Danny sighed, staring out the window of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle with disinterest. It was nice that Tucker and Sam had been allowed to come along on their 'family road trip,' but after the first few hours crammed in the RV, the conversation had dwindled off and they drove in silence. Ghost-related subjects were obviously to be avoided around his parents, but even Danny was surprised by just how much he didn't like to discuss around his parents. The size of the list made him feel guilty.

The RV started to slow down, and Danny's head shot up. Finally, a change. People always went on and on about how great nature was. At least the city had some diversity. All he saw in the forests of small-town Oregon was green. Even the air seemed green, and it went on as far as the eye could see.

The trees stopped so suddenly that it almost hurt Danny's eyes. He blinked against the sunlight, and a look of amazement spread across his face as he got his first look at their destination. It was a tiny town, settled in between two conjoined mountains. They had an incredible arch, that shouldn't have been scientifically possible. Then again, they weren't here for anything "scientific."

The RV sped past a sign that read "Gravity Falls, Oregon." It was bizarre. Danny had never seen a more unnaturally normal town, and he knew at once that they had arrived for a good reason.

"Alright, kids," Maddie smiled as they got out of the cramped RV, stretching, "Jack and I are going to ask the locals about the strange readings we got from here last summer. We were going to check it out sooner, but it hadn't seemed appropriate until the ghost activity in Amity Park died down. Now, you can all look around, but try not to bother any of the locals. And meet back here before the sun sets."

All four kids nodded, and Maddie hurried after Jack. Already, he had started questioning some of the people on the street, and he needed more supervision than a group of teenagers.

They all shared a look. "Where to first?" Jazz asked after a moment. It wasn't like they were going to be sitting on the sidelines during this. Last summer, there had been an unusual spike in off the charts energy from this part of Oregon. Jack and Maddie were determined to find the reason behind it, and so were the kids.

The faint buzz of his three friends talking filled his ears, but Danny wasn't listening. His wandering gaze had focused on a sign hanging off of a wooden post not far from where they were standing. It was cheaply painted and was stuck in place with a bent nail, but it practically drew him to it.

"Hey," he spoke up suddenly, and pointed to the sign, "what about that? The Mystery Shack."

Sam raised an eyebrow. She walked over to the sign, reading the cramped writing along the bottom. "Seriously? It's just some tourist trap. Do you think there would be anything worthwhile at a place like that?"

And, oddly enough, he did. Danny nodded. "Yeah, I do. Can we at least check it out?"

"Does it matter?" Tucker bemoaned, typing furiously on his PDA. "No matter where I go here, I don't have a signal anyway. Why do people live here? What am I supposed to do if I can't use my technology?"

Jazz sighed. "Let's just go take a look at the tourist trap."

They must have made for one odd group of teenagers as they walked into the Mystery Shack. A goth girl, a geek frantically texting without even bothering to look up, and while Jazz was dressed normally, she glanced around the place with disdain. Obviously, she didn't want to be there. Danny thought that he looked the most normal, but even the t-shirt and blue jeans felt out-of-place in the appropriately-named shack.

There was a tour underway already, which was good. The man in charge easily towered over Danny, and his "largeness" reminded Danny distinctly of his father. He had a childish smile on his face as he showed people the "exhibits" in the other room, and wonder as he talked about each and every one of them that made it difficult to believe he was just reciting lines.

Danny didn't want to be bothered with something like that.

Ever the nosy investigator, Jazz went right up to the woman running the cashier and started up a very forced, very casual conversation. Jazz was more awkward than she was normally, but the woman didn't seem to mind. She talked like she was used to it, and while Jazz kept her busy, Danny wandered off. He and Sam shared a knowing very Ever the nosy investigator, Jazz went right up to the woman running the cashier and started up a very forced, look, and started off in separate directions. Tucker followed, but his face was buried in his PDA. He was determined to hunt down a steady signal, and nothing was going to get in his way.

All of the other customers seemed to have, thankfully, gone on the tour. The gift shop was empty. Danny crouched behind a display of shirts and went ghost as quickly as he could. It was bright, thanks to the large windows, and he heard the woman that Jazz was talking to get distracted for only a moment before Jazz dragged her back into the conversation.

Danny let out the breath he had been holding and concentrated for a moment until the familiar tingle of invisibility spread over him. Intangibility came next, and he started floating through walls. He wasn't sure why, and it wasn't like him to be so invasive without any good reason, but something about this whole house was nagging at him. It didn't feel right. It was a flimsy excuse, yes, but it didn't hurt to check.

