Once again, I don't own One Piece or Danny Phantom.

"Hey, I think that thermos is Danny's."

"Danny? Who's that?"

"Just some kid who wandered into the forest last night. He said something about his thermos being stolen."

"Oh. Well, it sure looks weird." Luffy inspected it, eyes wide in curiosity. "Ooh, what's this button do?"

Nami, having already sensed that Luffy would try to do something stupid with the strange item, quickly slapped his hand away before it could press the button she's almost certain was labeled 'release.' Whatever that meant, it didn't sound good. "Give that to me. This clearly isn't a normal thermos." He pouted but let her take it from him. She turned toward Zoro, who had been napping in the living room before Luffy came in. "Zoro, he said he lived about thirty minutes from here, right?"

"Yeah."

"I was looking at a map earlier, one I got from the last town." She walked over to the coffee table, laying out the map. The others, having heard the commotion in the living room, gathered around the table to see what she had to say. "We're in this forest, and the closest town from here is Amity Park, over here."

"Then he probably lives in Amity Park."

"Exactly. We should probably return this to him. It must've been important if he came all the way out here for it."

Luffy literally jumped at the thought. "Ooh! Ooh! Sounds exciting! Let's go!"

"Oh, no. There's no way I'm letting you come along. We just got here, and I don't want to have to leave this nice cabin anytime soon, so you're staying here."

"Awwww, but I wanna go into the mystery town! It's boring here."

Considering how much of a handful Luffy could be on a normal basis, she almost disregarded his complaints, but she quickly realized that if she did, she would have to deal with a bored and restless Luffy upon returning, and that was by far worse than an energetic Luffy. Suddenly the idea of taking him with her to Amity Park didn't seem so terrible. "Alright, you can come." Luffy cheered loudly. This was a mistake. "But you've got to stay out of trouble. No wandering off by yourself. We can't draw attention to ourselves, so act normal."

"Okay!"

Someone kill her. Trying to stop herself from screaming in frustration, she sighed. "Robin, could you come too? I was hoping to check out exactly what kind of town we're going to be getting all of our supplies from anyway, so now's a good chance to do that."

Robin smiled. "Of course."

"Could I come along too? I'm going to need to restock our food supply soon, so I may as well go now."

Yet another person who could help keep Luffy in check. Perfect. "Of course, Sanji. Everyone else should stay in case something happens while we're gone."

And so, the four Straw Hats left for Amity Park.

They hadn't been in town for more than five minutes when they heard sounds of destruction, some people running away screaming while others actually went closer to the disturbance, a mix of curiosity and excitement on their faces.

"What's going on here?"

One of the nearby civilians paused and turned toward the Straw Hats, explaining, "It's a ghost attack. Don't worry, Phantom's taking care of it." He continued walking upon finishing, not even bothering to see their reactions. The way he so casually stated something so unusual, as if it were a common occurrence (which it was), confused Nami.

"A ghost attack?! That sounds so cool!"

"Are you crazy?! That's anything but cool!"

"It appears that Luffy isn't the only one to think so." As proof, she gestured toward two teens who were excitedly running toward the chaos.

"See? Let's go check it out!"

But before Luffy could even begin to run towards the supposed ghost attack, a black blur was blown over their heads into a building. Seconds later, a larger, green blur (a ghost, Nami realized) approached the building. Their attention caught by the ghost, none of them noticed when the crowd that had been watching the fight showed up seconds later to the new location.

They watched in silence as the smaller boy-like ghost shook off the rubble, groaning a little before saying something, but the specter was too far away for his words to be discerned by the witnessing audience. Nami watched in awe as the smaller ghost shot a green blast from the palm of his hand, nailing the other ghost. Before the larger one could recover enough to attack, the teen-sized ghost pulled something out from his belt (hold on... isn't that—), aiming it toward the other ghost as it shot a blue beam of energy, engulfing the green specter and pulling it inside the device. A second later the lid was placed on the opening of the container, effectively trapping the ghost inside.

The crowd cheered, and was that a look of embarrassment on the young ghost's face? He waved at the crowd before flying off, disappearing from sight seconds later.

"That. Was. Awesome!"

"Did you see what that ghost used on the bigger one? I'm pretty sure it's the same thermos we have."

They looked at the thermos in Nami's hand.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It was kind of hard to see, but it had the same shape."

"That would explain what this release button does. If we press it, it'll release whatever ghost is inside." Which meant that she had been carrying a ghost around this whole time. Nami nearly shuddered at the realization.

"So it summons ghosts? Let's summon one!"

Luffy moved to grab the thermos only for Nami to shove his hands away. "No, you idiot! This thermos is used to capture ghosts like what we just saw."

"Hold on... didn't you say Danny's was stolen?"

Their eyes widened at Sanji's words.

"Could that have been what he was saying?" Seeing the confusion in their eyes, Nami explained, "Danny said he didn't know what the person who stole his thermos was. Zoro and I thought he might have been talking about Luffy, but what if he meant that ghost we saw was the one he was chasing?"

"If he didn't know what a ghost was, why would he have a device made to capture them? He had to have known it was a ghost." He looked at the thermos. "The fact that he even has one..." The blond looked up at the three others. "Wouldn't that make Danny a ghost hunter?"

