Jack and Maddie Fenton stared in mute horror as some kind of paper flew off with their son. There was only one conclusion: it was a GHOST paper, and it had kidnapped their baby!
"NOOOOOOOOO!" The overweight hunter fell to his knees. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Good bye!" cried Jazz, waving, tears leaking from her eyes, even though her brother was long gone.
"Good bye?" repeated Maddie incredulously. "Your brother has been forcefully torn from his loving and wonderful family by a bunch of filthy ghost monsters, and all you can say is good bye?"
"Loving and wonderful family?" the younger redhead sneered. "No. He's not leaving behind a 'loving and wonderful family.' He's going towards it."
The elder Fentons had two options: either stand there forcing reason into their obviously brainwashed daughter while their son went farther and farther away, or rescue their son while they could still find him and decontaminate Jazz later.
"Sorry, honey," Maddie said, taking out yet another ecto-gun, "but you'll understand one day."
"Mom?" Jazz's eyes were wide with fear. "I'm fairly certain that shooting me counts as child abuse."
Maddie shot. Sticky green goo exploded from the barrel, covering Jazz's feet. She tried to move, but the goo held her fast.
"Don't worry, sweetie. We'll un-brainwash you as soon as your brother's back."
"He doesn't want to go back! Haven't you noticed that he hasn't been happy here for years? But he will be happy now. You can't just take that away from him!" Then, as an afterthought, "And I'm not brainwashed!"
Her parents walked out of their runaway's room. The door slammed shut behind them.
Valerie and her father had retreated to a relatively quiet corner of FentonWork's basement, where she had spent the last twenty minutes ranting about what had happened to her. Damien Gray listened with enormous eyes, trying to take it all in. Their mayor was an evil ghost? Sweet little Danny Fenton, who sometimes subbed for his daughter at the Nasty Burger, who sometimes carried her home after ghost battles ("I just found her. Out cold. Totally randomly…. Uh…. Bye."), was Danny Phantom? And not only that, he was some kind of ghost prince and his daughter didn't mind! In a way, that was the most incredible realization of all. Valerie didn't mind. She certainly minded Vlad, but not Danny.
He thought longingly of his secret brandy stash. He really needed something strong.
Then half the Fenton family charged into the basement, ranting about "ghosts" (no surprise there), "kidnapping," and "brainwashing." "We're going to the Ghost Zone!" yelled Maddie.
"Ghosts!" parroted her husband.
Blank stares. Then Jeremy Manson demanded, "When?"
"Now!" the hunters chorused.
Maddie continued, "They've got two of our little boys and your little girl- and she's my future daughter-in-law." (The Mansons twitched.) "They've obviously been brainwashed by evil ghosts and are probably languishing in terrified pain right now!"
Valerie cut her off. "Uh, Mrs. Fenton? Dash ran away, and Danny and Sam want to stay." And I don't blame them. You people are insane!
Naturally, they ignored her. "Mansons, you get food! Baxters, help us clear out the weapons vault!"
"…You have a weapons vault?"
"Of course. What kind of ghost hunter wouldn't?"
But the weapons vault was completely empty. Valerie stifled a grin; apparently Danny was smarter than she'd thought. But of course he was- after all, he'd hidden his identity from everyone for four years.
"We should go home now," whispered Damien.
His daughter hesitated. He glared. "Surely you don't want to go with them?"
She bit her lip. "I think I have to. Let me explain- Danny could have let Vlad expose me. If that happened, I'd've been ruined. You know how kids at school see the Red Huntress." She smiled bitterly. "Actually, they're probably right. I was an obsessed maniac. But the point is, he helped me even when he had no reason to. I would have taken revenge. Danny didn't. I… I want to help."
Damien was miserable. "I understand," he sighed. "And you're right- it is the right thing to do." He smiled. "I'm proud of you, Valerie. But-" His eyes narrowed. "-I'm coming with you."
"What? Dad, you know nothing about ghosts, or hunting, or the Ghost Zone, or-"
"I know enough to help," he declared.
Valerie sniffled. "I love you, Dad." She turned to the Fentons, who were scrounging up every weapon that hadn't been in their vault. "We're coming too. If Danny, Sam, and Dash have been kidnapped by evil ghosts, you need all the help you can get!"