He checked the back rooms first. They had the living quarters, a bathroom, living room, dining room, and kitchen. It had a homey, cozy feeling to it, and that only made Danny feel worse about looking around. He was invading people's privacy. But, hopefully, he would be done quickly, and no one would know about this guilt except himself.

There were two teenagers in the house, both who looked younger than Danny but not by more than a year or two. They were twins, most likely, and Danny tried not to spend too long watching them. It was creepy. The boy was sitting in the living room in his pajamas, scribbling away in a worn, leather-bound journal, and his sister was still dozing in bed. That made sense, considering that it was a Saturday morning. Provided that there were no ghost attacks, Danny would have taken the opportunity to sleep in, too.

The second floor was even more unremarkable than the first floor. At least the first floor had some interesting displays, but the second floor was about as normal as it got. There were a few bedrooms set up, another bathroom, a few closets, and that was it. Danny was considering giving up, but he was determined now. He had started sneaking around, and he didn't want to change back and have nothing to tell his friends about. Even though he hadn't seen a hatch to the basement, Danny decided to try it, anyway. Underground was the only place he hadn't checked.

Most of it was nothing but solid dirt. Danny didn't need to breathe as a ghost, but he still didn't like the idea of being crushed underground. He quickly tried to find some kind of open area. It was by sheer luck that he found a stairwell. It was odd — he had floated through every door, and not a single one of them had had stairs behind it.

Danny landed on his feet, quickly gauging his surroundings. The plain, stone stairs were as unremarkable as anything else in this house. His real interest was in the elevator at the end of the hall. There was an unfamiliar tug in his gut that told him to walk forward, so he did.

According to the dial above, there were only three possible floors. He was already on the first, and he wondered what was on the second and third levels. Was it connected to the bizarre energy readings his parents had gotten from here last summer? According to them, it had last for days, at such a high energy level that a hole in space-time would have needed to be made for it to get so mind-boggling unstable.

Lost in thought, Danny didn't notice the dial above the elevator switching from one to two and back again, until the elevator doors slid apart. By reflex, he turned himself invisible, floating up off of the floor. An old man stepped out of the elevator — if Danny had to guess, he would say either sixty or seventy. He looked almost comedic. Danny would have laughed if he wasn't still shaken from the suddenness of the elevator. The man was wearing red-tinted goggles, a lot like the ones that Danny's mom tended to favor. He had an odd device clutched in his hands, one that Danny couldn't even begin to guess the function of. And then, to his surprise, the man focused in on him. Wasn't he invisible?

"Ha! I've got you, ghost!" Danny was too stunned to move and only floated in place as the flick of a switch launched a net at him. Automatically, he tried to go intangible and pass through it, but the odd material it was made from wouldn't let him.

The old man lowered his odd gun, and bent down, hefting the net up over his shoulder with a surprising amount of ease. "Amazing," he said, mostly to himself. "I've never come across a ghost that looked so remarkably humanoid. I'll need to make a note of that."

He stepped into the elevator, carrying Danny with him, and pressed the button for the third floor. Danny felt some of his earlier curiosity washing away. Now, he wasn't very interested in what might be waiting down in the basement. He tried to think of something to say, some way to talk himself out of this, but nothing came to him. He had never been caught like this — completely off-guard, with no knowledge of who or what was waiting for him.

After a tense, but short, elevator ride, they stepped out. Danny craned his neck to get a good look at the walls they passed. They had very intricate symbols drawn into them, the meaning of which he could only begin to guess at.

They entered what Danny thought was the main room. It was definitely an underground cave, and there was probably more of it, but a huge curtain hanging along the far wall blocked any view of what might have been there (the weird pull in his stomach was stronger than ever, and Danny had the bizarre feeling that if he could just catch a look of what was behind that curtain, all of his questions would be answered). It looked like the man was in the middle of renovation. Half of the equipment in the room was broken, torn up, or both, and sleek, new systems were haphazardly pushed into their places. There was a pile of scraps and broken inventions stacked along one wall, and several work desks that were so scattered with random objects that Danny couldn't even begin to guess what they were used for.

"Really?" A gruff voice greeted them, and Danny tilted his head to spot another old man walking up to meet the one who had grabbed him. "That's the "level eight" emergency you had to go take care of? The kids look scarier than that thing." Danny couldn't help but be annoyed by that. He knew that a teenager with white hair didn't exactly strike fear into people's' hearts, but he thought that he could still be at least a little intimidating.

