Danny clipped the cap of the Fenton Thermos into place, and relaxed. It was only the Box Ghost (again), but he always felt relief when the ghost was dealt with. He felt proud of himself for handling the situation without help. It was the middle of the day, and it hadn't felt right to ask Sam and Tucker to excuse themselves from class just for his sake.

Handling ghosts alone had been the point of fighting them in the first place, anyway. He wanted to keep the town safe and protect people. That was what he was doing. Even if he caught ten ghosts that were only as dangerous as the Box Ghost, it was better that he wasted a few minutes doing this than risk someone less experience doing it and getting hurt in the process.

He went to loop the Thermos around his shoulder and take off, but froze. Something metal and solid was jammed between his shoulder blades, and he winced as the person behind him dug the weapon in harder. "Don't move, ghost boy." Danny shuddered as he recognized the voice. Of all the days to not pay attention…

He held still, not even daring to breathe. He could go without oxygen for a few minutes, so he wasn't as worried about that as much as he was worried about his mother shooting him. "I…" his mouth went dry as she pressed the muzzle of the weapon in deeper, "I— I'm not going to move," he mumbled. "Can you lower your weapon?"

She didn't say anything. The gun didn't lower, but she didn't press it in any harder, either, so Danny took that as a blessing. "Hand over the Thermos," she said in a clipped voice. "I want back what you stole from our lab."

Danny didn't hesitate to pass it back. He had to move slowly so that she didn't shoot, but she snatched it without drilling a gaping hole in his chest, which was nice. He could just get the Thermos back the next time he was in the lab. It wasn't worth getting shot over. "There's a… well, there's a ghost in there," he warned.

Maddie didn't let up at all. He heard her moving as she clipped the Thermos to her utility belt, and then silence fell between them. Danny knew that if he could go intangible for long enough to get underground, he would be safe. But in such close proximity, he didn't want to test his mom's excellent aim and fast reaction time. After a moment, he shifted. Immediately, her finger pressed over the trigger, and Danny froze again as the safety clicked off. "Don't get impatient, ghost," Maddie muttered. "We're just going to wait until my husband arrives with the containment tank, and then we'll find out what makes you so different." There was a cold undercut to her words that made Danny shiver.

"I— I don't—" He squeezed his eyes shut. "Look, is this really necessary? If you go ahead and ask a question now, I can answer it for you. There's no reason to use big words like "containment" and lug around that huge gun. Seriously, just go ahead. Shoot."

He could almost feel when his mom smiled. "Sure," she replied. "Why not?" And then she squeezed the trigger.

Actually, it didn't hurt. Danny was surprised by that. It felt kind of like he had just been stapled, and compared to the ectoblast he was expecting, it was a blessing. He relaxed for a moment, more confused than scared. "What—?"

That was when the pain kicked in.

It wasn't anything physical. Danny had no idea what was happening, and that was the worst part. All of a sudden, he couldn't move. He couldn't even blink. It felt like his chest was being torn apart, cut up, as though someone had shoved a buzz saw in between his lungs. His vision blurred, and when Maddie kicked his calf, he crumbled to the ground like he was made of paper. She rolled him onto his back and flicked a switch on a clunky box attached to her hip. Immediately, the pain stopped.

He sucked in a hard breath purely out of habit, and winced as the movement aggravated his chest. He could feel whatever she shot him with digging into his back, and it seemed ridiculous that the tiny, metal disc could cause him so much pain. The actual gun was relatively small. Definitely smaller than the typical things that his parents shot at him with. Its only purpose was probably just to shook out those tiny discs.

"Fascinating things, ghost cores," Maddie said almost conversationally. "They operate on their own frequency. It took ages to find a complementary frequency on my own, but after some trial and error, I stumbled across one that disrupts the frequency of a core. That device I shot into your back sends the vibrations straight through your ectoplasmic body, and into your core. In weaker ghosts, it tears the ghosts apart and leaves a puddle of formless ectoplasm. You seem strong enough to handle it, though." She reached down, and Danny winced, but she only brushed the skin above his lip before pulling back. To his surprise, ectoplasm splattered her usually immaculate black glove. Had that come out of him? Was his nose bleeding?"

Dazed, Danny reached up to touch his face. Sure enough, his hand came away smeared with ectoplasm. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he didn't even have the energy to do that much. If that device hadn't wiped out all of his power, he would have taken the opportunity to faze through the ground and run. Sure, his parents had always shot at him, but he had never been close enough to see the complete lack of concern. It hurt to see his parents looking at him like that, even though Danny knew that they weren't really looking at him. Not really.

