What about ice? Sam, can you get some ice?"

Sam grabbed a plastic cup and shoved it under the ice dispenser in the soda machine. Danny pulled his hands out of Tucker's grip and gave them another shake, hissing. The contact hadn't hurt, exactly, but the sensation was quickly growing unbearable, and he needed something, anything, to alleviate it. Not that shaking was helping anything. He glared down at his hands and tried to think, to feel past the burning and the tingling. When it came to his ghost powers, it was about feeling, sensation, and will.

He reached for the cold place deep inside, the source of everything he could do, felt the thrum of it like a second little heart, but didn't call it forward. He could feel…something…through his shoulders…his arms…he could feel….

"Here," said Sam, holding out the cup.

Danny reached for it—

Green exploded from his outstretched hand and collided with the cup. Sam screeched, whipping her hand back, and the cup fell to the ground in a pile of ash. Danny yelped, yanking his smoking hand up in front of his face, and gawked at it. Tucker started yelling but Danny didn't process a single word of it.

That—

He'd just—

That light had—

Like an ectogun—

From his hand—

He whipped his head up to meet the alarmed and slightly manic gazes of his friends. "Did I just get a new ghost power?!"

"Did you just get a new ghost power!?"

"Dude, dude, do it again!"

"Whoa whoa whoa hold it—Danny Fenton I swear to god if you set my house on fire I will end you!"

After assuring Ida that the screaming had just them being dumb, and no one was actually hurt, the three halfas beat a hasty retreat from Sam's house. Danny suggested they use the park to practice but it was vetoed by Tucker who knew best exactly how intense the speculation surrounding last Friday's incident still was. Anything new would spark a frenzy.

Instead, they headed for the old train yard on the edge of town. Nothing but condemned buildings and old warehouses out there. Sketchy, but not as bad as parts of Elmerton. According to Sam, it was sometimes used as a hangout for the 'troubled crowd', but it was doubtful any of them would be there on a Sunday at noon. And if they were, they'd be too high or hungover to make much sense of three ghost kids, never mind get anyone to believe them about it.

It also happened to be where the Circus Gothica would be pitching their tents next spring, an event, Sam reminded them, they still had tickets for. Danny remembered that. She'd been so excited that the self-styled "alternative circus" had chosen Amity Park as one of the stops on its tour. Most of the cool tours tended to pass over Amity Park in favor of Chicago, Springfield, or even Indianapolis as their stopping points in the region. She'd bought tickets for them the day they went on sale.

Danny kept his hands pressed to his middle as they flew invisibly over the city. The tingling and burning had stopped not long after that blast had gone off, but he still wasn't sure what he'd done to trigger it and definitely didn't want to accidentally blast a hole in someone's roof. Or worse. So he kept his palms firmly against his own body until they found an old factory building with one side scorched from a fire long ago that had left it condemned. A plethora of warning and keep out signs littered the exterior though a quick look about the inside revealed exactly how well heeded they were.

That is to say, not at all.

Graffiti marked almost every inch of the walls a human could safely access. The floor was littered with dirt, old cigarette packs, blunts, beer bottles and cans, and a whole hodgepodge of who-knew-what. From the looks of one corner, someone had even squatted in there not too long ago. But at present it was empty and that was good enough for the halfas.

"Code names only," Tucker muttered. "Just in case."

"Agreed," Danny replied. "We need to be doing that anyway."

Sam (Wraith, he told himself) nodded in agreement then turned to him. "Alright, Phantom. Show us."

Phantom inhaled through his nose and pulled his hands away from his body and held them out in front of himself, palms up. "I'll try."

It was only too easy to call it forth again. Like it wanted out. The heat swelled and his hands began to glow a very familiar shade of green. Bright and toxic, the color of pure ectoplasmic energy. The same color he saw staring back at him when he looked at his ghost form in the mirror. It cast an eerie glow across the room, his friends, and his features. It made them seem even more otherworldly, something he hadn't thought possible.

"Whoa," Wraith and Specter breathed in unison.

"What's it feel like?" the latter asked, quiet but eager.

Like most ghostly sensations, this new one was difficult to put to words. To describe the energy he felt as 'heat' would be adequate for an outside inquirer, perhaps, but wildly insufficient for them. He had to think.

"Like…what you'd think touching the surface of the portal would feel like," he finally settled on. "Or like fire, if you could feel it without being burned. It's like it's alive a-and look, see? It's moving. It's not just light, it's energy."

Wraith reached out and tested the air just above his hands with her fingers. "Does it hurt?" she asked. Phantom shook his head. She dared to dip her fingers closer to his hand and drew back with a surprised hiss.

"Did it hurt?" he asked.

She made a face. "It was hot."

"So, it could hurt others but not you," Specter deduced. "So far anyway."

"Yeah," Phantom agreed, scanning the room for a suitable target. He spotted a small pyramid of beer cans someone had left behind, aimed his right hand at it, and willed the energy outwards. The energy obeyed without an ounce of resistance, springing forth from his hand in a solid beam. He let out a surprised yell and jerked his hand back, cutting it off. The construct of cans stood unscathed but the ground two feet in front of it was freshly blackened and smoking.

"Sick," Specter hissed. "Do it again."

Phantom glanced at the beer cans then down at his hands and slowly a smirk began to stretch across his face. He straightened up, floating into the air, and thrust his hand forward. A quiet grunt escaped his chest, nearly drowned out by the blast of energy bursting from his palm. He swung his other hand forward, slightly lower than the first, and it too fired a blast without resistance. His first managed to knock the topmost can flying and the second went hurtling straight through the center, scattering the cans every which way.

Wraith let out a loud whoop, floating up beside him to clap him on the shoulder. "Nice shot!" Specter agreed from somewhere behind them.

Phantom drew his arms back and he exhaled in a loud, pleased burst. "Oh yeah." He turned to face his friends with a dangerous grin. "You guys know what this means? We can kiss my parent's ecto-guns goodbye. I'm the ecto-weapon now!"

"Not so fast there, hotshot," Wraith retorted and shoved at his shoulder. "You're gonna need a whole lot of practice before you're a danger to anything but yourself."

"Hey," he retorted, "I hit the cans."

Specter let out a loud, exaggerated cough around the words: "Third try."

"Wow."

"Hear that, ghosts?" Wraith raised her voice. "He hit some beer cans at 5 meters. Better watch out!"

Phantom rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay. I'll do better then." He cast a look around the room for another target, spotted a cinder block near one of the walls, and fired at it.

He missed, of course.

But that was where it began.

They scoured the warehouse and eventually beyond, seeking objects of all shapes and sizes for Phantom to use for target practice. And, boy, did they find an assortment. By the time they were done scavenging, they had a small pile of cans and bottles, two empty crates, a stack of wooden pallets, some drum barrels, a long metal beam, and a large door that had probably once belonged to a semi-truck. (The truck, however, was nowhere to be found.)

At first, Phantom stuck to blasting things off the drum barrels, though he hit the barrel as often as he hit the actual target, and it would go flying across the room. Specter saw it happen all of two times before he planted himself on the ground ten feet from Phantom, spread his arms wide, and told him to shoot him. For science. Phantom, of course, obliged. A blast directly to his torso sent Specter literally hurtling through the air. He collapsed in a heap some distance away and stayed there for a few moments of shocked silence. Then he slowly propped himself up on his elbows and gawked at him.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"Are you okay?" Wraith called.

"Yeah, actually, which is weird because you just blasted me across the room." Specter lifted into the air, righting himself, and floated towards them.

"What'd it feel like?" Phantom asked.

Specter co*cked his head, considering. "It's hard to describe. I could feel the force behind it and I definitely felt the impact from landing…but it didn't hurt like it should've."

