Chapter Nineteen: The Scavenger Hunt

Valerie was in her apartment making cocoa when Phantom – sorry, Wes – popped his head through the floor. Literally, just his head in the floor. Honestly, she should've been used to it by now, after all she was a ghost hunter in the most haunted city in America, but she still flinched in surprise, dropping the bag of multicolored marshmallows in her hands.

"Expecting a ghost of Christmas past?" he quipped, floating up to meet Valerie at eye level.

She glared at him, "You made me spill the marshmallows, jerk."

Chuckling, Phantom gave her a lopsided grin, "You gonna buy s'more? Okay, yeah, that was a horrible pun, forget I ever said that. Even the Dickens reference was better. Anyway... wanna go on a scavenger hunt?"

"It's Christmas Eve, you dummy," Valerie deadpanned.

"Well, duh," he rolled his eyes, "that's sort of the point. I mean, how else are we supposed to find your gift?"

"Maybe," Valerie defensively grabbed her mug of cocoa off of the counter, "under the tree, like a normal person."

Phantom scoffed, "Have you ever known us to be normal?"

"Wes..." she said slowly. Even though Valerie was against leaving her apartment, she appreciated the boy's eagerness, which was a nice change from Wes's usual obsessive and bitter demeanor. In fact, she'd noticed lately that his personality in Phantom form slightly differed from his human form; but she supposed it did make sense that the mentality of a ghost and a human could change thought patterns. (At least that's what made more sense to her, and what she honestly hoped was the case.)

Phantom flew around her, grabbed her coat off the rack, and expectantly handed it to her, "Come on!" he said. "It'll be fun! Besides, the entire point is for someone to get her present."

Valerie drew out a long sigh, and met his eyes again. Finally, she gave in, set her mug on the counter, and accepted her coat. "Are we flying?"

The white-haired boy sported a maniacal grin, "Yeah, but don't bother with your suit, I got us covered."

Valerie furrowed her brow, "But I want to take my-"

Phantom lurched forward and threw an arm around Valerie's waist, "Really, there's no need for it." And without warning, they rocketed upwards. Out of habit, Valerie braced herself for impact, but was relieved when she realized that Phantom was keeping her intangible. She didn't really notice the lingering cold beneath her skin due to the chilly December weather.

"You could have warned me," she complained.

"Have some holiday spirit," Phantom said. "Get it? Spirit? Cause I'm a ghost... and it's Christmas."

"Yeah," Valerie rolled her eyes, "I got it. And then you made it all awkward by explaining it."

"Well... you made it more awkward by pointing out that I made it awkward!"

She laughed, her hair blowing in the wind, "Wes Weston, you are not going to one-up me in awkwardness!"

Phantom's face flicked to one of confusion for a moment before regaining clarity. When he remained silent Valerie decided to break the ice, "So where are we heading first?" she asked.

He looked at her with a poorly hidden smirk, "Try to guess."

Within seconds they approached a normal neighborhood of houses, illuminated with tacky Christmas decorations. At the edge of the block, stood a house with a UFO looking structure (that was probably illegal, to be honest) fixated on the top. She recognized immediately as the house of one of her best friends, Danny Fenton, the son of Amity's eccentric ghost hunters.

"Fenton Works..." Valerie breathed. "Why are we...? Wait, are you taking me to the Ghost Zone?" she accused.

Phantom shrugged, "I wasn't planning to. I just have to pick something up first..."

"What could you have to pick up from a family of ghost hunters? Are you suicidal or something? Wait... this doesn't have to do with your obsession with Danny, does it Wes?"

He laughed, "Just trust me."

Valerie scowled, "If this is about Danny, I swear to God Wes, how many times have I told you to not accuse him of being you as an alibi!"

He ignored her, "We're about to go inside, so you have to keep your voice down. My D – Jack's passed out in the living room on his annual Santa stakeout. Maddie and Jazz are upstairs sleeping. So that should be everyone." Valerie felt like something about that story wasn't completely right... and then it hit her.

"Where's Danny then?" asked Valerie. "He lives here too."

Phantom froze, as if he was caught up in a lie. "Danny... is also upstairs sleeping."

