Chapter 7 A New Revelation

Klaatu: In this chapter, more theories about the entity become revealed in this chapter. In specific; the origins of the entity will be suggested as well as why it feels threatened in this universe. There will also be new mysteries to be solved as more strange events begin to happen.

The cold from the troublesome Polar Vortex will also start affecting the Ghost Zone since according to the show the human world and the Ghost Zone are interconnected. When I wrote this chapter there was a Polar Vortex event happening in the mid west and even though I live in California it still felt colder here than usual.

As for the story, things will be getting pretty intense so hold onto your hats. Review and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, Checkmate or Endgame.

Daniel's POV

Aunt Carolyn was upstairs trouble studying the mainframe in Vlad's study to see how the creature may have accessed the holo controls. Although Nathan and I had checked already she felt we may have missed something so she had to double check the findings. Nathan was testing the training room to make sure the entity hadn't messed with it while we were away. As tough as the training room was already, we certainly didn't need it messing up and becoming a world of hurt for us if it had a hidden glitch.

Meanwhile, Vlad loaded the images of the ripple he had filmed from his phone and into a computer astronomy program that Nathan and I helped build. The name of the program is called S.E.A.C.C. (pronounced as 'seek') and it stands for Star Evaluation and Constellation Comparison. I was very excited about it and hoped the images would shed some light as to where this creature may have originated. As I watched the images of space where the ripple opened I saw the computer formatting the starts into 2d coordinates with a 3rd coordinate for the luminosity distance which is simply the approximate distance of a star based on it's brightness.

"Hmm, the computer shows the configuration of Andromeda. I'm uncertain if the luminosity distances from viewing the stars in hyperspace are relative to viewing from earth." Vlad studied the image closely.

"Well, let's just guess it is the same for the moment." I knew Vlad didn't like guesswork, but it was better than nothing.

"According to this star constellation position based on the computer data, it looks like the creature came through a ripple in space that is around 440 million years old!" Vlad look stunned. I couldn't believe it myself.

"That means this creature came back through history! I wonder how it found it's way here?" It seemed the more we uncovered the less we knew. The 440 million years old comment sounded vaguely familiar to me as we studied various periods in earth's history though I couldn't place this time frame at the moment. While I was pondering on that I was equally puzzled that the creature somehow traveled through a tear in time and space.

"That's a good question Little Badger." Vlad replied as he reran the image of the ripple again, frame by frame to see if he had missed anything. During one segment I saw something rather odd that looked like a streak of bright blue.

"I wonder what caused that blue flash?" Vlad asked. It reminded me of a flash of lightening. I'm surprised I didn't see it before while we were filming. Then it hit me.

"I remember Nathan and I studied about a mass extinction event that occurred around 440 million years ago. I think it was called the Ordovician extinction. I read an article about it. Scientists believed that this extinction event was caused by a gamma ray burst." I remember this particular fact well as Nathan and I sweat bullets over it for a mid-term exam.

"Oh no..." Vlad looked pale when I explained this to him.

"What's the matter?" It was like Vlad to look like this. He was always confident and had a way about him. If he was upset, there was something definitely worth being upset about. He walked to the intercom and pressed a button.

"Carolyn, could you come down here for a moment?" Vlad asked.

"On my way." She answered. In an instant she materialized. She was able to stay human during teleportation and materialization. Something none of us could do yet.

"Did you ever finish that light analysis program?" Vlad asked.

"You mean the one that analyzes spectrum of light passing through different materials? I did complete it. Why?" Carolyn replied looking curious.

"I need your program to analyze this frame that shows a flash of blue light. Duplicate the light passing through beneath the surface of the ocean. Start at about 5 feet underwater and program the simulation to 100 feet of depth." Vlad instructed.

"OK, let's see what we've got." Carolyn uploaded the image to her personal terminal and her fingers flew. She was the fastest typist in her class at 90 plus words a minute.

The screen showed the flash in slow motion and off to the side were numbers representing feet. As the water depth increased the light began to take on a green tint and resembled the light I saw when I walked into the ghost portal and got zapped getting my ghost powers.

"Oh my God! The light looks like the same color of light that the proto portal emitted. I hope you aren't thinking what I'm thinking?" Carolyn responded looking deeply distressed.