Wraith and Phantom stared at him. "It didn't?" they replied in unison.

Specter glanced between them and shook his head. "It wasn't comfortable but…I mean, something like that should've felt at least as bad as a hit from Dash, right?"

"Worse," said Wraith.

"More like a dodgeball to the gut but that's about it."

Phantom furrowed his brow. That didn't make sense. From what he knew of anatomy and physics, a hit like that, enough to physically launch him across the room, should've left him dazed and reeling at an absolute minimum.

Wraith's lips twisted thoughtfully, and her eyes flicked between the boys for a few moments. Then, nodding to herself, she said, "Shoot me next."

"What?!" Danny yelped.

"Shoot me next," she repeated. "I wanna feel for myself." When he didn't immediately comply, she put one hand on her hip. "Danny, you can't be the only ghost who can shoot lasers. I'm gonna get hit by one sooner or later. Shoot me."

Phantom stared at her in mild horror. He'd known on some level that this ability couldn't be unique to him, but he had not yet fully processed the implications of someone he may have to fight one day effectively having ecto-guns in their hands. They were definitely going to get shot at and they were definitely going to get hit, no matter how good at dodging they got. He looked down at his hands and had to suppress a shudder. He'd had this power for less than a day and a weak blast had sent Tucker flying the length of a school bus. What would he be capable of with time and training? What would a ghost ten times his age be capable of?

He licked his lips and nodded. "Okay. Get, uh, get ready."

Wraith stood about where Specter had before and braced her feet against the floor, fists clenched at her sides. She took a slow, deep breath, then gave him a curt nod. "Do it."

Three seconds later, Wraith was lying on her back across the room. After a moment, she raised her head, blinked, and let out a quiet, "Huh."

His friends, Phantom decided, were insane.

"He's right," she said, picking herself off the floor. "I've had cramps worse than that."

It took him a moment to realize he was shaking his head. "B-but…that doesn't make sense. I've gotten hurt! Remember that princess dragon lady a few weeks ago? I got a concussion after she threw me into the wall—and it definitely hurt!"

"I'd say there's a big difference between a little laser to the gut and getting smacked into the wall during a fight with a dragon," Specter mused.

"Not to mention that would've probably killed you if you were a human," Wraith pointed out, drifting over to them.

Danny stared, nonplussed. She was right, of course. They'd known for a while that they were more robust than they'd been before and the incident with the dragon had shown that their healing capabilities were supernatural….

"It has to be something to do with our bodies when we're like this." Wraith gestured to herself, indicating her ghost form. "Because I stubbed my toe the other day and it hurt like hell. And I still feel cramps when I get them around my period."

Specter clapped his hands over his ears, earning him a sharp kick in the ribs from Wraith. He yelped but then lowered his hands and stared at her foot. "That didn't hurt." He sounded amazed.

"But you felt it."

"The impact but no pain," he confirmed with a nod.

"This is freaky," Danny said bluntly.

"The last twenty-four hours have been freaky, man. I don't know about you, but finding out we don't feel pain as easily when we're ghosts doesn't quite have the same impact after seeing you shoot ghost ray beams out of your hands."

Wraith nodded and folded her arms. "He has a point."

Danny inclined his head in acknowledgement but then frowned down at his upturned hands. What other sorts of secrets were their bodies still hiding from them?

Chapter 10: The New Paranormal

Chapter Text

Still riding high from their fun weekend and Danny's new powers, the trio of halfas rolled into school on Monday in far better spirits than anyone else who hadn't gotten invited to Dash's party. No one noticed, of course, but they were fine with that. After the drama of last week, they were perfectly content to spend the day flying below the radar of the school's elite and infamous. Assignments were turned in, classes passed without incident, and no ghost senses went off until Tucker was putting his books away before lunch.

As the tiny shocks spasmed through his hands, Tucker's eyes flicked automatically to the antique mirror now hanging in the back of his locker. Sure enough, Sidney's monochrome face was peering back at him.

Tucker glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, then leaned a little closer. "Hey, dude," he murmured. "Feeling better?"

"You betchya!" Sidney chirped back.

"Shh!" Tucker hissed. "Not so loud."

"Oh, sorry," the ghost whispered. "I'm fine but the little TV thing stopped working after a while."

"Ran out of power?"

"Looks like. Say, you wouldn't be able to help me out, would you?"

Tucker frowned. He didn't have any portable battery packs with him to charge it inside the locker and he couldn't leave something like a DVD player lying around at any old electrical outlet and expect it to be there when he got back. "Didn't you say you knew a guy who could help you?"

"Huh? Oh, Technus. Yeah, I went lookin' for him, but word is he's in the slammer."

A beat.

"There's a ghost jail?" Tucker asked incredulously.

Sidney gave him a wry smile. "You'd be surprised what ghosts have."

Tucker stared, completely dumbfounded. He wasn't even sure how to unpack the concept. Did people seriously spend their afterlives locking people up? "That's messed up," he said after a few moments of silence.

But the ghost simply shrugged. "So can you help me or not?"

Tucker sighed and glanced around again. No one was paying any attention to him but if he waited much longer, the lines would be atrocious. Thinking fast, he asked, "Are you able to leave the mirror?"

Sidney nodded. "Should be fine, if I stay nearby."

"Cool. Bring the DVD player and its power cord out here and you can charge it in the library. Just make sure you keep an eye on it and stay invisible."

"Swell!"

Tucker shut his locker door then turned around, leaning against the lockers, and shot his friends a quick text message warning them that Sidney was coming out before their ghost senses could. A minute passed and then a small ripple of energy behind him and another wave of buzzing through his hands heralded the arrival of Sidney. He floated out of the locker in that semi-transparent state Tucker now recognized as invisible to normal the eye and smiled.

"Library still opposite the cafeteria?" he asked. Tucker jerked his chin down in a subtle nod. "Thanks. See you later, alligator!"

And with a wave, his new ghostly friend floated off. Tucker watched him go for a moment then smiled and headed for the cafeteria. He found Sam waiting at their preferred table with her packed lunch, left his backpack with her, then went to join the meal line. When they were finally all seated with their food, Tucker told them what Sidney was doing and why.

"There's a ghost jail?" Danny asked, unknowingly mimicking Tucker's own flabbergasted tone almost perfectly.

"Weird, huh?"

Sam scowled at her food like it had personally offended her. "I don't know… that just seems wrong."

"Yeah," Danny agreed.

"I'm not saying ghosts can't do horrible things, just because they're dead doesn't change the fact that they were once human—well, some of them. But a jail for dead people is just…."

"Messed up?" Tucker offered.

She nodded. "What would a ghost even go to jail for?"

"Booglary," Danny deadpanned before taking a bite out of his hamburger. Sam threw him a look of pure disgust, her hand tightening around her fork like she was contemplating stabbing him with it. Knowing her, she probably was. Danny either didn't notice or was ignoring her deliberately whilst trying (and mostly succeeding) to keep a straight face as he chewed.

"I hate you so much sometimes," she growled.

"Or maybe they got 'em on charges of possession," he mused.

"Oh my god shut up!"

Despite risking life and limb by antagonizing Sam, Danny's day didn't take a turn for the worse until Dash decided to use his poor grade on an English test as an excuse to harass him at the end of the day. Honestly, Danny wasn't surprised. In fact, the only thing which surprised him was that it had taken Dash so long. After the events of last week, Dash had to be raring to reassert his place at the totem of the food chain and what better way than by taking his pound of flesh from one of those who'd put him at risk?