Valerie looked him over, searching for any signs of deception. But before she could come to a conclusion, he flew the two of them through a wall, into the Fentons' living room. Warmth flooded Valerie as Phantom let the intangibility slide away and they descended to the floor.

"So why're we-" Valerie began.

"Shhhh..." Phantom warned, gesturing behind her. She turned and saw Danny's dad, Jack Fenton, sprawled across the couch with a tin of fudge carefully balanced on his chest. For a moment, her heart jumped into her throat, before she chastised herself for being so recklessly forgetful; Jack was asleep.

Valerie lowered her voice to a whisper, "So what're we doing here, again?"

"Getting this," Phantom said, walking over to the Fentons' comically decorated Christmas tree. He grabbed a medium sized present decorated in red wrapping paper, and put it under his arm.

Valerie's eyes widened, "You can't just steal that! That's one of their presents! I thought you were better than thievery, Wes!"

"Relax..." Phantom said, "It's my present to you. I'm not stealing anything."

She crossed her arms, "If it's your present, then why is it in the Fentons' house?"

"Maybe you'll find out later," he said eerily. "Besides, this," he held up the present, "isn't the scavenger hunt. We're finding something else. Anyway, there's something I wanna show you here. So, follow me."

Valerie shifted awkwardly before giving a hesitant nod, "Fine. But don't think you're getting out of telling me why my present was at the Fentons' house."

And with that she followed Phantom as he led her into the Fentons' lab. She'd been in there on a few occasions, some of which were with Phantom himself. Valerie trailed behind the ghost boy as he came to a stop in front of the blazing neon green portal to the Ghost Zone (which carefully had a wreath hung above it). Phantom lowered himself to the floor and stood still, captivated by the portal's otherworldly light.

Valerie glanced at him, "Why're we-"

With a shaky breath, his next words made her blood run cold. "This... this is where I died... well, sorta."

She looked at him with wide eyes, "What do you mean? Wes? Don't do this to me..."

"It was at the beginning of Freshman year. The portal wasn't working, and so I went inside. And then it turned on and made me half-ghost. Sounds oversimplified, but," he gave a laugh, "sorry – I haven't really had to explain it to anyone before."

Valerie held her hands close to her chest, a lump forming in her throat, "So – so you were electrocuted and that's what..."

"Yeah."

She instantly felt the urge to vomit, she didn't want to be in that room anymore. The sight of Phantom's pale face illuminated by the light of the portal seemed alienated, almost horrific. While Valerie attempted to push out the uncomfortable thoughts about Phantom's death, something nagged at her from the back of her mind. Something that didn't seem right about that story...

"Why were you in the Fentons' lab at all when it happened?" she asked.

He looked at her with apologetic eyes, "Let's leave."

"Answer my que-"

"Valerie," he said seriously, "you'll get an answer, just later. Now let's go on a scavenger hunt."

"What do you even mean by scavenger hunt?" she asked, irritated. Why did he keep blowing off all her questions?

"Maybe..." he pondered, "the purpose of the scavenger hunt is to scavenge the meaning of the scavenger hunt."

She backtracked, "What?"

"Exactly," he was smiling again, "now grab on, we're flying out of here."

After another chilly flight, Valerie and Phantom found themselves wandering the desolate halls of Casper High with only Phantom's ghostly glow to provide for light.

"Are you ever going to explain why we're here?" she complained.

"Nah," he said, "that would take all of the suspenseful drama out of it. Now, which floor is the circuit breaker..."

Five minutes later, after another quest to turn on the electricity, the pair found themselves in Mr. Lancer's classroom savoring the heat that had just turned on. Valerie leaned against one of the desks while Phantom messed around with the TV in the classroom.

"This isn't a date, is it?" Valerie asked. "Because I swear to God, if you're gonna show me that horrible Romeo and Juliet film that Lancer keeps to show the Freshmen-"

"Huh? No," he said., meeting her eyes. "Trust me, nooo. Not a date. I just wanted to show you something, and this was the first place I thought of where we could watch a DVD without being disrupted."

She put her hands on her hips, "I have a DVD player at my apartment. You could've always asked me."