"That the creature may have viewed the energy beam that came from the portal to be the same energy beam that killed most of its kind." Vlad replied somberly.

"Remember what the creature said when it attacked Casper High? It blamed the portal experiment for killing its kind. It must have mistaken the proto portal burst to be the gamma ray burst that hit its people. Whoa, that's pretty bad!" Now it all made sense why the creature was so angry. It must think that proto portal was responsible for a near extinction of its species. Yikes!

"How can we convince it that the proto portal accident didn't kill its race?" Carolyn asked.

"Well it survived when it came through the portal. How could it explain surviving the portal if it thought it killed others of its kind?" I challenged.

"A good point Little Badger, the problem I think however is the creature is grieving. It may not be responsive to anything we have to say as it is too angry and wont see reason." Vlad replied looking down at the console.

"What makes you so sure." Carolyn asked.

"Because I know what I was like when I lost my dad and little sister. I wouldn't listen to anyone for a while. I wanted to blame the whole world rather than face the truth. I was able to shut off my emotions for a time. Unfortunately it also caused me to shut down my empathy." Vlad looked distant. I could tell it still bothered him a lot to talk about the car accident. I knew what the Nasty Burger accident did to me in an alternate future. The hurt I must've felt was so intense that I chose to do away with my human emotions...at a horrible cost to myself and everyone else.

"That creature is hurting and angry. There's no telling what its capable of." Carolyn cautioned.

"We're going to have to find someway to trap it. I know it doesn't pick up on regular ghost sensors and is impervious to ghost catching equipment." I reminded everyone.

"I think we will all have to work on a special type of spectral catcher that will enable us to catch it before it finds a way to really hurt someone." Vlad responded solemnly.

"If it was able to somehow manipulate the electrical signals that turned on the holo simulator, maybe it has a frequency similar to electricity." I suggested.

"Brilliant Little Badger!" Vlad smiled proudly. I can't believe I just figured that out. Since having more time to study I have been able to analyze things better. I had only hoped my guess was correct.

"The one thing I'm still puzzled about is if the portal accident hurled Aunt Carolyn back 20 years from her future, how could it have opened a doorway to the Ordovician period?" I was stumped at this.

"Maybe the portal blast didn't stop traveling back in time. Maybe it continued to travel back and breached earth's prehistory, or rather Carolyn's parallel universe of her earth's history. Carolyn did come from an alternate universe." Vlad explained. The more I heard about it the more I felt another headache coming on. Time travel was one of my least favorite subjects. As we pondered what Vlad was saying I felt a sudden chill of air.

"Man did you feel that?" I shivered as Nathan came into the lab.

"I tested the training room. Everything seems to be running fine." Nathan said as I saw him visibly shudder for a moment. I glanced at camera that tells what the temperature is outside.

"Yikes, it's minus 48 degrees outside with a wind chill of minus 62!" Man I had no idea Wisconsin could get so cold.

"Thank you Polar Vortex!" Nathan exclaimed

"I heard the weather report say that we were suppose to warm up to minus 7 degrees. I never thought I'd hear myself say minus 7 degrees as warming up!" Carolyn said with a shiver.

"I'll grab some more ecto fire logs. I can treat them with extra ecto energy so they can last longer and burn hotter." Nathan added as he turned ghost and floated back out of the lab.

"Might I also suggest we head up to the kitchen and get warmer?" Carolyn suggested.

"Woman, you read my mind!" Vlad responded as he shut down the computers and we all turned ghost and flew to the kitchen. When in a hurry, going ghost saves time walking or running. I only use teleportation for emergencies or in a super big hurry as it still wears me out to use it.

As we floated up to the kitchen I saw Nathan loading some logs on the fire and a flew over and helped him.

"We all heading to the kitchen which seems to be the warmest place in this castle." I said to Nathan.

"I'm not surprised seeing as George loves to cook almost constantly this time of year. The oven seldom stays off for more than a few hours." Nathan smirked as he finished loading the last of the extra treated ecto logs.

As Nathan and I caught up with Vlad and Carolyn I was already imagining the taste of hot cocoa. I decided to turn human again and Nathan did also. I was still pretty exhausted from all the battles we had with those nasty ghost bees. Then as we entered toward the kitchen we were met with an unexpected and unwelcome surprise.