With neither Sam nor Tucker around to back him up when Dash cornered him, Danny had no choice but to run for it. He didn't doubt his ability to get away, eventually, but that didn't make the whole experience any less stressful or annoying.

Except Dash never did end up catching him. Instead, he caught a locker door to the face.

It was one of those moments that no one quite saw clearly but everyone was aware of in the aftermath. One moment, some scrawny freshman was tearing down the hall like a bat out of hell with Dash hot on his heels, and the next there was a loud thwap and Dash was on the ground. Luckily when the teachers started questioning the witnesses, no one recalled seeing anyone near the locker that had swung open, and no one could name Danny as the one who'd been being chased.

Not that Danny stuck around to find any of that out for himself.

He was still coming down from his adrenaline high in the parking lot between two trucks when Sidney of all people materialized beside him.

"Are you okay?!" Sidney asked, with no shortage of alarm, and knelt on the ground beside him.

Confused, but touched by the concern, Danny managed a nod. "Yeah, I'm fine. Dunno what happened, but I'm fine."

Sidney narrowed his eyes and jabbed his thumb into his chest. "I happened."

Danny listened in quiet amazement as his ghostly friend told him the story. Apparently, Sidney had been chilling in the halls just watching the students do their end of the day routine when he'd sensed Dash's intentions. Given that they'd been in the vicinity of his mirror, Sidney had been able to telekinetically fling the locker door open in Dash's path.

"I can't believe I thought you were bullying that guy last week." Sidney added. "He's bad news."

"Yeah, no kidding," Danny grumbled before perking up. "Thanks for the save. I owe you one."

"Nah. Not for protecting you from a bully you don't. Maybe next time he'll think twice about picking on someone." Sidney puffed out his chest, proud of himself, and Danny smiled. "And if he doesn't, I'll give him a taste of his own medicine!"

At the declaration, a little voice in his head muttered that maybe Danny ought to reign him in. Honestly, Dash deserved a lot worse than a locker door to the face, but humans were squishy and with the newfound realization that ghosts were significantly less squishy still fresh in his mind, Danny wondered if Sidney might have forgotten.

"Just…don't take it too far," he cautioned. "You could really hurt someone. Humans can't take the kind of hits we can."

Sidney co*cked his head, considering this. "I guess you're right. I'll be careful."

And then, Danny remembered the conversation from lunch. "By the way, I was hoping to talk to you about some things you told Tucker. Like, this whole ghost jail thing? Is it true?"

Sidney let out an undignified snort. "You better believe it. But!" he interjected quickly when Danny opened his mouth. "Not in the way you're thinking. Not like here. There is no law, no governing body that encompasses everything. Everyone controls what's in and around their own realms and lairs, but beyond that, it's open territory. I'd say most ghosts understand that their own rules don't apply beyond their borders but that doesn't stop the stronger ones from doing what they want."

"So, it's anarchy?" Danny asked. His parents had theorized as much, though from what data he could only guess.

Sidney nodded. "I guess that's one way to put it."

"So then how is there even a jail?"

Sidney's lips twisted and he regarded him with the same careful consideration that a teacher might give a student asking a question beyond their years. "You've never been into the Ghost Zone, right?"

"Right. I didn't even know the Ghost Zone was its actual name until a few weeks ago."

"It has many names," Sidney replied briskly. "Do you know what lairs and realms are?"

He shook his head.

"Right, didn't think so. Okay, this is gonna take some explaining. And maybe not in the middle of the parking lot."

Danny glanced around with a wince. Right. Sidney wasn't even trying to conceal himself right now. They were mostly hidden by the cars around them but at any moment one of their owners could show up, notice something off about Sidney, and lead to all kinds of trouble. "We could go flying?" he suggested.

Sidney shook his head. "I can't go too far from my mirror so soon after last time. But I wouldn't mind staying outside. I like it out here."

Danny fished his phone out of his pocket to text Tucker and Sam. "The baseball diamond should be empty. That work?"

The ghost boy nodded excitedly. Danny sent the texts, glanced around and, seeing no one, quickly transformed into Phantom. Sidney's eyes went wide with something almost like awe but he composed himself with a few quick blinks.

In the span of fifteen minutes, Sidney would teach him more about the Ghost Zone's makeup than Danny's parents had learned in all their years. Of course, being a relatively young ghost without significant connections, Sidney readily admitted that his knowledge was limited, but there were certain things one simply came to understand after forming.

According to the Fentons and other like-minded paranormal scientists, the Ghost Zone was a world of the dead. A place between life and true death, where remnants of the deceased were reanimated by ectoplasm into warped into monstrous echoes of who they once were. In Danny's mind, this supposed 'other world' had never seemed very large. It wasn't any sort of afterlife, just a shadow realm of monsters.

According to Sidney, the scope of the Ghost Zone was beyond comprehension. Where the Earth had a set size and mass, the Ghost Zone did not. It was always growing, always moving, never the same from one moment to the next, like a universe itself. Many ghosts had their own pocket dimensions within it, called lairs or realms, depending on population. Some of these pocket dimensions were separate from the rest of the Ghost Zone, concealed behind singular doors, completely invisible and inaccessible otherwise. Others could instead be perceived from a distance in vague details, although upon approaching, one would traverse dimensional boundaries and find themselves within a land far, far bigger than the outside would have ever suggested.

He demonstrated these concepts as he spoke by drawing in the dirt of the baseball diamond. Small doors with massive bubbles behind them. Little blobs with an arrow pointing to a much bigger, more detailed blob. An artist he was not, but they served their purpose. The idea of different dimensions and wormholes and the like weren't foreign concepts to Danny, but they were just that: concepts. Aspects of theoretical physics he had only read basic details on in relation to space exploration. To think they actually existed and were a fact of life somewhere was mind boggling…and very, very cool.

Wraith and Specter arrived individually at different points in his explanation but with Danny's help and the drawings, he was able to catch them up pretty quickly.

"So, let me see if I'm getting this," said Wraith when she was all caught up. "A ghost's lair is like their house. It's private property. But a realm is like an apartment complex where many ghosts can live but in the end there's still a landlord?"

Sidney nodded. "The landlord analogy isn't quite right but that is the gist of it."

"And do you have a lair?"

He nodded again. "All souls of the dead have a lair and most of us live in them. It's on the other side of my mirror, in case you were wondering."

Specter held up his hand. "So…wait, hold on. Does that mean your mirror is a portal between the Ghost Zone and our world?"

"Not exactly. I knew it was a way to see into this world, but I'd never been able to come through it until last week. Plus, it leads directly into my lair. Portals don't do that."

A beat.

Phantom lurched forward. "Did you say portals?" he all but shouted. "As in, there's more than one?"

"Well, sure," Sidney replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "The one you said your parents made is the only one like it, at least that I've heard of, but natural portals open up all the time."

Danny let out a single, breathy laugh and felt his shoulders sag. Stories his parents had told him were suddenly making a lot more sense.

"You good?" Wraith asked with a touch of concern.

"Yeah," Phantom said and blinked a few times. Now wasn't the time to info dump all over his friends. "I knew all those ghosts couldn't be coming out of our basem*nt."

Sidney let out a quiet, doubtful noise. "Natural portals are unpredictable and rare. Unless there are other haunted objects lying around this city, I'd bet my britches any ghosts you've seen came through that portal."

Phantom scoffed in disgust, shoulders slumping. Great.

"No," Specter interjected. "That's good. That means if your parents can get those doors working better, they can stop ghosts from coming through, right?" He looked to Sidney for confirmation, but the ghost boy could only shrug.

"I don't know how any of it works. But, between you and me, I don't think many ghosts will try to come through your portal."

"Why not?" Phantom asked.

