Dan wanted to wait until he had a place to put the portal before he stole it from his parents, but that would mean going a year without a proper ghost to drain. He called Skulker to deliver some to him, but it wasn't enough. He was sick almost his entire senior year of high school. Jerry and Marire took him to the hospital several times, and they subjected him to a battery of tests. All the doctors said that he either had the flu or was going through withdraw, but they tested him for drugs, and they all came back negative. Dan insisted that he had never taken drugs, which he didn't. Luckily, though, Dan still aced enough school work and tests to pass the year, but he was too weak to make it to the graduation ceremony.
Dan had to seem well enough to move out and get a place of his own. He was eighteen, after all, about to start college. Jerry and Marie wouldn't let him leave if he was still sick. He called Skulker and just asked for one big ghost. He just wanted something to get his human half well enough to move out. Dan drained the ghost of its power the instant Skulker handed it over. He could faintly hear Skulker wondering if he was alright, but he didn't care. His core was starving.
That ghost lasted a month in his system. Skulker still delivered him several small ghosts, and Dan had to strain not to attack him. His logic was starting to fail him. He could put on plesant a façade for a short while, and it was enough to convince Jerry and Marie that he was finally well. He went to a college that was a state away from Amity. It was close enough to keep an eye on his family and not so far away to make it seem like he was distancing himself from Jerry and Marie.
As a congratulatory present, the two of them got Dan a small house near the campus, and it had the perfect basement to store the ghost portal. They went shopping together to get things for the house, they arranged payments for both the house and tuition, and Dan searched for a job, though he wasn't planning on actually taking it. He was going to focus more on developing his powers. When Jerry and Marie finally left and went back to Wisconsin, Dan collapsed on the floor, his core spasming even though he was still in human form. He felt like he was dying. He barely had the strength to call Skulker.
When the ghost finally showed up, he had a rather large ghost bear, but Dan was barely conscious. Skulker knelt down and shook his shoulders. "Wake up, Dan," he insisted, but Dan barely heard. His eyes fluttered open to see the blurred outline of Skulker, only recognizable by the green flame of hair on his head. "You need to wake up," his echoey voice ordered.
Skulker had enough. He extended his glowing, green blade and cut the bear's arm, ectoplasm dripping down through the ghostly fur and onto Dan's face. The cold drops made Dan twitch and open his eyes a little wider. Skulker grabbed the bear and held it in front of him. Dan struggled to reach up for it, but eventually he managed to grab onto one of the bear's claws and pulled it down towards him, his ghost half's strength coming through. Dan bit into the bear's hand.
Day's later, Dan put out an anonymous bounty on Vladdie Phantom. He contacted every major ghost hunting institution in America, taking special care to contact The Guys in White. Jack and Dan's mother would have to leave Fenton Works to protect Vlad, and with Jazz at college, the portal would be left completely unguarded, making it easy for Dan to slip in and take it.
Vlad's phone rang as he was reviewing schematics in his office. He pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open without checking who it was. "Hello?"
It was Maddie's voice who greeted him. "Vlad! There's a bounty on your head!"
Vlad froze. "A bounty? Why would there be a bounty on me?"
"It's on Phantom's head. Some anonymous person put out a million dollar bounty on you."
"Do you think it could be Dan?" Vlad wondered.
Maddie's voice hesitated. "I don't want to think it is, but it might be. Why would he do that? You told us that you both agreed to a truce. Other than a few calls and texts every now and then, we haven't had any contact with him in a year."
Vlad thought for a moment. "It could be the ghost portal," he offered. "We're reasonably sure it was him who was using it the entire time you were in prison. He could need access to the Ghost Zone, too, and he doesn't know how to build one."
Maddie sighed. "Maybe so. Should we guard the portal?"
"I don't think so. You and Jazz both think we should talk to him and attempt to reason with him. If he wants the portal, we have to make him think its unguarded so that he comes to take it. We can trap and talk to him then," Vlad planned.