"Skulker! What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?!" Vlad spat. This was totally out of line for Skulker to show up unannounced. We were both puzzled as the ghost portal down in the lab had been secured and the ghost shield was up yet here he was! Skulker usually rang the chime to the ghost portal downstairs or called Vlad ahead if he wanted to go see him. He and Vlad were not on the best of terms after his stunt of leaving me to the mercy of attack by other ghosts some time back. I had forgotten how he nearly left me to die that fateful day. Before Skulker even responded I saw Ember pop in next to him. I had just turned human but not taking any chances I went ghost immediately, not wanting to take any chances.

"The Ghost Zone is getting affected by that weather anomaly your people call the Polar Vortex. It is getting intolerably cold and so we thought we would spend a little while here." Skulker replied nonchalantly. As cold as the Zone was the weather hadn't been that much colder since I was there. He was obviously lying and had some other motivation for being here. Vlad I could tell was equally suspicious.

"I am more interested in how you got through the ghost shield?" Vlad asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We might tell you if you're nice to us." Skulker smirked. I could tell that didn't sit well with Vlad.

"So after you leave me to die and Vlad fires you, then you decide to just show up unannounced because it's a bit chilly where you are?" I glared at Skulker with dagger eyes. If looks could kill Skulker would've been ecto residue.

"Relax baby pop. We don't want to hang out here that long. We just wanted to stop by. It turns out the Far Frozen is actually warmer right now than the rest of the Ghost Zone." Ember said shooting a glare back at me. She may have not been there when Skulker did what he did and left me but I wasn't in the mood to play her or anyone's little games.

"So the Polar Vortex is now even freezing the Ghost Zone! We got out in the nick of time!" Nathan said sarcastically not falling for Skulker's deception. Vlad knew Skulker was up to something but decided to play dumb. I trusted Vlad's hunches as he was a master strategist and probably wanted to learn more of what Skulker was up to

"Fine Skulker. You and Ember can stay here for a little while but don't try to pull anything. My ghost servants and surveillance are watching you." Vlad cautioned. I could so tell he wanted to just throw a couple of ecto blasts at Skulker but decided he wasn't worth it. We all had bigger battles to face dealing with this entity.

"We do not intend to overstay our welcome." Skulker responded as one of the ghost servants floated in with some cups of hot cocoa.

"I made hot cocoa for everyone." Martha said with a smile as she floated with a tray of the cups filled nearly to the brim, all with whip-cream and a light chocolate drizzle on each. There were even two extra cups for our unexpected and rather unwelcome guests. We all thanked her and she set the beverages on the kitchen dining counter. Her presence eased the tension in the air. I noticed Nathan walk over and check the answering machine. I heard mom and dad leave some messages. I cautioned them not to call in the ghost zone as we had to be very stealthy and a ringing cell phone their might have attracted unwanted attention from a certain overzealous ghost sheriff.

"Hi, honey. We were just calling you to see how you were doing. I heard it's pretty cold there right now so hope you're staying inside and keeping warm. Give us a call when you can. Love you." My mom said on the machine. I hadn't called my folks yet and now was as good a time as any. I pulled out my phone and speed dialed.

"Hey, hi Mom...Dad. How is everybody?" I asked.

"Well, your dad had a small fall but he's OK. I didn't want to leave a message on the machine and get you overly worried. He slipped off the roof and fell but some bushes along with his jumpsuit helped to break his fall. He just has mostly a few scratches but other than that, he's fine." Mom said with motherly tone she has especially when dad did something a bit foolish.

"What was he doing on the roof?" I asked. Mom replied.

"Hey squirt, how are ya doing?" Dads' voice came on over the phone.

"You OK dad?" I asked. Sometimes I think he hurt worse than he let on.

"Oh don't worry about me. I'm doing fine. I was just reinforcing the roof and securing the satellite dish. The weather prediction is it's suppose to be in the windy and in teens in a day or two." Dad was used to cold weather but this was a record for Amity Park this time of year.

"How's my little brother doing? I hear you've been getting a lot of cold over there." Jazz chimed in. It almost seemed like we were in a contest to see who was getting the coldest temps.