"Shouldn't've used the word "shoot." Bad choice of words. That's on me…" His words came out heavy and slurred. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, propping himself up on his elbow. Surprisingly, Maddie let him. After how he reacted to that, she didn't seem concerned with the possibility that he might escape. And to be honest, Danny wasn't, either.

"You can still make jokes, I see." Maddie's expression tightened. "How long have you been dead, Phantom? You still act like you breathe, and react appropriately when you're hurt, even though ghosts can't feel pain. You look… unusually humanoid. Is it just a disguise? You're such a young ghost, but your power levels have almost tripled in this year alone."

Danny laughed faintly. "'Dead,' huh?" He repeated. "I try not to think about it like that. You're really blunt." He hummed, and let his eyes close. He knew that Maddie was ready to use the ecto-disruptor, or whatever she called it, on him at any moment, but he couldn't help but be relaxed around her. At the end of the day, this was still his mother. And ghost or not, she wouldn't hurt him without reason. "I think it's been… about a year now." He replied, opening his eyes again to look up at her. "And no, it's not a disguise. I just look like this. You can credit my parents with that one — the jumpsuit, too, Like it? Black is very slimming." Danny smiled.

For some reason, the mention of his parents seemed to make Maddie pause. "Your parents?" She muttered. "Do you… remember them? Are they still alive?"

If he wasn't still feeling the pain from her latest invention, Danny might have laughed. "Yeah, I remember them," he said with a laugh. "My mom, dad, sister… all still alive." His parents attacked him regularly, and his sister always did her best to help him avoid it. Out of context, it sounded pretty bad, but to Danny, it was only another ironic twist in his already messed up life.

Maddie knelt down, and hesitated, before brushing some of the white hair out of Danny's eyes. "You remind me of my own son…" She admitted. Danny couldn't help but be surprised by that. His mom was going to attack him, and then mention how he reminded her of her child? What an odd moment to be vulnerable. He had been trying to build up some sort of bond with his parents for as long as he had been running around as Phantom. Why did she have to choose this moment to return the favor? "Do you… still see your family?"

Danny nodded, leaning into her touch. "Yeah," he said quietly. He saw them quite regularly. "Actually, you remind me a lot of my mom." He let that statement hang in the air, venturing to be just a little more straightforward that he was normally. It was possible that he would never tell his parents his secret, but if they could just accept the impossible and figure it out themselves…

"Your mom?" Maddie blinked in surprise. She looked at the gun still held in one hand, and a brief expression of guilt flashed across her face. Danny felt kind of bad about it. If his parents knew who he really was, that guilt would be more than just a flash. They would probably never forgive themselves.

"Mhm," was all Danny said. "Mom…" He closed his eyes again, and that seemed to be the end of the conversation.

With a grimace, she wiped the ectoplasm on her hand off onto her thigh. For some reason, it didn't sit right with her anymore. She knew that ghosts couldn't feel pain, but then, why did Phantom fake it so well? Why did he seem genuinely happy to talk about his family?

Suddenly, the door to the box warehouse was slammed open. Maddie jumped, hand immediately going to her weapon, only to relax. Jack came in dragging a heavy ghost containment chamber. They had specially made it for Phantom, or at least, for a ghost as powerful as he was. "I got it, Mads!" Jack stated proudly. Then, he looked around and frowned. "Where's that ghost punk?"

She turned back to the spot where he had just been. There was a smear of ectoplasm on the ground, left from when he had landed, but he was gone. Her hand went to the switch on her hip. For a moment, Maddie considered turning it on. It would force him to stop, long enough for them to track him down again. But then she sighed and got to her feet.

"He got away," she said simply. Maddie unclipped the switch at her hip, and dropped it to the ground, crushing it under her foot.

Jack gawked. He had never seen his wife destroy their own inventions like that before. "What are you doing?" He asked, shocked as his wife walked past him and out of the building. "It worked fine before!"

Maddie hesitated mid-step, and swallowed thickly. "He was too powerful for it," she lied smoothly. "Let's get back to the RV, Jack. We need to think of a different way to catch Phantom." Preferably, a way that didn't… reduce him to that human-like weakness. It was hard to hate Phantom when he was so young, so much like Danny, so much… like a real person. She kept imagining herself in that position — if someone was hunting and hurting her son.

Why did Phantom have to appear so real?