"You don't understand, Stanley." Now, the man sounded excited as he walked over to a large table. There, he set the net with Danny inside of it down and pulled his goggles off before he started shuffling around through some boxes. "Of all the strange things that have happened in this town, one of the things I know the least about is ghosts. Yes, I'm sure that my journal presents a lot of bravo, but this one is something else entirely. It has weight, for one. Ghosts shouldn't weigh anything, Stanley. It's very small for something with such high energy readings, and unusually calm once captured. I've only had a few minutes with it, and I'll admit that I'm a bit lost. It's remarkably detailed and looks very human. But why? I can't think of how that would help unless it's a manipulator, but then, why didn't it try to talk to me? Amazing."

The second man — Stanley — rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Poindexter." He seemed to have experience with this previously because he only glanced at Danny before going back to whatever he was working on before they came in.

After a moment of digging, the man who caught Danny in the first place came back with a shackle. It looked like the same weird material as the net, and Danny swallowed thickly. Not noticing, the man attached it to his ankle through the net, and knelt down to loop the other end through the leg of the table. He laughed, faintly. "All of this old ghost equipment… I haven't used these in decades. I can't believe the ghost detector worked at all, but I'm glad it did. What a scientific discovery."

He reached up and undid the net easily, and Danny frowned as he pushed it off of himself. He tried to turn invisible or intangible or even just float, but none of it worked. He wasn't surprised, but it was kind of annoying. "It's hardly a scientific discovery," he said, much to the surprise of the man examining him. "I mean, I've known that I was weird for a while now. If anything, you're just late to the party."

Instead of being bothered by his sarcasm, the man seemed even more interested. "Weird? In what way? Do you know why?" He pressed.

Danny grimaced. "Uh… look, you seem like a nice guy, but I don't want to talk about this. I would much rather be let go so I can get back to…" he trailed off, and then jolted as an idea came to his head. "Actually, do you have any idea what happened here last summer?" Now it was the stranger's turn to stiffen. "Yeah, there were some really weird readings from around here last summer. Do you have any idea of what might have caused it?"

He felt a little proud of himself for throwing this man off of his game. He seemed like the type of guy who always knew what was coming, and how to respond in a situation, and there was something uncomfortably satisfying about seeing him so caught off guard. "That's— how do you know about that?" He glared at Danny. Thankfully, he was smart enough to see that lying wasn't going to work. Still, Danny didn't expect that getting answers was going to be easy, either.

"I—" Danny started to say, only to be interrupted as the door to the stairs slid open with a faint hiss.

The two kids who he had seen in the house before walked in. They were both still in pajamas, which told Danny that this was a casual thing. The lab under their house was perfectly normal. At that, he couldn't help but smile. He understood that feeling more than he probably should.

"Great uncle Ford, I was looking at some of the findings you have in your second journal, and I—" His sister tapped him on the shoulder, cutting off whatever the boy had been about to say. He gave her an annoyed look, and then followed her gaze.

To his surprise, they both looked amazed, and not at all confused. He hesitated, and then lifted his hand, waving a little. "Um… hi?"

The boy looked like he was going to faint and abruptly snapped his journal shut. The girl had no such problem with that — she squealed, and before anyone in the room could stop her, darted over to Danny. She didn't hesitate to hug him, squeezing so tight that it actually hurt a little bit. He winced, and relaxed when the old man — hadn't the kid called him "Ford"? — pried her off.

"Kids!" Stanley set down his work, walking over to them. "What's gotten into you two? You especially, Mabel." He shot the girl a warning look that she didn't seem to notice.

"Are you saying that you have no idea who he is?" Mabel had refrained herself from hugging Danny no idea"Are you saying that you have again, and was now clinging to Ford's arm as she grinned. "Dipper! Dipper, tell them, I think I'm going to pass out—!"

That got the boy's attention, and he snapped out of whatever daze he was in, focusing on Danny. Again, the ghost boy waved. "What's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost," he joked.

Dipper turned red, but at least he wasn't sickly pale anymore. He cleared his throat and walked closer. "W-Well…" He started slowly, looking at Danny with an odd expression, "last summer, after dealing with that ghost at Northwest Manor, I wanted to… do some research to add to your collection, great uncle Ford. It seemed like not a lot of information, so I thought that more couldn't hurt. While I was looking, though, I found… well, him." He pointed to Danny. "There's this town that gets a lot of ghost attacks—"

"Amity Park," Danny added in helpfully. That earned him some weird looks. He frowned. "Hey, it's my hometown. Just helping you get the name right," he muttered defensively.