"Last I checked it was somewhere in the minus 40's." I grabbed the remote and turned on to the weather service channel. I saw Lance Thunder shivering in a coverall rain jacket, his expression said it all...freezing weather heading toward Amity.

"Are you sure that Vortex himself isn't behind this?" Jasmine asked. I knew the Vortex incident was still fresh in everyone's minds.

"Last Vlad told me is that Vortex had been given back to the Observants for re-incarceration. I double checked and was assured Vortex is locked up for good." I didn't want to tell Vlad I had done this but I still had some trust issues with his sometimes villainous or at the very least, reckless nature. Vlad gave me a rather annoyed look and I just shrugged my shoulders.

"I'm glad to hear it. I'm still not looking forward to the coming colder weather." Jazz complained.

"Well, at least we don't have to deal with the drought conditions we had a while back." I reflected.

"You mean before Vlad tried to end the drought with a dangerous weather ghost?" Jazz shot back sarcastically.

Before I got to answer the line became static and went dead. I tried to call back on the land line but it too was out. I heard a gust of wind and knew the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Next, the lights began to flicker. An even stronger gust of wind roared against the castle. Vlad turned on the intercom.

"George, could you go down to the lab and increase the ghost shield by 40 percent." Vlad asked.

"Certainly sir." Came the reply. I was still impressed that the ghost shield could double as a weather insulator. It sure came in handy during this freakish bout of cold.

Meanwhile Skulker and Ember were watching an episode of a ghost hunting show. To them, seeing humans attempt to hunt or stalk ghosts was undoubtedly their equivalent to comical reality TV. I watched them laughing at the ghost hunters.

"This prey is especially amusing. They seem to think that ghost is actually an old jail warden. Little do they know that is really Amorpho impersonating the jail warden. What a bunch of suckers!" Skulker laughed.

"They don't know what we do Baby Pop! They just keep trying to guess based on what they see." Ember chuckled.

As I glanced over at the television the lights flickered again and went dark along with everything else. The power generator kicked in and the reddish hue emergency lights came on but the television was out for the count. The timing couldn't have been worse.

"Baby, this is boring! I say we go to the Far Frozen and watch some tournaments." Ember complained as she yawned. Skulker looked disappointed. I didn't know he had such a thing for human shows.

"How are you gonna leave? The portal is locked down for the evening." I asked with a smirk.

"We have our ways. Until next time whelp." Skulker pulled out what looked like a crystal that opened to create a makeshift ghost portal. I read about such crystals in one of the ghost artifact books in Vlad's study. They must've found a way to use it to defeat the ghost shield. I secretly clicked my phone and recorded the frequencies in the room to see what frequency Skulker was using. Then I could use this info to add the frequency to the ghost shield to keep Skulker out. I got a few seconds of recording before a triangular green shimmer appeared as Skulker and Ember flew into it and then vanished.

"Well at least they left." I said internally. The emergency lights began to dim slightly as I heard a strange noise coming from the generator as if it was slowing down and then speeding back up.

"Dad, I think the backup generator is going on the fritz again. I better go down to the lab and check it out." Nathan said. I cringed. We so did not need the backup generator to fail in the midst of a Polar Vortex!

"I'll go down with you in case you need an extra hand." I offered.

We both flew down to the lab to see what was up. As we approached the lab door I thought I saw what looked like the Time Wrangler hovering nearby but only for a moment. The image disappeared quickly as we moved towards the lab door and maybe it was just me imagining things. I had been under a lot of stress after meeting that character.

As we both phased through the lab door I noticed what looked like a soft bluish glow surrounding the breakers.

"Hey Nathan, do you see that?" I asked. But then the strange glow had vanished.

"I saw it for a moment. I hope some ghost isn't messing with the power! That's all we need." Nathan grumbled annoyed as he reached toward the switch and flipped the breaker to the off position then back on again. The emergency generator shuddered momentarily and then was fine as Nathan flipped the breaker. The generator then made a slight slowing sound as the strange glow once again appeared over the breaker switch and Nathan stepped back as we both looked at it.

