The fleeting encounter was fresh in Jack's mind; he could remember the warmth being sucked out of his own body and the immediate atmosphere as the ectoplasmic entity whisked by and stole the Fenton Thermos from his fingers. The noise it made sounded like words but they were too quick to make out. It disappeared from vision, something in Jack's gut twisting at the sheer, literal unearthliness of the sight. He'd just been nearly touched by an entity which didn't belong on Earth, which should have passed on from this world peacefully, without imprinting in another dimension, if the powers that be were merciful. He admitted that he had a much more spiritual view of it all than his wife, who was entirely hardcore factual in her opinions on the subject, but that had nothing to do with the shaken looks of the students and school staff being interviewed by newspersons.

Everything, in short, was a mess.

A stray mushy, disgusting piece of meat clung to the bottom of his shoe. He scraped it off on the grass. The ecto-detector repeatedly went off, but it was only residual energy from the ectoplasm which had allegedly possessed the meat flung about, not anything of more substance. Not that the event could be denied, especially not with the strong odor of steak and ground beef lingering, or the chicken wing which had fallen on the windshield of someone's car in the parking lot. Otherwise evidence was hard to come across that wasn't from word of mouth. It was as if whatever the ghost had been up and vanished without a trace.

It was true that there was nothing more he and Madeline could do now. It was gone, logic told Jack that it was somewhere gathering energy to attack once more, but he had no authority to investigate the premises on a deeper level than they already had, outside, on campus but not in the building.

Maddie turned to Jack, "Did that thing say something?"

"I think it might have," Jack said.

The more he replayed the string of sounds in his mind the more it sounded like, Thanks-for-the-thermos.

Ghosts could speak. In full grammatical sentences. It could've been aping, parroting, in mimicry. But who said 'thanks for the thermos' on a regular basis?

He told her as much.

Danny turned the air conditioner off in the R.V.

"Thanks," Jazz said, "It was cold in here."

He glanced at her, "Yeah."

"Where were you?"

He thought about his answer, "Hiding."

"Why are you being so short with me?"

"Is now really the time?" He snapped.

"Yes!"

"Whatever." He brushed her off.

If she was upset he didn't look at her to confirm.

Eventually their parents walked up to the tank-car and got in.

Cautiously, Danny asked, "How'd it go?"

"Couldn't find anything," Jack answered, in a tone implying he didn't feel like talking. Danny could take a hint.Is that a news van out there? He wanted to inquire, but didn't.

"We're going home," Maddie said, "I'm not sure you'll be returning to school tomorrow."

"But...my attendance!" Jasmine exclaimed. She hadn't even missed school the day after his accident in the Portal.

"Jasmine, they'll understand. We can't be the only parents doing this."

Danny could feel the emotion radiating from his sister in the seat next to him. He forcefully ignored it.

Jack and Maddie kept their eyes on the local news channel like hawks, watching for any anomaly around town. If the ghost resurfaced, they'd be ready to face it. They contacted the school, explaining what they believed happened and the evidence they captured, the staff were hesitant to believe in ghosts of all things, especially since the Fentons were the town kooks. Jack had a mild chip on his shoulder after that conversation. Ectology wasn't mocked by anyone who actually knew what it was. Mostly. Maddie emailed information of what had happened to their contacts, fellow ectologists; they expected acknowledgment, advice, or even outright help.

A response in particular they received was advisement to go public and challenge the school for endangering peoples' children further if they didn't allow professionals to look into the situation. Jack wasn't sure he wanted to go that far—but what else could it be? Besides, he could just imagine someone accusing them of not being professional, which was false. He was prepared to go through with it...when they got a surprising call back from the school principal, Ishiyama. She apologized for effectively brushing them off, she didn't use those exact words but he was pretty sure that was what she meant to say, and granted them access to campus.

Jack tried to imagine what it must have looked like. It must have been like an act of God in the eyes of more religious individuals. Jesus, and no pun intended.

They would leave their kids at home for the day while they did this. Tomorrow. Jazz was mature and old enough to watch her brother while home alone.

The next day came and the married couple set off. The genetic lock which was the button only a blood-related Fenton could press and subsequently have the Portal open—the button had a built-in DNA scanner—was set to a default state, leaving the Portal open. It was convenient to have the ecto-dimension accessible, for studying reasons. The ectoplasm in it would prove handy in their testing. It didn't occur to them that as well as getting things out of it themselves, things could come through of their own volition.

In the meantime at Casper High the search eventually proved fruitless, to their disappointment; scouring the length of campus up and down, left and right, their equipment barely reacted to anything. Little did they know back at home their son was getting far better results in his endeavors. He grabbed his purple backpack which held the Fenton Ghost Thermos in it and carried it against his chest, perhaps a bit possessive.

"You're not leaving, are you?"

Danny jumped, he hadn't realized his sister had been walking through the upstairs hall until he entered it himself. He shut his bedroom door behind him, "What makes you think I'm going out?"

"You looked like it."

"Well, I'm not." He said.

She sighed, "Okay."

He didn't have time for her. He needed to find a way to make the Lunch Lady go back where she came from. If he wasn't an idiot, that wouldn't be too hard to figure out. He moved downstairs, annoyed by the way his sister seemed to be following him. He was relieved when she stopped in the living room, he kept on to the kitchen, where the door to the basement lab was. Just to be sure he glanced over his shoulder. She was not spying on him. He was being paranoid, definitely, but something told him incessantly that he had to be certain.