"Yeah, but then it wouldn't have been a surprise. Also, I said this was the first place I thought of – I never said I kept thinking." He continued to mess with the cables at the back of the TV to make sure the DVD player was working.

"Very methodical," she commented.

"Thanks," he said, before frowning. "Wait, was that sarcasm?"

"Nope!" Valerie grinned. "Not. at. all."

Suddenly a blue light erupted from the TV, showing a blank DVD menu. "Yes!" Phantom cheered, "I got it to work!" He then proceeded to hit play on the DVD player and sat on top of a desk next to Valerie.

"So what's the featured film?" she asked. "And how is it going to explain why we were at the Fentons or whatever the hell we're doing tonight?"

"It's something you're probably not going to like," Phantom answered honestly. "But... it's necessary to break it to you slowly."

Valerie was about to give another cry of protest before she was silenced with what was on the screen. It was a video of Wes (human Wes) in his room surrounded by a montage of pictures of Danny Fenton and Phantom. Wes seriously stared into the camera for a few moments before looking down at a notebook in his hands.

"Okay," he announced, "this is an update on the current information I've collected on the case of Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom. Today's date is November 29th, 2005. So here's the basic rundown of what I've obtained: Danny Fenton, at some point prior or during Freshman year, obtained ghost abilities and possesses the power to alternate between his regular human form and ghost form. This suggests that he is either on the line directly between life and death, or that ectoplasm has somehow irreversibly changed his physical body. Danny Fenton, is a total loser among his classmates and most people didn't even know his name until I told his secret to the entire school. Danny Phantom on the other hand... is the ultimate idol, well, superhero of Amity Park. He's really powerful and as far as anyone can tell, is wholly ghost. Recently I've learned that he is something called a 'halfa', which is what the ghosts call human-ghost hybrids. I've also learned that there is one more hybrid in existence, but their identity is unknown to me.

"I discovered Danny's secret in September, and after around two months of denial, he finally transformed in front of me-" Wes paused, flipping through his notebook to find the exact date, "-on November 17th, 2005. In other words, that was almost 12 days ago from the time I'm recording this. In that time he has broken into my room with his ghost powers and read my evidence diar- journal. My evidence journal. He has also forced another ghost to stay by my side simply to annoy me, forcing his own parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, to clean up his mess. And as of yesterday, his ghost and human forms were temporarily unstable, causing him to appear like Phantom in his human form. I managed to collect picture evidence of this, only for his stupid goth girlfriend to kick me in the balls and smash my camera to smithereens with her giant ass boots."

And that's where Valerie put her foot down, "I've had enough of this shit. Wes, what the actual fuck?" She looked to Phantom, "Why are you showing me your stupid little alibi hobby? I told you to stop with all that shit!"

"Because," he said cautiously, "before you listen to me, I think you need to listen to Wes."

"You are Wes!" she cried.

"Did you notice anything from the video you just watched?" he asked.

"Will you stop with the fucking mind games!" Valerie yelled. "It's Christmas Eve! I just wanted to be in bed, watching some sappy movie while drinking hot cocoa. But instead, I'm here with you, flying around in the freezing cold, trespassing and stealing from ghost hunters, watching self-made fake conspiracy videos in Mr. Lancer's classroom! I just want an answer why we're doing this: just, why Wes?!"

"Because... it's the easiest way for me to break it to you. And I want you to know, tonight," he whispered.

"What does that mean? Know what? If you have something to say, just spit it out!"

He sighed, "It's not that easy, Valerie. I've been thinking about telling you forever, and I finally decided... that this way, even though it's messy and confusing... it's the least painful. Hearing it directly from me may not be what you want, so... one last time, can you trust me?" he held out his hand again. "For the scavenger hunt?"

"God," she breathed, "I really hate you." She didn't know why she did it, but she took his hand, and they, once again, flew through the ceiling. "This better be worth it."

"And now," Phantom declared dramatically, "we have reached our final destination."

"Stop with the theatrics," Valerie mumbled, "I wanna get this over with so I can go home."

Phantom didn't appear to hear her. Instead, he looked towards the apartment building that was only a few blocks from Valerie's home. "Welcome to the lovely home of the Westons."