Maddie beamed. "See, Jack? I told you the contamination would wear off after a few minutes in the human realm!"
The Red Huntress sidled over to the Sanchezes and the Andersons. Star and Paullina, their eyes rimmed with tears, blinked at her. "Look," she whispered. "I think we can all agree that some of the stuff we've learned about Danny is private, okay?"
"You mean like him being the Ghost Boy?" blurted Paullina stupidly. All four adults gasped.
Valerie hit herself.
"So how are we supposed to find them?" groused Pamela Manson.
"I'm not really sure," admitted Maddie, fiddling with the Specter Speeder's controls.
"What!"
"Well, Jack and I have never been in the Ghost Zone before. We'd be mobbed the second we entered. I- we are excellent ghost hunters, but no one can handle an entire army, so we decided not to go in."
Mrs. Manson looked ready to have a panic attack.
"Don't worry," advised Valerie. "The entire time we were in here before, we were only attacked twice, and Danny beat them off easily." She smiled softly, realizing that he could have let her fight them- Phantom knew of the Huntress's identity- but he'd risked his own secret instead of letting her expose herself.
Damien quirked an eyebrow. Valerie shook her head. Not now, Dad.
"Yes," Maddie agreed, "but Danny's not a famous ghost hunter."
The teen snorted. "Mrs. Fenton, everybody recognized him: the Box Ghost, Skulker, Sidney Poindexter, the entire population of Achaea, the Far Frozen-"
"Danny is the son of two famous ghost hunters," she sniffed. "Of course they recognized him."
Valerie gave up. Neither hunter was going to see reason anytime soon, so there was really no point in arguing.
Unfortunately, her comments reminded Jack that Valerie actually had been in the Ghost Zone. He started quizzing her on what it was like, not stopping long enough for her to answer. Finally the girl lost patience. "Maybe we should actually open the portal and go inside so you can see for yourself!"
They had not left FentonWork's basement.
Maddie frowned but obeyed, turning the Speeder around so it faced the portal. The doors opened, revealing a swirling expanse of venom green. Valerie shuddered involuntarily, unable to believe that she was going back so soon. Damien patted her shoulder. At the other end of the Speeder, Mrs. Manson whimpered, huddling with the ghost-white Mrs. Baxter.
Maddie sucked in a deep breath and floored the accelerator. With a growl like an angry bear, the Specter Speeder lurched forward.
They entered the Land of the Dead.
It hadn't changed much, Valerie mused: same old doors, same old green sky. But of course, she'd only been out for two hours. It hadn't had time to change.
Radar beeped on the dashboard, a pale green line sweeping over the surrounding area. There were a couple ghosts on the fringes, but nothing nearby. "Good," whispered Maddie, pale and sickly in the dimension's eerie light.
She gulped. Frightened as she was, she at least had experience with these beasts. She had to be strong, a leader.
She just wished she knew what she was doing.
"All right," Maddie finally managed. "All right. We're in the Ghost Zone, and the closest ghosts are half a mile away. We have enough supplies for five days. That's two and a half days in, two and a half days out."
Josh Baxter had been silent until now, but he couldn't hold in his questions any longer. "So how are we going to find our children?" he demanded. "Do you even have a plan?"
Surprisingly, it was Jack who answered. "Real world items."
"I'm sorry?" But Josh didn't sound sorry at all.
"We have a real world item detector," he explained. "We put it in in case the ghosts decided to steal our weapons. Hopefully, it will work for humans, or at least for their clothes."
Valerie hesitated. If she mentioned that Pandora had taken their 'real world' clothes (which in turn had been taken from Yvonne Walker), she would buy time for Danny. On the other hand, she wouldn't put it past these people to assault Achaea in a vain attempt to get their ex-son back. She sighed; she couldn't do that to Pandora and Danni, not after they'd been so hospitable. "Ignore the clothes," she ordered. The adults glared. "No, I'm serious. We got new clothes from a ghost, remember? We all came back wearing Greek things. If you find clothes on the radar, it will just lead us to Pandora's Palace."
"Is that the ghost who kidnapped them?" demanded Jack. "Maddie, I think that's the ghost who kidnapped them!"