He zoned in on the cold feeling in his chest like before and found himself...transforming, yeah, that was the right word. He'd thought it before, but he hadn't been thinking of it. He was now. He was taken by surprise, the black-and-white armor was still on, including the neon green goggles and hood. The sudden sensation of them upon his head and over his eyes, heck, all over his body, were unexpected. The chinstrap fit tightly on the lower half of his face. A part of him wondered where his normal self went when he became...this. He could find no answer and he was taking too long, anyway. He was half-afraid he'd bump into the basement door like a moron but he smoothly phased through it, stepping down the stairs, through the glass like he had before, and found himself in the laboratory he'd been prohibited from going in all his life.

Last time he'd been here he hadn't even considered being unnerved by the proximity to the area where he'd come so close to his own mortality. He stared openly at the Portal now, recalling like a montage the events which led up to his electrocution. His friends, who he was putting a lot of trust in, his parents' panic, which he hadn't been conscious to witness but could easily picture, the pain. Nervous, feeling like a child with no idea what to do, he looked around. There was a slot in the Portal to fit the Thermos in. Press the 'eject' button, bye-bye ectoplasmic entity. Not that difficult. Where was the slot, then?

...There!

Only the barest lights were on in the lab and it took him several moments of peering to find it. But there it was, kind of farther from the Portal than he'd expected, but it looked like somewhere the Thermos would fit, did he have any other bright notions? Nope. So...

He was careful not to put it in on what he assumed was the wrong end. It went in like a charm. He waited a breath for something to happen, to go awry. Nothing did. He pushed down on 'eject.'

A muffled screaming filled the lab as a squished form which vaguely looked like the Lunch Lady shot through the tubing connected to the slot and disappeared into the Fenton Portal. It didn't go directly into the hexagonal opening, rather a hole in the side of it. Danny didn't know how to describe it. The intruder was banished, just as she should be. That was all that mattered to his mind at the moment. He didn't know what to think about it otherwise. He wondered what was up with him. Yeah, the thing had caused a ruckus and actually tried to hurt people, namely his friends. But why was he so...

So...

Territorial?

He shook his head. Too hard. Why bother.

Danny was about to walk back up the staircase when—

A rumbling coming from within the Portal reached his ears. It was low and resonated in his chest, a particular spot. He didn't have time to ponder that. He was too busy feeling anxiety. Was she coming back? Could he fight her again?! He wasn't sure he could. It didn't sound like machinery. It might have been, anyway, for all he knew about the stuff. Or it could be a monster emerging from the whirling green depths inside that Portal. Why was it open in the first place?

He turned and waited for something, anything.

A minute passed, he was getting impatient. He had an inkling that was a foolish thing to be when he could be in danger, but that didn't erase it. If whatever that was was going to make a scene, do it already!

Just as he thought this, he jumped as giant, clawed blue digits slammed their way onto Earth out of said whirling green depths.

Next came a draconic head, neck, and torso, which heaved with a roar.

"I WANT TO GO! I have to go!"

Danny was still.

What the hell was this?

It was a dragon.

It didn't seem to see him, at first—until it looked down and fixated its intense red, cat-slit eyes on him.

He stupidly didn't think fast enough to react when it swiped at him, he expected to feel the sharp claws digging into his body, instead he found himself being lifted up to the dragon's face. He cried out.

"Let me go!"

It was a fairly standard thing to say when being faced with and manhandled by a humongous freaking dragon.

He instinctively turned into a mist.

A mist.

He didn't know he could do that!

Regardless, being a mist was weird.

No sight. No hearing. No anything, momentarily. And yet, a sense of the surroundings, the energy humming in the walls, the bright flare of the portal, the dragon's paw, and the sensation of flowing, sifting through the cracks in it, the disturbing sensation of a completely malleable form.

A second later he was humanoid once more.

It roared again—its rage obvious—and swiped its claws again and again, in quick succession. He flinched away from every one of them. After about three times it gave up and inhaled. A spew of green fire shot from its mouth, Danny flew to a dark corner to avoid it, thinking he'd go unseen in the darkness but then he remembered he was glowing, he lit up that corner of the lab like a lightbulb.

The dragon prepared another spray of flame and Danny responded entirely out of fear.

He flew right up to its face and kicked it with all his strength.

Its head cocked back—he'd put a lot of force in that kick, inhumanly strong.

Its eyes widened in...doubt?

With no explanation there was a metallic sound as Danny glanced down and saw something he hadn't noticed before. A golden necklace around the dragon's neck was cracking visibly and falling off to the ground. Without it, something strange began to happen.

The dragon dissolved, growing smaller and smaller and more humanoid with each passing second. Danny couldn't do anything but watch. The necklace made contact with the lab floor, clinking.

Finally a sniveling, green-skinned, blonde young woman in a blue dress was left in the dragon's place.

Danny couldn't figure out what in the living hell was going on anymore, so he didn't do anything.

"All I wanted..."

The girl's voice was light and quaking.

"...was to go to the princesses' costume ball...and my horrid mummy won't let meeee...!"

Her words rose in a harrowing wail with the last two words as she fled, turning tail and flying into the Portal, vanishing into it.

Danny was left alone once more. He slowly floated down, feet landing quietly, a shimmering, bejeweled necklace at his feet. After a moment he picked it up.