At the end of the day, Vlad paid a visit to Jack and Maddie to work out the details of their plan, but mostly to debate on whether or not they should involve Jazz. Jack and Maddie wanted to, but Vlad was against it. Jack and Maddie have seen their fair share of ghosts and knew how to handle them, even one as powerful as Dan, but Jazz didn't. She had never had a personal encounter with a ghost, and the fact that this ghost was her brother could overwhelm her. Eventually, though, Vlad conceded, and they called Jazz.
For the next few days as the various ghost hunting teams arrived, Vlad, Maddie, and Jack let themselves be seen outside of Fenton Works together multiple times, trying to tempt Dan to come and steal the portal. Vlad let himself be seen by the ghost hunters in ghost form a few times, letting everyone of them know that he existed, and eventually, it worked.
Knowing that they couldn't sense each other, Vlad waited invisibly near the portal, and Jack and Maddie were outside the house to make it seem like the place was unguarded. After a while of waiting, Dan suddenly appeared in front of him. Vlad pressed the pager in his hand as Dan slowly approached the portal.
Dan scanned it up and down, planning the best way to remove it. He lifted his hand and mentally reached for each of the screws that held the portal in place. The screws began to spin as they were encased in a glowing, green aura.
A green ray struk the black and yellow striped doors, leaving a black smudge. Dan froze in his actions, the screws' motion freezing in place. He almost jumped when Vlad regained visibility next to him. Dan glared at him. This was a trap. And now he was stuck in a city filled with ghost hunters.
"Turn around, Dan," his mother's voice ordered. "Slowly."
Dan lowered his hand and did as he was told, struggling to keep the pain of another spasm from his core off of his face. His mother, Jack, and Jazz all waited there, an ecto gun for each of them, though only his mother had it raised.
"Transform back, Danny," Jazz pleaded. Her voice was sad that he almost listened to her, but he couldn't leave himself vulnerable, especially with how weak his human form was.
"Why did you do what you did at the party a year ago, Son?" Jack wondered.
"I'm not your son," Dan growled.
"Wh-of course you are, Danny," Jack countered. "I love you; we all do."
"Well, you had a funny way of showing it," Dan muttered, struggling to keep his voice from cracking. "All you ever talk about is ghosts. You're so obsessed with them that you left Jazz and I alone for months to practically fend for ourselves as you built this stupid portal," he gestured behind him, his throat burning as his voice rose. "The portal that nearly cost me my life."
His mother slowly lowered her gun, and Jack's grip on his slipped. It crashed to the floor. "I...I-"
"Mister Fenton, we-Ghosts!" a new voice shouted.
Dan looked to the stairs of the lab and found two men in white suits. The Guys in White. Before Dan could move, the two men launched a pair of glowing, blue nets towards him and Vlad. The two of them were caught in their separate nets and forced to the ground. Dan stretched his arms in an attempt to break the net, only to receive a painful shock from it. Already in significant pain, he almost morphed back into his human form, the black transformation rings appearing around his waist. He did manage to stop the transformation but just barely.
"Don't worry Mister and Missus Fenton," the dark-skinned Guy in White assured. "We'll dispose of these ghosts for you."
The two men dragged the nets up the stairs. Dan and Vlad bounced up each step. Vlad grunted with each impact, but Dan screamed. His entire body was aching before he got here, and it had been getting worse and worse by the hour. Skulker's ghost deliveries couldn't satisfy him anymore. His core was still starving, and nothing has been able to fill it.
The Guys in White dragged them along the pavement when they got outside and then threw them into the back of their truck. They locked the doors, and it wasn't long before the truck began to rumble as it moved. Dan, who landed on his back, was just barely holding onto his ghost form at this point, hardly conscious.
"Dan," Vlad breathed. When he didn't respond, he called again. "Dan." The younger half ghost dragged his eyes open and looked up at Vlad. "Are you alright?"
Dan didn't answer. He blinked rapidly until his eyes closed all together. After a second, the black transformation rings appeared again and morphed him back into his human form. That alone was enough to cause Vlad to panic-being a pair of ghosts caught by the Guys in White was bad enough, but a pair of half ghosts? Who knows what they would do to them-but that wasn't what caught Vlad's attention.
