The alarm beeped at precisely six o'clock the next morning. After a quick shower, Maddie headed down to the kitchen and began brewing coffee for the day. Upstairs, she could hear the faint sound of the shower as Jack finished his morning routine. Maddie peered over at the kitchen table, a piece of paper having caught her eye. She picked it up, glancing over the scribbled words, "Mom- Went over to Tuck's place real early this morning to catch the online release of a new game that we've been wanting to play. I'll call to let you know if I'll be home for dinner. –Danny" Maddie smirked, what a character that kid is, always kind and considerate of others. Sure, he doesn't do as well in school as Jazz, but his strengths lie elsewhere. Even though his interests were in space and NASA, Maddie had always thought he would make a very good humanitarian, as concerned with people as he always is.
After the coffee brewed and she fixed a mug for herself, Maddie headed down to the lab. The first thing she did was power-up the laptop left by the Guys in White. After a moment, she shrugged and turned on the Fentons' desktop as well. She began to rummage through the drawers of the desk as Jack entered the lab as well. "Well, Mads," he boomed. "What's on the agenda for today? Testing out a new device or are we going to analyze those sample from last week?"
"Neither," Maddie responded. "The bot I programmed to unlock the laptop worked. So now we have all of their files accessible. I found something interesting in their files yesterday, and I think that we need to look into it." Maddie pulled out a short, bent wire from the drawer and glanced at her husband. "The files that the Guys in White have say that Phantom has elemental anomalies in his ectoplasm. Since he seems to be more active on weekends, I figure that we could try to track him down and retrieve a sample for ourselves."
"What kind of anomalies?" Jack asked, clearly curious.
Maddie sat down at the desk, and brought up the file, "Water, keratin, iron, and carbon. Of course, many ghosts have trace amounts of water in their ectoplasm, but it's generally only weaker ghosts. If they felt it necessary to include in these files, the amount of water they found is probably more than trace."
"Hmm…," Jack pondered. He began to rub his chin as he stared off at the far side of the laboratory. "A ghost with trace amounts of keratin, iron, and carbon. Carbon I can almost understand in a way, since it is considered the building-block of life, but Phantom's not alive. Iron is a key component of blood, which he shouldn't have. But, keratin… keratin is found in hair, nails, claws, scales, and such. Why would a ghost have keratin?"
"All of these components make me think that the sample they acquired from him was a skin sample. Or, as close to a skin sample as a ghost can have. I'd like to find out myself whether this is true or not." Maddie hooked one end of the cable into the laptop and the other into the desktop, after a few button clicks, all of the files on the laptop began transferring over to the desktop, and thus into the Fenton's database.
"Good idea, Mads. Let's track that Phantom punk down and see just what makes him so damn unusual." Jack grabbed an ecto-gun and headed up the stairs to the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle, also known as GAV. Maddie watched as the download finished, prompting her to close the laptop and store it away for safe-keeping. She pulled a tablet out of the drawer next to her and powered it up, happy to see that it too could see all the new data. Maddie pulled her hood up over her head and goggles over her eyes as she headed up the stairs to meet Jack.
It had been five hours now since Jack and Maddie left FentonWorks in search of the elusive Phantom. They had gotten excited just an hour ago when the GAV detected a ghost on radar. When they turned up, it was only another Ectopus. Jack had made quick work of it, sucking it up into a spare Fenton Thermos before it did any real harm. Now, they sat in the GAV, parked in a nearly-empty lot near the middle of town. Maddie fumbled with the device she brought with her, inspecting the map that she had found in the files belonging to the Guys in White. Phantom was often spotted near the eastern side of town, near Casper High, FentonWorks, Nasty Burger, and the mall. Actually, most of his sightings were within just a few blocks of these places. However, he did have sightings on the western edge of town, Elmerton, and even a few miles outsides of city limits. Phantom is fairly well-traveled… for a ghost, that is , Maddie thought.
Next to her, Jack was rambling about the grudge he had against Phantom for stealing his original Fenton Thermos. It had taken him nearly three weeks to rebuild it, but Jack was nothing if not sentimental and began declaring that the first thing that he'd do upon Phantom's capture was to retake his Thermos. He began to wave around the one which held an Ectopus, banging it on the steering wheel, cursing out Phantom and all ghosts like him and not. However, the thermos took one hit too many. It began to hiss, gas escaping. The Ectopus crawled out of the small hole and disappeared. Jack added the thermos and particular Ectopus to his list of things to curse-out.
After a small moment the Ectopus appeared before them, about twenty feet in the air. Jack immediately sprang into action, smashing every button accessible to him on the control panel. The GAV shook slightly as a small cannon appeared on the roof, powering up. "Gotcha now, spook!" Jack cried as he hit the button to fire. The laser missed the Ectopus altogether, the spirit now in a free-fall. Maddie gasped as she realized that it had suddenly been incased in ice. A quick flash of black and silver sped by, knocking the Ectopus to the ground. Phantom was fast, very fast, and it took him no time at all to produce his stolen thermos, suck the ghost in, and fly off.