"Well, what's the point? Unless they're looking to wreak havoc, get revenge, or are overcome by their urges, there's no reason to come out here. Not when, until now, there's been no guarantee you could go back if you took a portal." Sidney leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him, and looked up at the sky. "Most of us have everything we need already."

"But, you said there's nothing good for you in the Ghost Zone," Wraith pointed out. "On Friday, I swear I remember you saying something like that."

"Yeah, I did," he mused. "And I wasn't lying. Just because I don't like my lair doesn't mean I don't need it."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Sidney heaved a sigh and gave them a look that was almost pitying. Danny wasn't sure he liked that. "Look, there's some things ghosts just know. If you don't know…well, I don't know how to help you."

No one had a response to that but the three halfas glanced at each other with varying degrees of uncertainty and hesitance.

"Maybe…it's because we're not actually ghosts?" Specter suggested tentatively. They all turned to look at him. "I mean, we didn't die…."

Sidney shook his head and gave a helpless little shrug of his shoulders. "I don't know. I wish I could help you but…." Suddenly he stopped, perking up. "Say, remember you cool cats suggested getting me a library card?"

Surprised by the sudden change in topic, Phantom could only nod. "You want to go do that?"

"No! Well, yes, but that isn't what I meant!" Sidney almost seemed to glow brighter with excitement. "There are countless libraries in the Ghost Zone!"

"Oh, sick," said Specter.

"Really?" asked Phantom. Wraith said nothing but she suddenly looked very interested.

Sidney nodded eagerly. "You betchya! Little ones, big ones! Bigger than you can imagine! I've never been to it, but I know there's a realm called The Great Library. It's said to have a copy of every book ever destroyed."

"Shut the f*ck up!" Wraith blurted out, jerking upright so quickly that her legs melted into a spectral tail. "You're kidding me."

Sidney co*cked his head. "I'm what now?"

"Every book ever destroyed?" she pressed. "Does that include scrolls and tablets? Not just books in the modern sense but everything? Journals, poems? Unpublished works? Everything?"

He hummed thoughtfully. "I'm not sure, but my gut says yes."

Wraith looked like she might faint. Or scream.

Phantom and Specter glanced at each other uncertainly. "You okay, Sam?" Specter asked.

A strangled sound escaped her throat as she rounded on her best friends. "Do you have any idea what this means?! All those books that have been burned throughout history, everything that's been lost to time! It all still exists!" She turned to Sidney who seemed quite pleased by her reaction. "How do we get there?"

"Whoa, hold up!" Specter threw his hands up in front of him. "Sam, it's in the Ghost Zone. We can't go in there!"

"Why not?" Sidney asked.

"B-because…we…." He glanced at Phantom who could only sputter in response. Specter shook his head. "What if we get killed? Or thrown in ghost jail?!"

Wraith scoffed. "Who cares about that?! How far is this library?"

Sidney's nose wrinkled. "Uh, from where?"

"I don't know! Your lair? The portal in Danny's basem*nt?"

Deciding to intervene before she could get any more worked up, Phantom drifted closer and put a steadying hand on Wraith's shoulder. "You really think this library will have information on people like us?" he asked Sidney, who shrugged.

"Not a clue, to either. I've never been. It's supposedly a repository for all of humanity's lost knowledge but I'm not sure how it all works. But if we were going to look, that'd be the best place to start. I can go find it if you want me to."

"Yes!" Wraith blurted immediately.

Specter was far less certain and far more reluctant. "Won't it be dangerous, though? You said yourself, it's like anarchy once you leave your lair."

Sidney merely shook his head. "Nah, shouldn't be too bad. Not for the likes of me, anyway. I'm not the sort of ghost most ghosts pick fights with. Once I find out where it is, we can figure out how to get there."

"We could make a weekend trip out of it," Wraith agreed, and Sidney grinned.

"Nuh uh," Specter interrupted. "No way. This is crazy. We can't just go into the freaking dead dimension afterlife place for a library that might not even have anything we need and possibly get killed on the way! Right, Danny?"

Phantom abruptly found himself, once again, pinned by the expectant gazes of each of his friends and wondered why he ended up in this position so often. Tucker and Sam had always been prone to disagreements with each other more than either of them did with Danny. As usual, he could see where they were both coming from, but this time he found himself leaning in one direction far more than the other.

"I agree with Sam, actually," Phantom replied. "If there's a chance we could learn something about what we are, we should take it. And it's not like we're defenseless. You can teleport, Sam has her bat, and I've got…"

He raised his hands, calling for the ectoplasmic energy he could now summon at will to illuminate his hands. Sidney let out a quiet gasp but otherwise didn't react.

Wraith nodded and her voice became wheedling. "Besides…think about it…if this place really has a copy of every document ever destroyed…" She paused for effect and then smirked. "Area 51."

Specter narrowed his eyes at her. "Oh, that's low."

Sidney looked between them, bemused. "So, is that a yes?"

"I hate everything."

"That's a yes," Wraith said. "This is gonna be so great."

Phantom agreed. Libraries were more Jazz's thing but the thought of all the journals and books by astronomers that had been lost to time was… tantalizing. More than finding knowledge on halfas, if he was being honest with himself, though that alone was good enough reason to seek this library out.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Phantom warned her. "Sidney still has to find it first."

Dash wasn't at school on Tuesday and half the student body breathed easier. The day passed quietly, much to the halfas' relief, until around 11 pm. Danny was woken up by Wraith phasing into his room with the Box Ghost in a thermos. Somehow, he'd gotten back out of the Ghost Zone, and she'd found him losing his sh*t over a recycle bin full of collapsed boxes behind a supermarket. He'd wailed about foolish humans being unable to deny boxes their rightful forms for a solid twenty seconds before she'd managed to shut him up with a bat to the face.

Danny returned the Box Ghost to the Zone and prayed this kind of thing wouldn't become a regular occurrence with him.

But the real excitement didn't kick off until Wednesday.

Danny was awoken abruptly by his phone ringing off the hook. At first, he tried to ignore it, 'cos who in their right mind would be calling him at ass o'clock? But his phone was barely silent for three seconds before it started to ring again, and with a groan, he reached for his phone on his bedside table. He squinted at his clock and groaned again upon seeing the time. He flipped open his phone, barely registering Sam's name on the caller ID, pressed accept, and let out a wordless questioning noise.

"What'd they feel like, exactly? Your hands when you woke up on Sunday. What'd that whole thing feel like?"

"Samit'sfivethirty," he mumbled.

"No sh*t, Sherlock. What'd your hands feel like?"

Danny laid there for a moment, eyes half shut, and mulled over her words, turning them this way and that in his head like a curious little puzzle. His hands, Sunday, the day he began being able to shoot lasers. Green lasers. Ghost lasers. Ectoblasts, out of his hands, Sunday. How had it felt?

"Danny?"

Why did she care? She'd been there when it happened.

"Hot," he finally mumbled. "Tingling. Kept getting hotter. Tinglier."

"Did it kind of feel like they were going to explode?"

Danny considered that. Then bolted upright in bed, suddenly wide awake. "Sam, are you for real?"

"Yeah."

"Do you need me to…I don't know, come over?"

He heard what sounded like her bed creaking, followed by a familiar rush of energy. "No," came the reply, now with a ghostly echo. "I'm getting out of here. I just wanted to be sure before I took off. I'll call you later."

"Sam, wait, wait. Hold on. Where are you even going?"

"Up, into the sky."

"Then I'm coming, too," he replied, tossing his covers off. "Don't go too far from your house. I'll be there soon."

She sighed but didn't argue with him and hung up.