"What do you think it is?" I asked. Then an answer came as the blue glow moved away from the breaker and then became the form that looked like a two foot eel. It suddenly shot toward the ghost portal door and rammed into it but wasn't able to penetrate.

"Uh, the ghost portal is closed for the moment but you can check back tomorrow." I said to the creature.

The glowing eel like vapor twirled around and two glowing angry red eyes appeared. I tried firing at it but it dodged my blasts as it growled at us and then flew off in a hurry phasing through the lab door. I wished I had remember to pack a Fenton Thermos on me but it was left with the supplies back at my bedroom in Amity. I was careless for being so exhausted after our little excursion into the Ghost Zone earlier. We tried to follow the creature but then it just disappeared in the hallway and I could no longer sense its ecto signature.

"I wonder if we should tell Vlad?" I asked Nathan. Nathan rolled his eyes up.

"Let me do it." Nathan felt annoyed as did I that we didn't find out more about the creature as it seemed to vanish into nowhere. This castle was full of weirdness.

Nathan flew ahead of me as I floated back up toward the kitchen. He was there first and I heard him talking to George.

"I believe your mom and dad have retired for the evening. Your dad said he would stop by the study first. They might be there right now so you might still be able to catch them." George said to Nathan.

OK, thanks George." Nathan said as he headed that way. I decided just to hang back at the dining kitchen counter and grabbed my cocoa to put it back in the microwave. As the cocoa was heating up I tried the land line once again but it was still dead. I picked up my phone and wondered if the cellular service was still down. When I hit the call button I heard a dial tone. Great, we have service for the moment! I speed dialed Fenton Works. I felt stupid calling mom back but I knew she had a vast data base of ghost research and maybe had some clues about this eel ghost I spotted.

As I listened the house phone rang for five times and then the answering machine came on.

"Welcome to Fentonworks. Whatever your paranormal needs are, we are the experts at tracking, capturing and eliminating those pesky ghosts. Please leave your name and number at the sound of the tone and we'll get back to you as soon as possible." My moms' voice said in the recording.

I was puzzled. I had just talked to mom not 20 minutes earlier and now no one was picking up. Something was off and I needed to find out what. I flew like a bat out of a fire and aimed toward Vlad's study. I was silently hoping that Vlad was still in there. I didn't see Nathan at the moment as I flew in front of Vlad's door. I knocked frantically.

"Vlad, I need to talk to you!" I hated disturbing anyone but this was important and I had a bad feeling in my gut.

"What is it Daniel?" Vlad said rather calmly trying to mask a slight annoyance in his voice.

"You remember those spy bug cameras I asked you to deactivate that you used to spy on my family?" I cringed going into detail. Years ago Vlad and my dad accused each other of stealing plans for new ghost inventions. Vlad went fruitloop and secretly placed spy bugs in my dad's house. The cameras were cleverly devised to resemble lady bugs to hide their real purpose if ever noticed. Fortunately I could hear the intricate electronic sounds and discovered what they really were when I found some. Carolyn was very angry at Vlad for it and it was a sore subject.

"Daniel, why are you bringing this up?" Vlad asked with a strain of embarrassment in his voice.

"Yeah, I know this is going to seem like an odd request, but can you reactivate the bugs?" I was hoping that Vlad would have a way to do this remotely so I could see what was going on at my house. I heard footsteps and the door creaked open. He was already in his silk robe house coat and he looked a bit weary. He leaned toward me in a whisper.

"Daniel, this is a touchy subject. You know I could probably reactivate them. The problem is that they are locked away in your dad's vault. Why on earth would you want me to do this?" Vlad asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Mom and dad aren't picking up. I think something may be wrong and I maybe I could see what's going on with the cameras. Wait, you said you stuck them in the vault?" I had to rethink my strategy.

"Yes Daniel. Although within the vault they are in an open cabinet with your dad's other electronics if memory serves me. However, the fact they are in the vault means there is no sense in trying to activate them." Vlad rubbed his eyes. I could tell the journey finally was catching up with him.

"Well I'm hoping that dad finally installed that emergency keypad inside that opens the vault if someone gets locked in." I explained. The latch dad finally remembered to install broke one time when Jazz and I got trapped, so we needed a backup system to open the vault door. Dad said he would install it and I hoped he finally did.

