"Hi there, Valerie!"
Seconds after knocking on the door, Valerie was greeted by a very energetic Jack Fenton who looked like he was trying very hard to contain his excitement.
"Hi, Mr. Fenton." She said, smiling up at him.
"Come in, come in." He stepped out of the way. "Maddie's upstairs but she should be down shortly. I can't wait to get started! We've never had an intern before!"
Valerie smiled and bit her tongue. She knew why no one wanted to intern here. Everyone was getting more and more interested in learning about ghosts but no one wanted to listen to the Fenton's ramble on about them everyday. But Valerie needed to learn more about ghosts to help with her ghost hunting and the Fenton Works internship was paid anyways. It was a good option all around.
"I can't wait to see what you guys all do downstairs. I've been down there a handful of times but I don't think you guys were ever actually working when I was there."
Jack laughed. "Amazing stuff we do in the lab. We engineer stuff, study ectoplasmic samples, research the behavior of ghosts. All sorts of neat things that we'll get into soon!"
Valerie nodded and was about to respond when she was interrupted.
"Hi Valerie!" Maddie said from the top of the stairs. "You're here! I think it's about time we head down to the lab and get started for today."
"You betcha, come on Valerie!" Jack ran out of the living room and into the kitchen, already disappearing by the time Maddie and Valerie made it into the kitchen.
"Okay." Maddie said as they walked down the stairs into the basement. "The first thing we're going to do today is get your measurements so we can make you a jumpsuit. It's very important to wear it when in the lab for safety, no matter what our children and their friends think. Do you have any particular colors you'd like your suit to be in?"
Valerie pondered it for a few moments. "What about red and black?"
"Excellent. Now just stand here while I take a few measurements."
Valerie stood still and moved as Maddie directed while she took note of Valerie's measurements. Jack was on the other side of the lab listing off the name of each invention that he picked up and telling her what each one did.
"And this one is the ghost gabber! It translates the wails of the ghost language into something we can understand! It also still registers when a ghost is speaking in a human language which is good for confirming if someone is a ghost or not." Jack turned on the invention.
"Wow, that's cool. I didn't know that ghosts had their own language."
"Wow, that's cool. I didn't know that ghosts had their own language. Fear me."
Valerie frowned at the invention and her gaze flicked back up to Jack's face when he laughed.
"We finally got this thing to stop picking up on Danny and now it's registering you too! I guess we never actually fixed it." Jack said, turning it over in his hands.
Her brows furrowed. "Danny?"
"Ever since our portal started working all of our inventions started picking Danny up and trying to tell us he was a ghost." Maddie said as she laughed. "Which is ludicrous because we know our son and we know he's not a ghost."
"But why does he set off the inventions?"
Maddie paused for a moment. "He was involved in an accident with the ghost portal, the day it started working, which is why lab safety is so important."
Jack nodded. "Ever since Vlad had his accident in college, we upped our safety protocol as high as we could but that doesn't really stop stubborn teenagers."
Valerie's blood ran cold. "Vlad? As in Vlad Masters?"
"Oh yeah, he was our buddy back in college. It was the three of us against the world!" Jack stared off into space longingly. "But he was hospitalized for a long time after his accident and he never wanted to see us."
Valerie's brain was starting to turn as Mr. Fenton kept talking.
She knew half ghosts existed and that both Vlad and Dani were halfas but-
Oh god she was so dumb. She knew about Dani and Phantom's relationship to one another, but she never stopped to consider how much she looked like Danny when she found her in her human form. Or stopped to think what Dani being both human and ghost meant for Phantom, especially after seeing Vlad transform.
But what did that mean for her?
She showed up on the ghost gabber just like Danny did, but she never had a lab accident where ectoplasm or ghosts were involved. The only thing-
Her suit.
She could feel her suit tingling just under her skin, available to her with the command of a simple thought. She didn't have to store it anywhere on her anymore, not like how her old one was in her backpack. This one was just there all the time. She never stopped to actually consider the implications of that ghost melding her suit with her beyond having easy access to her equipment that her dad couldn't take away.
Was she a half ghost too? Was she just severely ecto-contaminated? Was-
"Alright, I'm all done, Valerie!"
She started as Maddie cheerily announced the end of her measurement gathering. The woman had stood back and moved to a cabinet and was looking at different pieces of fabric.
"The earliest I can get this done by will be two days from now, but for today we'll just continue going over what each of our inventions do and seeing if there are any others that we need to tweak like we did for Danny!" Jack said.
"Okay, yeah. What does that one do?" Valerie pointed at one that she didn't recognize.
"That's the Fenton Ghost Weasel! It…"
Jack's voice slowly faded from Valerie's hearing as the implication that all of these weapons could hurt her arose in her mind. If she set off the ghost gabber, who knew what could happen with the other ones.
"I caught Phantom with this bad boy once! Had him trapped inside here real good! Until he, uh, escaped! Yeah."
The more Valerie learned, the more and more it really did seem like a good option all around.