Chapter 1
The next morning was the typical Fenton family routine. Or at least it seemed that way.
Jack was at the table before Jazz even got out of bed, messing around with his favorite Ecto-Zooka. Maddie had given him the task to tone all of their weapons down. Now that they typically hunted as a family, they needed to make sure that while the weapons could still pack a punch, it shouldn't be a significant enough punch to severely hurt their son. Maddie gave the process the appropriate title of 'Danny-Proofing', and set Jack to continue the process while she made breakfast.
As Jazz made her way downstairs, she noticed her mother had a difficult time finding any eggs.
"Jazz, you saw me bring home three cartons of eggs on Thursday, right?"
"Yeah, why?" She pulled up a chair next to her father and sat down. Jack was too focused on his project to listen in to their conversation.
"All of the sudden, there's only 4 eggs left in one carton. The rest are all gone… Jack!" The sudden shout of his name caused the rotund man to look up at his wife. "Did you sneak down here last night and make fudge behind my back?"
"Of course not Mads, why would I do that after last time?" Jack noticeably shuddered at the memory of the previous display of punishment Maddie had given him the last time he wasted so much food on making his favorite chocolaty treat.
"Morning, guys…" a sleepy, familiar voice said from the top of the stairs. The group turned to see Danny in the half-asleep state he was usually constantly in these days. He sat down at the table and nearly collapsed onto it had the seat not kept him from falling.
Maddie groaned to herself. Had he been fighting ghosts by himself at night again? The ghost alarm would have woken her and Jack up so they could relieve her poor baby, but it looked like it didn't even so much as make a single blip. "Danny, did a ghost attack last night? You look so tired…" Maddie said sympathetically.
"...mmm mmm…" Danny answered, barely finding strength to shake his head no with his face still firmly planted on the table. "I'm just wiped out…" They knew he wasn't lying. If there was a ghost attack, he would have more wrong than just exhaustion. He would be covered in healing injuries, and despite how good his healing factor was, it still couldn't hide the scars. It still didn't hurt to wish it was something foreseeable that was wrong.
Everyone had noticed Danny's sudden spike in tiredness, now nearly bordering on narcoleptic at this point. For the past few weeks, he sometimes had the tendency to pass out in the middle of fighting a ghost. He nearly lost the rest of his life during a recent fight with Ember when she had her waves set to "Giant Spiky Fist of Death", as Jack called it, and he was too out of it to dodge anything. Napping wouldn't solve anything either, and all doctors he was taken to would just either chalk it up to his powers draining all of his energy, puberty being a jerk as usual and wreaking havok on his systems, or, most likely, too little ACTUAL sleep. Those nightmares Maddie could hear him having once in awhile probably weren't helping either.
Maddie had had enough of seeing her sweet boy like this, and so she had made her decision.
"Danny, why don't you take the weekend off so you can get some rest? Being this tired isn't good for... you…" she said worriedly. The concerns weren't heard, as Danny had already gone into dreamland once again on the table. She sighed in relief that it didn't really take much convincing. He can be VERY stubborn when he wants to be.
They carried his limp body to the couch, and were just about to leave him alone to sleep when his ghost sense woke him up.
"Dang, so close…" The three Fentons said in unison, and watched in exasperation as Danny groggily got off the couch and turned into Danny Phantom, with an equal sense of exasperation, before taking off for a battle. Judging by the unsteady flight pattern and him forgetting he could turn intangible for a full minute, smacking into a wall repeatedly before finally remembering, it was clear he wasn't in a condition to fight this time. Which wasn't a good sign because even in this barely-clinging-to-consciousness state, he at least began battle-ready…
And so throughout the ensuing day of seemingly endless ghost attacks, Jazz's sole job was to carry Danny's half-ghost butt back home when he drifted off and cover him when he was at least awake enough to battle. It wasn't until about 9 at night when the Red Huntress could finally show up to relieve the Fentons of duty. Just in case a ghost showed up in the middle of the night, a two-way ghost shield was raised around Fenton Works, keeping both humans and ghosts out and keeping those in the shield in.
"Mom, is the ghost shield REALLY necessary…? I haven't been out ghost hunting at night lately, I promise…" Danny grumbled as he was pushed with very little effort on Maddie's part up to his room. He wanted to sound confident, but he sounded more like a whiny toddler who just got a toy taken away.
"I know, Danny, but I'm not taking any chances. Until you're better, the ghost shield's going up every night and you are to be in bed by 9:30. Understand, young man?" Maddie said firmly but gentle enough to not sound threatening.
Danny mumbled something unintelligible from exhaustion and gently nodded before collapsing into bed, already gone by the time Maddie shut the door behind her. She came back only to stick his pair of Fenton Ear Plugs carefully into his ears before leaving him be.