"Oh, classy," Valerie mocked, "are you bringing me home to meet the family now? Or are you showing me some more conspiracy evidence you have under your bed, Wes?"

"No and no," Phantom said, "we're here to see Wes."

Valerie laughed, "What are you talking about now? You are Wes."

He looked her dead in the eyes, "When we phase into the apartment we're going to have to be quiet again. Fortunately, he's a heavy sleeper."

"What're you-"

And for the second time that night, he failed to give her a clear warning before they phased through the wall. Almost immediately they were consumed by darkness, to the extent that Phantom's unearthly glow didn't help. It took Valerie's eyes a few seconds to realize that they were, in fact, standing in someone's bedroom. There was clearly someone sleeping because she could hear their not so quiet snores.

And then, Phantom rose his hand and lit the room up with a soft green light. She was able to determine that the figure sprawled across the bed was... Wes? Her mind walked herself in circles trying to figure out how Phantom could be right next to her when Wes was clearly asleep. And then... she laughed. How could she have forgotten about one of Phantom's more useful powers: duplication. It was possible that Phantom and Wes could be in the same place because he was duplicating.

"You had me confused for a second," Valerie admitted, "but I get what you're doing now."

Phantom raised an eyebrow as Wes twitched on the bed, "And what am I doing, Val?"

"Duplicating, duh. But I still can't figure out how you're able to make one of your duplicates asleep. Isn't that hard or something?"

"But that's the thing, Val," Phantom said slowly, "I'm not duplicating right now. And I can prove it."

She raised an eyebrow, "Really, how, Ghost Boy?"

"I'll show you," he took her by the hand again, and the next thing she knew, they were outside on the balcony. Phantom brought out the crisp red present he had stolen from the Fentons. "Open it," he said simply.

Valerie glanced at her watch, "It's only 11:48, not exactly Christmas yet. So isn't that against the rules?"

"What are you? The Christmas police?" he scoffed. "You sound like Walker, God."

"Like who?" she asked, as she started to pull on the corner of the wrapping paper.

"This psycho ghost warden who throws anyone in his little ghost jail if they don't follow his 'rules'," Phantom rolled his eyes. "I've been arrested by him like six times, and I keep having to break out."

"Wait, so you're an actual convict?" Valerie asked dumbfounded. By now she had torn away all the wrapping paper, and only a brown box remained.

"I'm a convict as much as Dash's an honor student," he said, defensively.

"Mmm," she hummed, "you still sound like a ghost convict to me, but I'll let it slide." Finally, she opened the box holding her present, and held up a strange looking gun/phone device. "What the-?"

"The Fenton Powergizer, yeah, I know, it's a stupid name. My D- Jack demonstrated it at the weapons presentation. It tells you exactly what powers a ghost is using at the moment."

Valerie raised an eyebrow, "So why are you giving this to me?"

"I want you to use it on me, right now," he said, "it'll list all of the powers I'm using right now, including duplication."

"Okay..." she said apprehensively. She held out the Powergizer and pointed at him and waited for the screen to load with a full reading of Phantom's powers.

FENTON POWERGIZER: READING FOR ECTO-SIG 04014

INACTIVE CYROKINESIS

20% TRANSPERENCY

20% INTANGIBILITY

NO OTHER POWERS INDENIFIED

Valerie felt numb... no duplication. It had to be a fluke, right? The machine was broken, and that's why Phantom's duplication didn't appear on the screen. But... Phantom's last words rung in her memory: 'It'll list all of the powers I'm using right now, including duplication.' That meant he knew that the Powergizer wouldn't show his duplication, because... because he wasn't duplicating.

But he had to be duplicating! There was no other explanation for why Phantom and Wes were in two places at once! Unless... Unless... no. Wes had to be Phantom, there was no denying it! Wes Weston was Phantom and that was fact! But yet... the evidence in her hands led to contradict that Wes was Phantom. Besides, if Wes wasn't Phantom, then who had she been flying around with all night? Who had she been partnering with for months in her battles?

(The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.)

Wes's face on a dusty TV screen, "So here's the basic rundown of what I've obtained: Danny Fenton, at some point prior or during Freshman year, obtained ghost abilities and possesses the power to alternate between his regular human form and ghost form."