Danny only paused long enough to stuff his bed in case someone decided to check on him, then he was out of the house without even bothering to change out of his pajamas. As Phantom, he flew invisibly across town towards Sam's house.

He found her about half a mile from her house several hundred feet over a construction zone. A wise choice, he thought, considering she might accidentally blast something below them. At first glance, one might assume she was calm, her lips pressed together in concentration rather than nerves, but the way her hair rippled with flames gave her away.

Phantom allowed his invisibility to fall away as he slipped up beside her. "Hey," he greeted.

"Hey," she replied, not taking her eyes off her hands. Phantom studied them curiously, but aside from a bit of twitching, there was no indication anything unusual was going on. Just like his had been. "How long did it take, do you think?"

Phantom shrugged. "Not long. Less than an hour, maybe? But I was also human."

She nodded. After a moment, she murmured, "Thanks. For coming up here."

"You're welcome. Ready to try this?"

Wraith's eyes flicked towards him. "You think I can force it?"

"Worth a try, right?" Phantom grinned at her then drifted a few feet away. "It's like everything else we can do; it comes from here." He touched his chest where the heart of his ghostly powers seemed to be nestled. "But it's not like the other powers, it comes in a rush. And it wants out." He held out his hands and let the ecto-energy flare to life in his palms, snapping and crackling and rippling with power just waiting to be let loose. "You just have to guide it."

Wraith nodded in understanding and gritted her teeth. She thrust her hands outwards, upwards, even shook them from side to side.

"Start at your ghost heart," Phantom encouraged. "Follow that rush of power to your hands. Tell it to go."

"I'm trying," she snapped, but Phantom wasn't offended. The last few minutes leading up to his power's emergence had been painful.

Finally, Wraith flung her hands out in front of her, a wordless scream of frustration heralding a sudden explosion of green. The burst of ecto-energy hurtled off into the sound, leaving both halfas to gawk after it for a long moment. Then Phantom let out a loud whoop of excitement and thrust one arm into the air.

"Hell yeah!" Wraith crowed, shaking her hands out. She held them up in front of her and they began to glow green with power. Phantom studied the ecto-energy around her hands curiously then held his own up beside hers for comparison. Each of them had their own vicious shade of green, with Wraith's being slightly lighter than Phantom's.

"This is so sick," she hissed gleefully.

Phantom nodded in agreement. "We gotta tell Tuck. He's gotta be next."

"Did you bring your phone?"

"…No."

"Me either, and I need to practice before school. We'll be lucky if we get an hour at this rate."

Phantom turned to look in the direction of the warehouse district they'd practiced in over the weekend and frowned. It would probably take ten minutes to fly there, at least, and ten minutes back. It didn't take him very long to get ready for school, but Sam had a whole makeup routine and who knew what else to deal with. Did they even have time? But, more importantly, could she afford to not practice? He hadn't accidentally shot something that first day, but they'd not waited very long to start practicing and he'd kept his hands pressed firmly to his body almost the whole time.

"We'll tell him later," he finally decided.

"Race ya!"

It was a known Fact that any living creature could potentially become a ghost under the right conditions and this very much included animals. In fact, the odds of an animal becoming a ghost were much, much higher than a human's. No one knew why, exactly, but academics within the Ghost Zone who cared about such things theorized it was due to their limited life experiences. When one's life is short and limited to the mental capacity of a young child at best, even the smallest things could potentially be traumatic enough to disrupt the flow of life and death.

Unlike their human counterparts, who could take weeks or even years to form, animal ghosts took a matter of hours or days. In turn, their lives as ghosts were often fleeting, and if left to their own devices, without a purpose, they would often fade within a year of their formation. There were exceptions, of course; ghost animals who would become beloved companions, allies, and familiars of stronger ghosts, growing smarter and stronger as time passed.

Either fate was likely for the little green dog who came prancing out of the Fenton portal, completely unbeknownst to the two ghost hunters working not three feet away. Which, really, was quite fortunate for all those involved, as things could have gotten very ugly very fast if his presence had been noticed. But it wasn't, and the tiny pup had no interest in either human, so he ignored them. They were not part of his mission. He lingered in the lab only long enough to sniff the air…and his ears perked up.

What a peculiar scent!

Tucker had been a little upset that he'd missed Sam's first power training, but all was forgiven once he'd jumped to the same conclusion as Danny had: if two of them had gotten the same power within days of each other, then he had to be next! By this weekend for sure. Sam agreed, more than a little pleased, because this would mean they each had their own built-in weapons against ghost attacks. Their potential trip to The Great Library was becoming more probable by the day.

They hadn't had enough time to really put it to the test, but both she and Danny suspected her blasts might be stronger than his. After only an hour of practice though, Sam wasn't confident in her ability to not misfire on accident during school. She could still feel the heat of them beneath the surface of her skin, just waiting to be let loose. She'd spend most of the day with her hands curled into fists and tucked close to her body. Danny and Tucker took careful notes for her where he could but for half of her classes, she had no choice but to fend for herself and focus on keeping the heat beneath her skin where it belonged.

She failed. Three pencils paid the price, and she surreptitiously disposed of each of them in a lidded trash can in the hallway where no one would notice or find them.

Better pencils than Paulina's hair or something, she told herself as she closed her locker at the end of the day. Not that she wouldn't take great pleasure in forcing Paulina to take an emergency trip to the salon…but that was beside the point.

Luckily, Paulina and her crew hadn't paid much attention to anyone beyond their own circle today. Dash had returned to school that morning with a bruised face and bandaged nose. His friends had circulated word yesterday that he hadn't been seriously hurt from taking a locker to the face, but the bruises he sported certainly weren't pretty. He never went anywhere without at least two of his or Paulina's friends and wouldn't touch a locker with a ten-foot pole. Considering he'd been victimized by lockers twice within the last week, Sam didn't blame him.

And considering he'd probably planned something equally nasty for Danny, she didn't feel any sympathy for him.

She was worried though. Intentions aside, Dash had taken several major blows to his pride within the last week, and she, Danny, and Tucker had been the center of them all. Jokes had begun to form about his misfortune with lockers. After his disastrous attempt at re-establishing his position at the top of the student body food chain on Monday, he would only try harder in the future. As far as anyone knew, both locker incidents had been freak accidents. Maybe for now Dash could write off Danny's involvement in both as a coincidence, but there couldn't be a third such incident.

With that thought in mind, Sam made to leave the building. And then a familiar yet not entirely pleasant sensation, like drinking hot tea in reverse, rose in her throat. She slapped her hand over her mouth and hunched her shoulders to direct the smoke which flowed past her lips into her shirt. Once it passed, she inhaled sharply and looked around, looking for any sign of Sidney. Who else could it be? Surely there wasn't another ghost at the school…

And then the screaming started.

Chapter 11: Boo Let the Dogs Out?

Chapter Text

Y'know, sometimes Danny really wondered: why me?

Lying near flat on his back beneath a snarling, massive ghost dog was absolutely one of those times. Or it would've been if he'd had more than two braincells to devote to anything other than said dog and its razor-sharp canines gleaming less than a foot from his face.

Around him, people screamed, ran, panicked, and reacted exactly as most people would when a massive monster manifested in their midst and went right for a freshman. Danny, on the other hand, was frozen where he'd fallen in surprise, staring up at the ghost dog.

He ought to be scared sh*tless and yet all he felt was a strange calm. A few people shouted his name and if he thought about it, he might even be able to figure out who. But all he did was stare into the glowing red eyes boring into him as the dog leaned closer, close enough for Danny to smell its breath (Huh. Funny. He'd expected a ghost dog to have worse breath than a living dog, but all he could smell the sharp burn of ectoplasm) and sniffed him.