"Let me go down to the lab and see what I can do, hang on a minute." Vlad grabbed a flashlight in case the backup generator failed and headed out with me. The backup lights were flickering and I hoped the generator wasn't starting to act up again. As we went down to the lab I thought it a good time to bring up the anomaly Nathan and I witnessed earlier.

"Oh, Nathan and I saw some weird bluish light surrounding the circuit breaker. It moved away from the breaker and turned into the form of an eel and tried to bust open the door to the ghost portal. Then it just phased through the lab door and disappeared." I quickly explained.

"You saw this and you didn't think to tell me?" Vlad sounded upset. That didn't go as well as planned.

"Nathan told me he would tell you." I defended but knew that line wouldn't fly.

"I don't care. You ALWAYS make sure to tell me yourself!" Vlad retorted.

"It seemed pretty minor at the time. It just flew away and disappeared." I replied.

"When dealing with an unknown threat even if its actions appear non-hostile, you should always alert me to it." Vlad cautioned as we both phased into the lab. Vlad walked over to the console that monitored his ghost portal and spoke.

"Computer, activate backup internal lab shield around the portal door." Vlad instructed.

"Shield is now active lamb chop." The female computer voice replied as a slight greenish glow now surrounding the portal door. I internally laughed when I heard the voice say lamb chop. Vlad still had such an ego. At least Carolyn was here so he wasn't using the Carolyn hologram as well.

"Computer, open and close the portal door and analyze." Vlad responded and the door opened and shut with ease several times.

"The portal door is within acceptable operating parameters. The structural integrity of the door is functioning at 100 percent stud muffin." Vlad had a faint blush when she said that.

"You programmed the computer to call you stud muffin?" I said barely able to contain a laugh.

"If you must know, I programmed the computer to say this when it just sees me. Some time ago Carolyn and I got into a fight and she left for a week to visit her sister. The computer is set to talk sweetly to me if it thinks I am by myself and need comfort words." Vlad said clearing his throat.

"Fruitloop." I muttered.

"Daniel, let's stay focused on the matter at hand. I am going to start the program to activate the spy camera bugs however the bugs have a load time of about 10 minutes to reinitialize. This could take longer since they have been dormant so long." Vlad explained as he began to type commands into his phone.

"Why so long?" I asked. I was frustrated and wanted to find out what was happening at my house.

"If I try to force the cameras to boot up too fast I risk damaging them. They haven't been used in quite sometime." Vlad replied.

"How long of a time?" I couldn't remember exactly when my dad and Vlad called a truce.

"Eight months ago. The same time when Carolyn and I got into a fight and she left for a week." Vlad said with a saddened voice. That must've been some fight to finally get Vlad to be the first to call a truce.

"Honey pie, there is something I discovered with the portal door. Although structurally sound there is a slight variation in the temporal state of the dust in the middle of the door." The computer voice echoed.

"That's odd. This warrants a closer look." Vlad looked concerned as he walked up to the door grabbing some tweezers and clipped on the mid-section of the portal door. He then dropped the contents which seemed barely visible even with my ghost vision, into a test tube and sealed it.

"You said the eel like creature you saw was trying to bang on the portal door. It looks like it left some very strange evidence behind." Vlad looked at me inquisitively.

"Let me guess, temporal state means the dust is fluctuating in and out of current time?" I asked curiously.

"That's precisely what is happening Little Badger." Vlad replied. I had ended up learning something about temporal mechanics even though it was not my most favorite subject.

"That means the eel or whatever it was is probably fluctuating out of our space and time which explains why I couldn't even sense it when it was here. Then that might mean the entity is not able to fully exist in our current time. It may also be out of phase as I can't sense it." As crazy as it sounded it was the only thing that made sense.

"It also may mean that the eel came from the same place that the entity came from, though I can't be certain. At least this better explains why the regular ghost catching equipment would have no effect on it. On another note, I think the spy cameras are ready to fully activate." Vlad replied as he continued typing on his phone.

"Finally!" I cheered.

"Spy cameras are now up and running at 100 percent efficiency. Default scout camera 1 will now be displayed on the viewer screen butter cup." The computer said as a screen came on and I could now see through the eyes of one of the main camera bugs. I saw the other bugs flying either side of the view screen as the main scout flew to the vault door and fortunately, the keypad was installed and the key lights were on so I knew it had power. Thank God dad remembered!