(One by one, they all come together.)

Phantom stood in front of the Fentons' ghost portal, "This... this is where I died... well, sorta. It was at the beginning of Freshman year. The portal wasn't working, and so I went inside. And then it turned on and made me half-ghost."

(You're able to vaguely make out parts of the picture.)

They floated outside of the Fentons' house. "Where's Danny then? He lives here too," she had asked.

Phantom froze, as if he was caught up in a lie. "Danny... is also upstairs sleeping."

(But the puzzle doesn't look like the one on the front of the box.)

"Because," Phantom said cautiously, "before you listen to me, I think you need to listen to Wes."

"You are Wes!" she cried.

(It creates a completely different image entirely.)

Valerie carefully lowered the Powergizer and took a shaky breath. If this was what she thought it meant, then... "You're not really Wes, are you? That's what you've been trying to tell met this entire time."

He looked at her apologetically, "I'm sorry Valerie. But... if I just told you, you wouldn't have believed me. I had to introduce the idea slowly for it to make sense, and according to Jazz, this way has the least 'mental repercussions', whatever those are."

"So you're Danny," she said simply.

"Yeah..." he said. And as proof, he transformed from Danny Phantom into Danny Fenton right before her eyes. She looked at him perplexed; she hadn't seen him transform before.

"So Wes wasn't actually crazy after all," Danny confirmed, "he figured out my secret earlier in the year and since then he's got himself tangled in my daily battle to keep my identity."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Valerie spoke again, "Y'know," she said, "I'd already gotten used to the fact that Phantom was a half-ghost, so this isn't as shocking as I thought it'd be. Your sister's onto something."

He grinned, "Well, she is planning to major in psychology next year at Harvard." He paused, "You're not mad at me about this, right?"

"I'm kinda mad," she shrugged, "I mean, you let me think that you were Wes Weston for a few months. That, and you decided to tell me this on Christmas fucking Eve."

"I thought the holidays would be an appropriate time to come clean," he shrugged.

"I guess it is sort of poetic in a really weird sort of way. But did you really have to keeping using the phrase 'scavenger hunt'?"

He pouted, "It sounded playful."

She snorted, "God Danny, Phantom or not, you're still just an overgrown puppy!"

He groaned, "I get that all the time from Sam and Tucker."

"Do they know too?" she asked.

"They were there when it happened," he said, "the portal accident. For a while it was just a crazy ride between the three of us, and then the whole Axion thing happened and you started hunting."

Valerie, slept that night with ease. She felt like an old scab she didn't even know she had, had finally healed. Though before, she hadn't known that Danny was Phantom, something always felt off about the difference between Wes and Phantom. She had thought that they were supposed to be the same person, though Wes would completely forget certain encounters and go off the deep end from time to time. So now, with the knowledge that Danny Fenton was Phantom, Valerie felt like she had finally earned closure on a problem she hadn't even known had existed.

Wes woke up Christmas morning to the smell of coffee and a weird fluttery thing on his forehead. Disoriented, Wes swatted at it until it stopped tickling his nose before he fully regained consciousness. Twice as confused, Wes sat up and found a discarded post-it note on his bed that he assumed had knocked off of his face upon waking up. It read: 'Nice jammies, love your friend, Dead Santa (AKA Danny)'

It took him a moment to realize that Danny must've been in his room last night and left him a stupid note. Before Wes could get pissed about Danny's trespassing, again, Walter called his son from the other room. "Wes! Wake up! I'm waiting and I have coffee!"

Honestly, Danny was the last person Wes wanted to be thinking about during Christmas. So for the sake of holiday spirit, he let it slide... but only for today.

So... now Valerie knows. I thought in the book, Christmas would be a good time for her to make the revelation, but I wanted it to be Danny's choice for her to find out. I hope you guys didn't think it was too lame of a reaction.

On another note, today is October 1st and I literally can't wait for the rest of the month's spookiness. Halloween is my favorite holiday and October has great weather where I live, so I'm practically over the moon right now. Hopefully I can post another update before the end of the month, but if not, enjoy the official 'spooky month'.