There was a lull in the conversation, and then Dipper nodded. "Y-Yeah, right. Amity Park. They get a lot of ghost attacks there, and he has been recorded as one of the first. There's a lot of blurry photos and shaky videos, and online, he kind of has a… reputation. They call him Phantom. He has a huge fanbase, but no one knows anything about him, other than he's always seen fighting ghosts that are hurting people. Or," he added on hastily, narrowing his eyes at Danny suspiciously, "kidnapping mayors, robbing banks, and endangering people."

Mabel shot Dipper a glare, but Danny just snorted. "Figures that they got that on camera," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I can explain all of that, but actually, I think that I need to go. Do you guys know what time it is? I need to meet up with— with someone before sunset."

Ford laughed — actually laughed. "You're not going anywhere," he stated. "I don't care how much of a "hero" you think you are. Ghosts can't get out of this cuff."

Danny mulled it over. He could always go human, but how would that help? It would only make them want to keep him here longer, and if these two kids knew as much about him as they claimed to, then the entire internet would know by the next day. He looked at the shackle around his ankle, and much to the surprise of those watching him, started to fiddle with it.

"What—?" Ford sputtered, knocking Danny's hands back. "Don't touch that!" He snapped. "You are unbelievable. This teenage appearance is realistic enough, but acting like a teenager isn't going to gain any sympathy from people who know better."

"'Know better'?" Danny repeated, and he narrowed his eyes. "What do you know? I've only been doing this a year, and I know ten times the stuff about ghosts that you do! Oh, wait, ten times zero is still zero…" He trailed off sarcastically.

Over Ford's shoulder, Stanley and Mabel shared a look. Danny wasn't sure what they were thinking, but after a moment, Stanley silently nudged the two kids to the door. Something about the simple gesture made dread curl in his chest. Suddenly, Danny really didn't want the kids to leave. They felt like the old things standing between him and experimentation.

"Be as sarcastic as you want," Ford replied, not seeming to notice that he was now alone. "You're not going anywhere until I have answers. And I am known to be very persuasive when I'm impatient."

Subconsciously, Danny shrank back. He had the odd, tickling thought that this wasn't going to be as easy to get out of as he originally thought.

"Nothing." Maddie flipped through her blank notebook with a look of disdain. "I can't believe that no one in this town has any idea what we're talking about! An energy spike as massive as the one we're talking about would have been impossible to go unnoticed," she groaned.

Jack put a sympathetic hand on his wife's shoulder. "We can always try again tomorrow, and I'm sure we'll come up with something," he said brightly. "The energy could have zapped their memories, but we could get them to remember something if we knew how to trigger it."

Maddie smiled tiredly. Sure, her husband wasn't the most intelligent or subtle person, but his energetic positivity was invaluable. She didn't think that she could have made it through all the years of failure if he hadn't been by her side every step of the way.

"What do you say to dinner?" He suggested. "If the kids haven't already eaten, I'm sure that there's somewhere around here where we can go to get some food."

Unlike most of the time, Maddie found herself appreciating the suggestion. She nodded. "That sounds nice, Jack." They turned the corner, and part of her nervousness faded when she saw that the RV was still where she left it. And after she knew that her kids were safe, her bad mood would be a think of the past. "Let's just grab the kids, and…" she trailed off. Even in the low lighting of dusk, Maddie could count how many people were standing around her RV. Cold fear settled in her gut as she counted out only three, and she hurried forward. "Jasmine," she called once she was close enough for her daughter to hear, "where's Danny?" Maddie tried to sound calm. It was perfectly natural that he might just be in the bathroom, or relaxing in the RV after a long day. But, then, why did Sam and Tucker look so nervous? And why wouldn't Jazz meet her gaze?

At the sound of her name, Jazz visibly winced. "Oh, mom, I…" she bit her lip, hugging her arms around herself. "Mom, I swear, it was only a second. I— there was no one else, and I didn't think— I wasn't thinking, I— mom, I'm so sorry." She wiped her eyes as tears started running down her face.

Maddie knew that she tended to be a little, well, oblivious, but not even the simplest person could have missed those implications. "Jack," she managed, feeling breathless and dazed, "where's Danny?"