And then as suddenly as the dog had appeared, all the snarls and rage melted away. The dog co*cked its head and sniffed once more. Then its ears perked up and its tongue lolled out of its mouth in a manner which could only be described as recognition. Except Danny had never seen this dog in his life.

Before he could really do more than process that fact, the dog was sent flying by a powerful ecto-blast. Danny twisted around and saw Wraith hurtling towards them in full view of the assembled Casper High student body and staff.

He barely had a chance to wonder what she was doing there before the dog snarled and Danny whirled back around. The dog had righted itself, teeth bared, eyes flashing, and let loose a bone-shaking bark that sent most of the stragglers running for their lives.

Wraith landed in front of Danny protectively, fists glowing with power, and she shouted, "BAD DOG!"

Danny seized his chance and scrambled to his feet. He nearly transformed right then and there but something nagged at him. He turned towards the school and realized that there were easily dozens of faces watching the scene unfold from behind windows and peeking through the open front doors. The moment the group at the front door saw him looking their way they began gesturing fervently. He swore internally. A ghost fight was going to break out any second now and he was stuck in his human form! He didn't want to leave Wraith to fight alone but what good was he like this? At best, he was a distraction and at worst, a liability.

So, ignoring the instincts screaming at him to stand and fight, Danny sucked in a sharp breath and ran towards the school.

The police showed up within minutes. And the fire department. And the ambulances. Not that it mattered; Wraith and the dog were gone long before the first squad car arrived. The dog wasn't interested in fighting her at all. Once it realized she meant business, it quickly turned tail and loped away into the sky, with Wraith hot on its heels.

As much as Danny wanted to worry about that whole situation, he had bigger problems on his hands. Namely the fact that dozens of people had seen him get attacked by a giant animal and no one was letting him out of their sight. The moment the paramedics arrived, the teachers who'd taken him under their protection escorted him straight to the medical professionals. From there he was subject to all manner of scrutiny by the paramedics while he tried to convince them that, really, he was fine. No, he wasn't in shock (they didn't seem to believe him). He just really wanted to go home. He thanked his lucky stars they found nothing unusual in his vital signs or physical reactions.

Jazz and Tucker arrived to find him sitting out the back of an ambulance with a shock blanket around his shoulders. Tucker hung back a little while Jazz cried his name and promptly threw her arms around him.

"You're alright!" she gasped. "Oh my god. They said you'd been attacked by a bear!"

"A bear?" Danny repeated, dumbly. Was…was that what people thought it was? He was sure it'd been obvious that it was a dog but…maybe not. Most people hadn't stuck around long enough to see anything concrete and those that had were far away. Given its size and the noises it made, he could see why people had jumped the conclusion 'bear'. Even if it had been green and glowing.

He couldn't let this chance go. "Is that what it was?" he asked.

"You couldn't tell?!"

"I'm gonna be honest with you here, Jazz, I was more focused on its teeth than trying to figure out what the hell it was."

She pulled back and looked him up and down intently. "But it…it didn't hurt you? What happened? How did you get away?"

Danny shrugged his shoulders weakly. "I don't know. One minute I was just minding my own business and then that freaking thing just came out of nowhere and pounced. I don't know what it wanted. But there was…this girl just showed up." He glanced at Tucker. "I think she distracted it. I don't know. I just ran."

"Dude, you did the right thing," Tucker finally piped up. "That thing could've killed you. I'd have gotten the hell out of there ASAP, too. But where'd they go?"

Danny shrugged. "I dunno, I didn't see. The bear must've run off."

"Where would a bear even come from?" Jazz wondered. "If one broke out of the zoo, you'd think we'd have heard about it."

"Maybe it wandered into town," Tucker suggested, then frowned. "Do we even have bears around here?"

"Good question," Danny mused. "Maybe someone was keeping one as a pet and it escaped. That'd explain the weird color. And why it was so comfortable around people."

"Oh, god. Sam's gonna freak if that's the case." Tucker muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets, but his gaze was fixed squarely on Danny. "Where is she anyway?"

"I'm not sure," Danny replied. "She said something about going home right after school. Could you get ahold of her? Tell her I'm okay?"

"Yeah, sure. …You gonna be okay?"

Danny snorted, nodding. "After a literal bear, my parents are nothing. Go find Sam."

"You got it, dude." With that, Tucker spun around on his heel and jogged away from the ambulance and the school. Danny breathed a little easier.

When the Fentons arrived, they did so as worried parents, not ghost hunters. And since no one even considered ghosts as a possibility, they stayed that way. His parents fussed over him, conferred with the paramedics and principle Ishiyama, and it was ultimately agreed that Danny could go home and should take the next day off school. A police officer asked for his statement and Danny stuck to his guns on the 'bear' story, though he did admit he hadn't really been focusing too much on the animal and more on its teeth. He even tossed in the idea that it was an escaped pet or circus animal since its fur was painted and it hadn't hurt him at all. It hadn't even knocked him over; he'd just been startled and fell. It had only sniffed him. A wild animal wouldn't do that, and the zoo wouldn't paint their bears. The police nodded, told him they couldn't really be sure of anything just yet, and told him to take it easy. If they'd need him, they'd call him.

Great.

When the first of the news vans showed up, Jazz quietly suggested they take their leave, and Danny agreed. By law they had to keep his identity a secret when the story ran since he was a minor, but he'd rather not be in the footage regardless.

Once they were safely in the RV, Danny fished his phone out of his backpack and checked his messages. Nothing from either Sam or Tucker, which worried him. If Sam had caught the ghost dog, she would've contacted him about it. He could sense that she and Tucker were in the same direction, but beyond that he couldn't tell if they were together, in ghost form, or what. At least he knew neither of them were calling for help. That he would feel.

"Danny, sweetie, how about I make you some hot chocolate when we get home?" Maddie offered, pulling him from his thoughts.

He blinked up at her to see her smiling over her shoulder at him. "Oh, yeah, sure. That'd be great."

"I want you to relax this evening, alright? Worry about your homework tomorrow."

"I will, Mom."

"And if you want to talk, I'm all ears," Jazz added quietly. A snarky retort was on the tip of Danny's tongue ready to go, but he stopped himself. He didn't need her hovering over him but he knew she'd been scared earlier. He would've been too if he'd heard she was attacked by a bear.

"Yeah," he said instead. "Thanks."

Danny frowned at his phone, mulling over his options, which were depressingly few. There was no way he'd be able to sneak out until later tonight and by then the dog situation would be over. It was out of his hands. With a sigh, he sent a quick text message to Sam and Tucker.

fam gonna b watchin me 2nite keep me posted gl

"This is why I'm a cat person," Wraith grumbled to herself as the ghost dog phased into yet another building in its path. It insisted on running on the ground instead of flying through the sky where there were no people to terrorize or obstacles to phase through. She flew in after him, invisible, just as the humans inside realized something was with them and started screaming. A pharmacy this time, she noted, and sighed. Hopefully no one was in getting their anxiety meds refilled or something.

The dog didn't really seem to have a destination in mind and if it did, it had no idea where it was. It just seemed to be running aimlessly, zig-zagging through the streets and buildings of Amity Park like a bat out of hell. She might as well have not even been chasing it for all it seemed to care, and it was fast. Supernaturally fast, even. It was all she could do to keep up and she certainly couldn't risk anything that might slow it down with it constantly zipping in and out of buildings and the streets. She might hit someone.

But the damn dog had to stop eventually, right? It couldn't run forever. (She couldn't fly forever, either, but she was really hoping it ran out of energy before she did.)