"I think you're right, sweetie. Valerie, how do we get to this 'Pandora's Palace'?" She actually used air quotes on the last two words.
The huntress cursed silently; that had gone over well! "I don't know," she admitted truthfully. "We went through a couple natural portals to get there, so I really have no idea where it is in relation to the Fenton Portal." She glanced behind them. The Fenton Portal had vanished, swallowed up by the endless green sky. "Besides, I don't think it's Pandora who took him."
They ignored her again. How predictable.
Sharon Baxter spoke up. "We should kidnap one of those ghosts and force it to tell us where my baby is!"
"Great idea!" shouted Maddie, wheeling the Specter Speeder around.
Valerie was getting nervous. She'd seen these people hunt ghosts, and it wasn't pretty. They rarely succeeded in defeating spirits but were very good at making them mad. Now that they were all in the ghosts' own dimension with no way out, it seemed like a very bad idea to attack.
She tried explaining this, but no one but Damien paid attention.
The ghost they found was wandering in his pajamas, looking lost and sad. His ugly face lit up upon seeing the humans. "Will you be my friend?"
Maddie sucked him into something that looked like a small vacuum cleaner. "Where's my son, you filthy ball of protoplasmic evil!"
"I don't know," Klemper moaned. "Why won't you be my friend?"
"Not knowing isn't good enough, ghost," spat the hunter. "Where is Danny Fenton?" She glanced at the other adults, none of whom looked pleased. "And Sam Manson and Dash Baxter?"
"Danny Fenton-Phantom?" Klemper sounded hopeful. Maddie and Jack choked. Their lips formed the appalled word, 'Phantom?' "He's nice. He gave me a puppy named Cujo an' told me how to take care of him, and all he wanted in return was for me an' my puppy not to visit Amity Park. He's a good friend."
"Where. Is. He."
"I dunno. Visiting friends? He has lotsa friends." The ghost sighed. "I wish I had friends."
"Let me try," hissed Pamela. She leaned over the vacuum thing. "We're Danny's friends, too," she lied, grimacing. "But he's run away from home."
"Oh no!"
"Yes, oh no. We're trying to find him. Do you know where he is?"
"Uh…" They could almost hear the gears turning in his head. "Didja check Pandora's Palace? He's got lotsa friends there, an' a mommy an' two uncles an' sometimes a sister."
"A palace," sneered Maddie. "Ghosts are too primitive for palaces. It's probably just a larger-than-normal hut."
"Uh, no." Valerie was beginning to get annoyed. Was this how she once was? "Trust me, it's a palace."
Once again, she was ignored. Why did she even bother?
The adults began debating whether or not to let Klemper go. The hunters didn't want to, citing the fact that he could alert other ghosts to their presence. The Mansons and Baxters pointed out that they'd need all the containment space they could get when they actually rescued their babies. Eventually, they decided to release him a mile or two from the palace.
The trip was uneventful. Contrary to the Fentons' expectations, ghosts actually avoided the silvery vehicle. The humans flew at random, waiting for the radar to pick up on human items. Finally, after hours of fruitless floating, a tiny blip appeared on the edge of the screen.
"Full speed ahead," ordered Jack.
"No, honey, full speed thirty-five degrees to the left." His wife turned the Speeder.
Valerie was starting to get nervous. It was odd- a few days ago, she'd worried about protecting humans from evil ghosts. Now she wanted to protect the ghosts, even her former arch-nemesis, from other ghost hunters.
Soon a dark speck appeared in the distance. Valerie squinted, barely able to make out flecks of white. She kept watching as they went nearer and the vision became clearer. Yes, that was Achaea: the stark rocks, the marble palaces and temples, the labyrinth, the streets. She smiled before looking again at the other humans.
The adults' expressions were less than pleased. After all, Achaea was huge. It was also obviously heavily populated, and they still didn't know if Danny and Sam were really there.
"Ready the ecto-cannons," Maddie murmured.
Valerie's heart skipped a beat. "What for?"
"Why, to drive them out, of course." She made it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world.
"What?" She thought of Juniper and Danni, of the three royals, even of the weak little ghost she'd faced in the tournament- a tournament held partly in her honor. What would happen to them?
But Valerie never got to find out.
An army materialized before them, swords drawn.