Vlad's fingers seemed to type at lightening speed as the view of the room rotated from left to right and then forward again as it arrived at the keypad next the door to the inside of the vault.

"Go ahead and type your code on the phone. I programmed the default scout camera bug to hit the pad of each number you type." Vlad said as he handed the phone to me. I carefully typed 0-7-5-2. With each digit the scout bumped the keypad and a beep was heard to let me know it had managed to press the key. Upon completion of the code, I heard the sound of gears and watched as the door clicked open and was ajar several inches. That was more than enough room as the camera bugs buzzed through and into a dimly lit hallway. I held my breath as the camera view bobbed slightly while heading down the hallway of my home. The audio of the cameras was on but I heard no sounds of anyone upstairs. Before the cameras could head upstairs the view screen suddenly went black.

"Aw come on!" I protested.

"As I feared. The spy cameras were up and running but hadn't been fully recharged yet. They were flying on residual charge before they died and we lost contact." Vlad looked frustrated.

"How long before they fully charge?" I asked worriedly.

"You're looking at a minimum of several hours." Vlad replied as he glanced at his watch.

"We can't wait that long. We need to head back to Amity and see what's happening at my house!" I protested. I was beyond frustrated at the moment.

"I agree. I'll have to inform the staff and let Carolyn know to get packed. You go alert Nathan." Vlad quickly teleported in a puff of smoke. I tried to teleport to my bedroom to tell Nathan the news right away but I was so emotionally stressed I couldn't focus clearly enough. I ended up having to fly back upstairs. As I floated up I ran into Martha.

"The Master tells me you are all having to leave again. It's such a shame as you just arrived back from your journey. You haven't even had a full nights rest." Martha said as she was fiddling with her duster. I know how much the ghost crew missed us after Vlad having to move to Amity Park when he became Mayor.

"I know Martha, but I need to check on my family to see if they're alright." I hated to leave everyone so quickly but too much crazy stuff was going on and I needed some answers.

As I flew to my room I heard Carolyn in the distance complaining somewhat about last minute packing. I could tell she sounded a bit cranky and tired after preparing to rest for the remainder of the afternoon, but at least it was warmer at Amity Park. I felt awkward however as I didn't mean to eavesdrop while Nathan and I were packing, but my ghost hearing enabled me to hear things whether I wanted to or not.

"I know we need to get there in a hurry. I just was looking forward to...well you know...cuddles and..." Carolyn said softly to Vlad.

"I know honey. Hopefully it will be something minor. After the storm that nearly flooded downtown Jack has a spare bedroom for us in just such emergencies." Vlad replied.

"I think you mean ever since the castle got destroyed that time you and Daniel got into a prank war." Carolyn chuckled. I'm glad she wasn't as upset with me as I feared during that incident. She told me she was more upset with the GIW's reaction to my prank call which was fortunate for me. Vlad on the other hand was a different story.

"I'm grateful I listened to you and kept our most precious items hidden in the basement. You were concerned about tornadoes and harped at me about it till I finally relented." Vlad reminisced.

"It was a rather nice excuse to get away and stay at a hotel. Of course then the helicopters came and blew off my shower towel as the wall of the hotel became intangible. I thought Daniel would've left me alone as I know he didn't want you to have to suffer in our little skirmish." Vlad grumbled.

"He thought I was still at my sisters. Good thing my bathrobe was big enough to cover you." Carolyn added.

"But it was still embarrassing to have that snapshot on the cover of the Fortunate Magazine. I may have been covered as you wrapped the extra part of your robe around me but people still could tell I had just gotten out of the shower." Vlad groaned at the thought of it.

"Remember what it said on the cover? I do. 'Mayor Vlad Masters Revealing Moments'. " Carolyn chuckled. I was stirred out of my thoughts as I heard Nathan walk up to me.

"Hey, badger. I think we need to pack extra clothes in case we get snowed in at your dad's house." Nathan said as he tossed some extra thermals into his suitcase.

"At least I hope it's warmer at Amity Park than here." I hoped. I was so done with the extra cold weather.