They flew out of the pharmacy and into a mostly empty parking lot. Seizing her chance, Wraith fired an ectoblast at the dog's broad back. It missed and hit its rump instead, but it was enough to get the dog's attention. It let out an uncharacteristically high yelp and tripped over its own paws. Instead of running off immediately, though, it whirled around to face Wraith and let out a deafening bark. Wraith pulled herself upright, cutting her speed in the same movement, and powered up a pair of ectoblasts in each hand.

It snarled at the sight and Wraith braced herself for an attack—either it or hers—but instead of lunging, the dog turned intangible and sank into the ground.

…

Wraith stared, completely dumbfounded, at the spot where the dog had vanished. She shook her head quickly, extinguished her hands, then dove down after it.

And immediately regretted her decision.

Now, as a goth, Sam prided herself on being a lover of all things dark and creepy. Nothing was too much of either for her, even before she'd half-died or whatever. But this, being phased into solid dirt, was where she drew the line now and forevermore.

She'd expected, rather foolishly in hindsight, to see the dog flying away from her down there, but there was nothing. Just darkness. But that wasn't quite right, either, because Sam knew darkness, enjoyed it. What surrounded her was impenetrable blackness, and a strange awareness of everything occupying the same space as her body. Could she even breathe?! She was literally in the ground, where would there be air to breathe?

No, no, no, no! Not doing this. Nope.

She shot clear through the surface of the earth and onto the nearest lamppost. She turned tangible once more and crouched on the metal curve of the pole, breathing deeply through her nose.

That…had been disturbing. And here she'd thought it wouldn't have been much different than flying underwater at night, which she'd had no problems with. At least underwater she could see. At least underwater, if she'd turned tangible, the water would move to compensate. But underground? How could it? Dear god, what would have happened if she'd turned tangible underground? Would it kill her instantly? Slowly?

Wraith shook her head. Hell no. She wasn't going to follow that morbid thought any further. That was a level of macabre she wasn't ready to broach. She let out a huff of air, scowled, and turned invisible.

What an absolute waste of time that whole thing had been. Not only had she utterly failed to contain the dog, but she'd gone and revealed herself to God only knows how many people at school. After how crazy things had gotten around their escapades in the park last week, people were going to connect the dots. Hell, she would've if she wasn't involved. Hopefully people would at least remember she'd chased the monster away from Danny and not something else. But who even knew with panicking people, right?

What a mess.

Heaving another sigh, Wraith floated into the air and considered her next course of action. She obviously needed to text the guys. She couldn't call it quits on the dog, as much as she wanted to. It was bound to resurface and resume its mayhem sooner or later, but clearly she wasn't capable of wrangling it alone.

She flew up to the roof of a tall building nearby, ducked behind the parapet, and transformed. Her feet touched the ground as weight settled around her once more and she immediately reached into the pocket of her jeans for her phone. Flipping it open, she found two text messages waiting for her, though neither from her parents. One was from Danny to both her and Tucker, which she took to mean Tucker was probably looking for her. She took a moment to home in on her awareness of both boys and noted that while they were both in the direction of the school, Tucker was much closer. Very close, actually.

Lost the dog. tucker otw.

She hit send on that, stuffed her phone back in her pocket, and sat down to rest while she waited for Tucker to make an appearance. Sure enough, about two or three minutes later, Specter's hazy form floated into her field of vision.

"Hey, Sam," he greeted and became fully visible as he touched down on the roof. "You get the dog?"

She sighed loudly and shook her head. "No. That stupid dog lead me on a wild goose chase then phased into the ground when I actually tried to get it to slow down long enough for me to catch it."

"Why didn't you go after it?"

"I did! Have you tried phasing into the ground? It sucks! I wasn't going to start flying around down there, are you kidding me? Screw that!"

"Whoa, whoa, easy," Specter cautioned, holding his hands up in a placating manner, and she huffed. "I didn't think it'd be that bad. Sorry. …Any idea where it went?"

"Not a freaking clue."

"Oh, great." His shoulders slumped and he dropped onto the roof in front of her. "Man, we really gotta do something about that stupid portal. How did Danny's parents even miss the huge freaking dog coming through?"

"You mean the ghost hunters who haven't noticed that their son is part ghost?"

Specter inclined his head. "Good point."

The plan they came up with was simple, if not efficient or inspired or even good. Split up, wait for ghost sense to go off, call for backup. Terrible plan, really, but without any idea of the dog's motivations it was the best they had. An hour in, Wraith was bored, tired, hungry, and cranky. Hangry? Was that a good word? Yeah. She was gonna go with hangry. And, of course, there was no sign of the dog anywhere.

Floating around what could be considered the southwestern edge of Amity Park, Wraith wondered if she ought to bother going further. The dog could have, certainly. It was a dog. City limits meant jack to it. Whether or not a ghost was their responsibility if it was outside the city was a bit of a gray area for them, and one they had discussed. The three of them had tentatively settled on 'not' for the time being, but this was the first time that had been put to the test. It wasn't as if this was a ghost that had sprung up in another city or something. But was there even a point?

It was hard to tell without distinctive markings or colorings, but she thought it might have been a rottweiler or a mastiff when it was alive. It could have just as easily been a farm dog or a pet. Without getting a good look at the tags on its collar there was no way to tell. But if it was a farm dog, it could perhaps have been trying to find a way out of the city, back out to the open fields.

Or it could be running amok downtown right now.

Or it could've gone tangible underground and wasn't anyone's problem anymore.

She could dream.

Regardless, the only other structure of note out this way was Axion Labs, which she could see glowing in the distance. She'd always had mixed feelings on that place. It was a high-tech R&D facility that developed and produced cutting edge technology in multiple fields. It was one of the largest employers in Amity Park and more than a few of her classmate's parents had jobs there. Her parents owned stock in it. Objectively, it was an asset to the community. But it irked her to no end that they insisted on having such obnoxious exterior lighting. Like, come on. What was the point of boasting below average carbon emissions when they probably spent as much power lighting up the place at night as they did running the production lines during the day?

Wraith felt her phone buzz in the pouch on her belt and she reached for it, flipping it open to see a message notification icon from Danny to her and Tucker.

Danny: u 2 ok?

Sam rolled her eyes and quickly typed out her reply.

Sam: fckn gr8

Tucker: to quote one of the greatest movies of all time

Tucker: we ain't found sh*t

Sam: ?

Danny: Spaceballs?

Tucker: u get me

Sam: IGNORING that u just called Spaceballs 1 of the gr8test mvies of all time

Sam: the dog vanished and i want 2 go home

Tucker: u cant ignore the truth

Tucker: but yeah im done too its been an hour gg but screw this

Danny: yeah gg

Wraith was very tempted to reply 'gg' as well, or something to that effect, but she wasn't going to risk cluing them on her secret virtual double life on Doomed just yet. She'd already been waiting for a year; she could wait a little longer before dropping that bomb. It had to be timed perfectly for maximum impact or what was the point?

Sam: c u guys 2morrow

Danny's next message came through almost immediately after hers. Text me when u both get home

She sent a quick affirmative then tucked her phone back into her pouch and turned her attention to her surroundings. Right, okay. Southwest side of town. She didn't know the area, and rarely ever came here, but at least she didn't have to worry about navigating unfamiliar streets. Instead, she simply had to point herself in the direction of home and go.

Which is what she would've done…

…if her ghost sense hadn't gone off. Because of course it did.

Wraith mashed her lips together, fighting the urge to shout her frustration to the heavens, and whipped her head around in search of that stupid f*cking dog. It'd be nice if her ghost sense could do more than just alert her to a ghost nearby. Maybe, say, point her in the right direction? Yeah, that'd be so nice—

A shrill scream had her whirling around. A second later, she located the source: a gas station the next block over, where a massive glowing green dog could clearly be seen standing on top of the roof, sniffing at the air. A few people came sprinting out of the store to see what was going on and two cars went streaking out of the parking lot in opposite directions. The dog paid them no mind.