"So… WHO'S UP FOR SOME BINGO?!" Jack yelled to the two remaining members of his family. Knowing that Jack's voice somehow always found a way to shine through the Ear Plugs, the two girls shushed him.
"We should probably get into bed too, dad. We've been fighting all day. I'm just grateful it's the middle of summer, or I probably would have snuck off to go to bed before school." Jazz said with a yawn before wishing her parents good night.
"Will YOU play Bingo with me, Mads?"
"Jack, you can't play with only one person, we talked about this."
"Aww… You're no fun…"
And so, all of the Fentons were in bed, fast asleep by 10 that night.
Once again, at around 2:30, no one was awake to notice the shuffling...
This time, Jazz was the first one to awaken and come downstairs for breakfast. She didn't really have any cooking knowledge and her mother said she would make bacon and hashbrowns WITHOUT the Ecto-Cooker today, so she waited on the couch for her parents to awaken. What she saw was odd: Danny's sneakers and the keys to the Specter Speeder were in the full-of-water sink and in a potted plant respectively.
"That's weird…" Jazz commented to herself as she fished her brother's shoes from the soapy depths after retrieving the keys. "Didn't he have these on when he was going to sleep?" She shrugged it off soon after however. Maybe Mom thought they were dirty and took them off of him to wash them, Jazz considered. But then why would she have left them in THAT much water? And that was without considering the small reservoir on the kitchen floor. Leaving the sink running without sopping it up too? Now THAT was weird for Maddie.
Speaking of whom, Maddie came down the stairs in a good mood, ready to cook for her family.
"Hey Mom? Were you or Dad washing Danny's sneakers last night? I found them in the sink."
"No, honey, I know I didn't. I left your brother alone last night after getting him to b- WHAT IN THE WORLD?!" Maddie just noticed how her feet seemed to squelch in all of the floor water, and she along with Jazz got right to using towels to clean it.
"Maddie, is breaky ready y-" Jack barely got to finish his question when he slipped and fell upon reaching the kitchen. He let out a moan in pain and carefully tried getting up. "Somebody turn the kitchen into an ice rink…?"
No one knew how they cleaned so quickly, but it was all said and done within the hour, and no one had any answers about the misplacements. When Danny came down to eat, he was none the wiser either. Of course he seemed far too sleepy and incoherent to even tell left from right that morning, so they gave him a free pass.
This continued into that week as well. Monday, milk covered every single door and every single piece of carpet. There was too much milk to come from what they had and there was money missing from Jack's wallet, meaning whoever did it went out and bought carton after carton with their HARD-EARNED GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED MONEY! Jack would not stop grumbling about this atrocity for hours, saying it tapped into his toast money.
Tuesday, their lab was covered from head to toe in a familiar sticky residue.
"Well… now we know those adjustments I made to the Fenton Foamer are working properly…" Jack said sheepishly while Jazz and Maddie glared at him.
Danny conked out in a pile of the foam, leading to the other three fighting for about half the day to pull him out. The rest of the day was reserved for cleaning.
Wednesday, ectoplasm contaminated every nook and cranny of what was left of their dwindling food supply. Now a GHOST was somehow getting in here on top of everything, despite their defenses?! Everyone became more grossed out when Danny ate a box full of ectoplasm covered cookies, in his ghost form for full enjoyment.
"What…? Just because YOU guys can't eat them doesn't mean they should go to waste…" He said with a yawn and a tiny look of mischief, even though he was just as lost as the others.
"Are you guys sure this one wasn't just Danny getting carried away with trying to feed his sweet tooth?" Jazz said, glaring at her little brother. The three others only shrugged. They quickly made an effort to replace the lost food… after dealing with an increasingly hyper Danny, him now being more awake than they've seen in awhile.
"Maybe we SHOULDN'T have let him eat that entire box of sugar cookies without doing something to stop him…"
Thursday, everybody woke up on the very top of the Ops Center with their clothes visible on the ground below. It wasn't a very pleasant morning…
"Oh, now this is getting ridiculous… HOW DID WE EVEN GET UP HERE…?" Maddie said as the four of them came around and noticed where they were, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.
"At least it's a nice view…" Danny tried to comfort, trying to rub her back but ending up rubbing his own arm in confusion.
It was Friday when they finally got a clue on what was happening. That morning they woke up to the living room being encased in ice. They tried melting it, but it just seemed to not want to go away. With the heat sources and salts they used, normal ice would have went away very quickly.
Until it occurred to Maddie the ice might just be… ectoplasmic in nature… and due to their tightened defenses, it was pretty clear who was making it. The group turned to the staircase where Danny decided to finally make his arrival, shock evident on their faces. Danny may have been still tired, but it didn't make him immune to this.
He looked around and an expression of nervousness slowly crept onto his features.
"...What are you guys looking at me like that for…?"