"After what I just saw, it wouldn't surprise me."

"Isn't that Danny over there?" Robin directed their attention to a nearby alleyway, and sure enough, Danny walked out, looking around carefully as he went, almost as if he had been in hiding.

"Hold on, how did you know that's Danny?"

Robin only smiled.

"Never mind... At this point it really shouldn't surprise me anymore."

Luffy, excited by the surprise ghost attack, grabbed the thermos out of Nami's hand and ran up to Danny, shouting, "Hey! We found your thermos!"

Danny winced, the other Straw Hats flinching as the crowd of townspeople paused to stare at the Straw Hats, but they hardly had a second to acknowledge the sudden attention before the sound of a button being pressed reached their ears, and a fat, blue ghost came out of the thermos in Luffy's outstretched hand.

"I am the Box—"

A blue beam enveloped the ghost. Jaws dropped in disbelief, the crowd watched as the ghost was pulled into an identical thermos. Looking up from the container, they saw that the person who had so quickly and effortlessly captured the ghost was Danny, who had been entirely unfazed by the sudden turn of events if his unimpressed expression was anything to go by. It was only after he capped the lid that he realized what he had done, his eyes going wide as he looked up at the silent crowd with a panicked expression.

"Uh... hi guys."

The people continued to stare, and Danny fidgeted nervously. Just when it seemed he was ready to flee, they turned and walked away while slowly shaking their heads, for there was no way something so uncharacteristic of the youngest Fenton could ever happen, and what they had just seen went against everything they knew about him (which was basically nothing, but they didn't know that).

Luffy opened his mouth to shout something only for Nami's hand to forcefully clamp it shut before he could say anything. Disaster averted, she turned to address Danny, who seemed to be relieved by the crowd's dissipation. "Sorry about that. Luffy can be a bit of an idiot sometimes."

He jumped, his gaze settling on the Straw Hats before a look of recognition crossed his features. "Oh, Nami! I didn't see you there. Uh..." He looked down nervously at the thermos in his hand (though for what, Nami had no clue).

Deciding to ignore it for the time being, she said, "We found your thermos earlier today and figured we'd try to return it to you."

He looked up in surprise, a hint of relief and disbelief in his eyes. "You found it? Wait—duh. The Box Ghost."

"Is that the ghost Luffy released?"

"Uh—yeah. Everyone knows about the Box Ghost." His gaze drifted to the thermos still in Luffy's hand.

Realizing he wanted it back, Nami grabbed the thermos. "Here."

Danny, grateful to have it back, took it from her. "Thanks. You have no idea how much trouble I could've gotten in if I'd lost it."

"You said someone stole it from you last night, right? Was it that ghost we saw earlier?"

Danny stiffened. "No, it wasn't Phantom, if that's who you're talking about."

"Phantom... come to think of it, someone else called him Phantom too."

"So that's his name?"

"Yeah."

"If Phantom didn't steal your thermos, then why did he have one just like it?"

Danny hesitated, clearly trying to figure out what to say. "He has his own thermos. The reason it looks like mine is because he got it from us. You see, my family hunts ghosts, so we have lots of thermoses, and Phantom got one by chance. He said that my parents threw it in his face, but they don't believe him."

Robin smiled, a knowing glint in her eyes. "So the thermos we saw Phantom use and the thermos you used just now were two different thermoses?"

Danny was quick to nod. "Yeah. This one here"—he held out the thermos they had returned—"makes three."

"Does that mean you and that ghost guy—"

"It's Phantom."

"—know each other?!" Luffy could barely contain his excitement at the idea of meeting Phantom again, not to mention ghost hunting sounded fun.

"What? No! Of course not! I almost never see him except in the news." Not technically a lie since they were one and the same.

Luffy visibly sagged in disappointment, Robin chuckling in amusement (mostly at the irony of the situation, but no one knew that except herself) at his reaction. The other two were somewhat unconvinced of his response, their gazes skeptical and probing.

"Aww, I wanted him to join my crew!"

"You what?" Danny nearly squeaked.

"Luffy, are you insane? Phantom's a ghost!"

"But he's so cool! Having a ghost in our crew would be totally awesome!"

"Forget it! He seems to be bound to this town anyway. We can't just make him leave."

"Perhaps you'd like to ask Danny instead?" They all looked at Robin in surprise. "After all, he's from a family of ghost hunters."

They turned to Danny, who immediately froze in shock at the sudden proposal, almost as if he couldn't believe where the conversation had gone.

Luffy stared at him, his expression unreadable, but seconds later, a large smile covered his face, the intensity of his sudden excitement causing Danny to subconsciously take a step back.

"Danny, right? Join my crew!"

"W-What?"

"I said I want you to join my crew and be my friend." Danny remained silent. "C'mon, it'll be fun!"

Danny wasn't sure how to describe the feeling he felt in that moment. It was as if the only fitting answer was:

"Okay... Let's be friends."

I don't want to have notes at the end of every chapter, so this will be the last one until something changes. Everything was mentioned in the first chapter's note, so look at that for my update schedule and thoughts on suggestions for future chapters.

Until next time, thanks for reading!