Wraith didn't hesitate, immediately rocketing towards the gas station. The dog didn't seem to notice her approach until she was flying into its field of view. It co*cked its head as she righted herself just a few feet away, and then began to growl dangerously.

With a frustrated shake of her head, she snapped, "Oh, for the love of—sit!"

She didn't know what possessed her to do it. She certainly wouldn't have expected it to work. But then, to her complete and utter shock…it did.

The dog obeyed without hesitation, slamming its bum to the rooftop so fast it seemed to surprise itself. Its growling ceased and instead it co*cked its head, giving her a curious look.

Well that's…weird, she thought. Is it trained?

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Wraith floated closer and adopted a sweet tone instead. "Hey there. Who's a good boy?"

The dog blinked and then its tongue lolled out and it began to pant.

"What are you doing out here, fella?" she went on. "Are you looking for your family?"

The dog did not respond except to pant some more. A man screamed up at them from the parking lot below and the dog's ears flicked towards the sound. A low growl began to build in its chest that Wraith quickly interrupted.

"No, no, no!" she cooed, floating towards the dog with her hands out in front of her. "It's okay. Ignore them. Look at me. Yeah, that's right, who's a good doggy?"

And then before her eyes, the massive beast of a dog began to shrink. Wraith's jaw dropped. In the blink of an eye, it had gone from a monster to a puppy. It stood on all fours, tail wagging excitedly, and yipped at her.

"Uh," she said dumbly. Well. That certainly made things easier.

She reached down cautiously, and the dog didn't so much as wriggle when she picked it up off the ground. It stretched its neck forward to sniff at her chin and she looked the dog up and down inquisitively. Up close, it looked more like solidified mass of ectoplasm in the shape of a dog than an actual dog. No fur, no markings apart from its black ears, nothing beyond the most basic anatomy. The only ghosts she'd seen like this were those ectopuss*s and the animal ghosts that Skulker the hunter had released on them. Animal ghosts must just be this way.

The dog seemed to approve of her even further because he licked at her chin. The impromptu love fest was interrupted by the sounds of shouting from down below.

"Nuh uh f*ck this I'm calling the cops!"

Gritting her teeth, Wraith tucked the dog against her chest with its muzzle on her shoulder and floated over to the edge of the roof. "Could you stop shouting, please? That would be really helpful."

The three men on the sidewalk in front of the gas station gawked at her, completely dumbfounded. One of them had a cell phone in his hands. A can of soda slipped from one of the men's fingers and clattered to the pavement, prompting a quiet growl to begin building in the dog's throat. Wraith quickly scratched its head.

"What the hell?" the man in the middle rasped while the other, not holding the phone, raised a hand to his mouth.

"Uh," Wraith said lamely, suddenly very aware of how alien she must look to them. "Yeah. I'm just gonna take the dog and go now."

With that, she turned herself and the dog invisible, ignoring their cries of alarm, and flew off. She didn't stop until they were several blocks away from the gas station. The dog remained still in her arms the whole ride, watching her curiously. When she became visible once more, the dog perked up and yipped at her.

"Oh, sure, now you're cute," she groused. "Why couldn't you have been like this earlier when you pounced on Danny? You really scared everyone."

The dog did not understand a single word of that, of course, and simply yipped at her again. Rolling her eyes, she cradled the dog against her side to support his weight on her hip while she used one hand to reach for the ID tag on his collar. A turquoise capital 'A' was stamped on one side of the silver metal and the other was…blank. Her lips curled in frustration, and she let out a loud sigh. Turning the ID back over, she studied the letter A stamped into it instead. It only took her a few seconds to recognize it as the logo of Axion Labs.

Well, that explained everything, didn't it? It came as no surprise that a facility like Axion would utilize guard dogs to protect the property. One of the dogs must have recently passed away. Axion would've been his whole world, no wonder he was out here running around like crazy to find it. "You're just trying to go home, aren't you? Back to Axion?"

The dog's ears perked up and he yipped as if in agreement.

Wraith considered her options. The smart thing to do would be to get him back through the portal ASAP. And then…then…. Wraith frowned. She didn't know if ghosts lasted forever. Would it simply fade away unsatisfied or would it persist in perpetuum searching for its old home? The thought of either caused pity to stir in her gut. All the dog probably wanted was to go home…if she took it there, maybe it would find peace and crossover on its own. Or whatever. It wouldn't be hard now that he was this size, all she had to do was carry him around invisibly for a few minutes. In and out. No one would ever know they were there. Yeah, she could do that.

She smiled. "Alright, boy. I'll take you to Axion. But just for a visit!" she added sternly. "Then you have to go back where you came from."

The dog yipped again, tail wagging furiously, and Wraith sighed. Why couldn't they have gotten to this point two hours ago? Keeping the dog tucked firmly against her body, she turned them both invisible once more and flew in the direction of the glowing facilities half a mile away.

(Which, in hindsight, was probably the worst decision Sam had made in her life.)

Danny finally managed to get a few moments to himself by locking himself in the bathroom. As he'd predicted, his family had barely given him room to breathe since they'd gotten home, and it was only nature's call that had finally convinced them to let him out of their sight. Of course, he knew as soon as he emerged, one of his parents would drag him back downstairs. So he turned on the fan, put the lid on the toilet down, and dropped onto it with a sigh.

He reached into his pocket for his phone and checked the group chat again. Nothing new in the last twenty minutes. Focusing inward, he could tell that Tucker was close to home, if not already there, but Sam was still distant. It was difficult to tell but, if anything, she was more distant that she'd been all evening, which made no sense. If she'd gone straight home as he'd expected her to then she should've felt closer.

So he sent a quick message to the chat and waited. And waited. His hopes rose when he felt his phone buzz, only for them to sink once more when Tucker's name popped up.

Tucker: sup?

Danny: does Sam feel far away?

Tucker: yeah

Tucker: wait how

He wondered if he should try calling her. Best case scenario, she was fine and she'd get annoyed at him for not thinking she could take care of case scenario, she was hurt or something. She'd have let them know if she'd found the dog, right?

He was still mulling it over when the decision was made for him because, suddenly he knew with every single fiber of his being that Sam needed them now! Right now!

He was off the toilet seat and transformed into Phantom before he could realize what he was doing. He could barely keep a grip on his phone as he mashed Tucker's speed dial number. He answered before the first ring had even finished.

"Yeah, I know!"

"What's going on?!" Danny cried.

"She probably found the dog!" He heard a familiar rush of energy as Tucker transformed on the other end. "I'll call you if we need backup!"

Danny was about to demand to know what the hell Tucker was talking about and how he was so chill when the line went dead. Shocked, Danny started to hit redial, but the…whatever it was subsided and with it came a rush of clarity.

Sam and Tucker had tried describing what it felt like those times he'd called out to them for help, but they hadn't really been able to explain it. Now he understood why. There just weren't words to describe what he was feeling, how he just knew that she was calling out to him, and how every single fiber of his being screamed at him to go! Find her! Holy sh*t. Yeah, wow, okay, he could definitely see why they'd insisted this only be used in emergencies.

Exhaling, Phantom flipped the phone shut and sank back down onto the toilet. It was few minutes before he could finally transform back into Fenton and another few before he felt ready to leave the bathroom. He had a bad feeling that the encounter at the school wasn't the only strange thing they'd be talking about on the news tonight.

(It was worse than he'd thought.)