Jack was out of the GAV in a moment's notice, aiming and firing an ecto-gun at Phantom as he tried to speed off. This is odd, Maddie pondered. He usually acknowledges us in some way before leaving. It's almost as if he wants to leave this area as quickly as possible. Maddie jumped out the GAV behind Jack, an ecto-extractor in hand. "Quickly Jack, before he gets away!" Maddie cried as Jack took aim again and fired. This time, the projectile did find a mark, just not the right one. The Red Huntress tumbled forward, having been hit square on the back with the gun.
She turned around quickly, arming her own ecto-gun. She snapped, "Watch it!"
"Sorry!" Jack called back to her as she took off after Phantom. "Come on Mads, we need to get that sample!"
Maddie and Jack both took off on foot after the aerial battle. It quickly turned into a dogfight as both parties began sending ecto-blasts at each other. They both began yelling at each other, Phantom clearly taking a more defensive stance than The Red Huntress. The tide of battle rapidly turned against Phantom as Jack and Maddie both began firing at him as well. He only had a small chance of evading the barrage of ecto-rays being shot at him, and eventually found himself trapped in a net that The Red Huntress had shot. It ensnared Phantom and sent him careening to the ground. He landed gracelessly on the hard pavement with a loud 'Thud!' and groaned.
"Valerie!" He yelled. "What is it this time?!"
"I don't need an excuse to hunt ecto-scum like you, ghost!" The Red Huntress cried. Maddie was taken aback for a moment. The Red Huntress - Valerie, her name must be – had become somewhat infamous in the past year or so as the mysterious ghost hunter of Amity Park. There were others, like the Guys in White and, of course, the Fentons, but she was exclusively a hunter, whereas the Fentons and the Guys in White also had more scientific reasons to hunt ghosts. The people of Amity Park had varying opinions of her; some believe her to be a vigilante- determined to stop the threat of ghosts in town, some believe her to be contracted out my Mayor Vlad Masters to hunt down trouble-makers, some believe her to be a supernatural entity in her own right, and still some believe it to be all three. However, no matter what the people believe about her, it's hard to deny the hatred that she has for Phantom. Maddie always just assumed that Phantom had caused her some kind of grievance in the past, which is possibly why she began hunting ghosts to begin with. Whatever the cause, she and the Fentons never had any particular reason to meet. Until today.
Maddie was quick on the draw, having the ecto-extractor at the ready. She made a beeline straight for Phantom. Maddie knew that she had to be fast- Phantom was and he was sure to escape within the next few minutes. Maddie had her hand raised, needle at the ready when Valerie slid between her and Phantom, ecto-gun blaring. "Back off," Valerie hissed. "This is my catch, and I'm not having you Fentons taking that away from me! Phantom is my prize."
Next to her, Maddie could hear Jack loading his own ecto-gun, aiming it at Valerie. "Jack, no, let's be civil," she murmured. Jack lowered the weapon, powering it down. Maddie dropped the ecto-extractor to her side and raised a hand to Valerie in hopes of defusing the situation. "Please, Red Huntress, let's talk a moment." The huntress huffed, but let Maddie continue. "My name is Maddie Fenton, and this is my husband Jack. We're ghost hunters and scientists here in Amity Park. We have reasons to believe that this particular specter has a unique ecto-signature, and we would like to take a sample. It won't hurt your prize at all, and you are free to do with him what you will."
"What kind of reasons," Valerie questioned, clearly interested. She cocked her gun away from Maddie and towards Phantom. He looked to Maddie as though he was keenly interested in this conversation. Why, Maddie wasn't quite sure, maybe he himself doesn't realize how unique he is.
"Well," Maddie continued. "Over the past few years we have collected numerous readings of his ecto-signature. However, all of these samples were readings from quite some distance away. These readings show that Phantom here has a very distinguishable ecto-signature. We would like to determine if this is indeed true, and if it is, why." Maddie hated to lie, but of course, she wasn't going to go and spill to Valerie that she had illegally obtained files on Phantom from the Guys in White. For all Maddie knew, Valerie could be working for them.
Valerie spared a glance at Phantom. Finally, she muttered, "Fine, take your sample. But, once you get all your readings, I want to hear about them. This is my arch-nemesis after all, and I want to know everything about him possible."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Phantom berated. "I'm your arch-nemesis? What on Earth for? All the things that happened to you were a total accident!"
"Shut it, Phantom," Valerie hissed. She cocked her gun, letting it charge. Phantom rolled his eyes, unimpressed.
"Thank you, huntress," Maddie responded, respectfully. She knelt next to Phantom and re-readied the ecto-extractor. Phantom eyed her carefully, nervous with what she was about to do. Maddie plunged the extractor into his arm and pulled on the plunger, letting the bright, lime-green ectoplasm spill into the extractor's chamber. Phantom winced, but Maddie hardly noticed.
"Valerie."
"I'm sorry?" Maddie questioned, pulling the extractor out of the ghost's arm.
"You can call me Valerie."
"Well, thank you, Valerie, for letting me take a sample. We'll be in touch soon with the results." Maddie capped the ecto-extractor and handed it over to Jack, who took it and headed to GAV, probably upset that he wouldn't be taking Phantom hostage today.
"Be sure to include any weaknesses he has. Nothing I have seems to work on this one more than a couple hours, and I'd like to include weapons which have a more… permanent effect."
"Of course," Maddie said, turning back to Phantom. She gasped, Phantom gone already. A slippery one, he is.