Dan's human form looked to be on the verge of death. Ghosts don't get sick, so his ghost form didn't look any different than it did a year ago. What was wrong with him?
After a while of driving, the van rattled to a stop. A few seconds passed, and then the doors opened, revealing the same two Guys in White from before and a tall, broad-shouldered man with a thick mustache behind them. That man smirked. "Good job on capturing the Million Dollar Ghost, boys," he congratulated. "But who is that in the other net?"
"It's another ghost that was with him," the dark-skinned Guy in White explained as the light-skinned one climbed into the back of the van.
That Guy in White grabbed both nets and dragged them towards him, eventually pulling them out of the van entirely. Vlad grunted with the impact of hitting the ground, but Dan didn't react.
"I thought you said it was a ghost," the man with the mustache said.
"He was," the dark-skinned man assured.
"O!"
The light-skinned agent stood at attention. "Sir?"
"Scan him," the man with the mustache ordered.
Agent O nodded sharply and took a pen out of his blazer's breast pocket. He clicked it, and the pen extended into a curved, blinking machine that beeped like a Geiger counter. He waved it over Dan's unconscious form, and it lit up like a Christmas tree. "He is a ghost, sir," O reported.
"Well, he can't be a ghost and a human," the other operative countered. "That's impossible."
The broad-shouldered agent rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I see two possibilities: One, this poor boy, who is clearly unwell, has been overshadowed, or two, there is a whole new species of ghost that we just discovered." The agent dropped his hand. "Lock them up, and take any and all possible DNA samples from them both."
"Yes, sir," both operatives agreed as their superior started to walk off.
Agent O leaned down and grabbed the end of Dan's net. "K, do you really think there could be a whole new species of ghost?" he wondered.
Operative K shrugged as he picked up the end of Vlad's net. "Not sure. Look at that kid." He gestured to Dan. "He looks terrible. My money is on the overshadowing. Whatever ghost is possessing him has clearly been doing it for a while. We'll get it out of him and free this kid."
As the two agents started to drag the nets through the parking lot, Vlad looked at Dan. As long as he fought through the pain, Vlad could easily get out of here, but he didn't know if Dan could. He couldn't leave the kid. With all of this facility's ghost weapons, there was no way Vlad could get both of them out.
While Vlad was debating his options, Operatives K and O dragged the two half ghosts through the white hallways and towards the cells. The sudden, sharp spike in his ghost sense made Vlad jump out of his thoughts. He looked around the various cells as a thin, red mist slipped between his teeth. There were more ghosts here than he thought there would be. Every cell had at least two ghosts inside, and there were all kinds here. Ice-based, neutral, heat-based, green-skinned, blue-skinned, blobs, and shadows. A mechanical hiss sounded behind him. Vlad couldn't see what created the sound, but that question was quickly answered.
A fast and sharp yank on Vlad's net launched him backwards. After he landed, Agents K and O crouched down on his level. K reached into the net while O reached into Dan's. K pulled a few black hairs out of Vlad's head and put them in a small plastic bag. Then he pulled out a needle and poked the skin on his face deep enough to draw blood. K put the needle into a tube and sealed it. Then K pulled out a cotton swab, reaching into the net. Vlad didn't fight him when he forced the swab passed his lips. They already had his hair and ectoplasm. Keeping his saliva from them wouldn't make much of a difference.
Once the samples were collected, both agents stood back up and exited the cell. They turned around to face Vlad, and that same mechanical hissing sounded again, a clear door closing between him and the GiW agents. Agent K lifted his wrist and pushed something on his watch, making the net containing him stop glowing. Vlad instantly tore the net and got to his feet. He rushed to the clear door and studied it in cautious curiosity.
"You're not getting out of there, ghost," Agent O berated. "You might as well convince your ghostly friend there to get out of that boy."
The two agents turned on their heels and walked off, leaving Vlad alone with his unconscious honorary nephew.