Danny was pretty sure he didn't need glasses (not at this stage in his life anyway), and it may have been overcast that morning, but it definitely wasn't cold enough to naturally see his own breath nor feel a chill down his spine. So why could he sense a ghost right now but not spot a trace of one?

He had decided to fly to school today instead of taking the bus, which he usually did to save time. In this case, it was only making him waste more of it.

His sense always went off when they were in the immediate vicinity. Ghosts could still see each other somewhat when they turned invisible, including himself, so if he couldn't make out anything in the open, they were probably hiding inside of something.

After quickly phasing through the surrounding buildings, cars and mailboxes, the half-ghost confirmed that they weren't in an object, but his sense continued to pester him.

He then weighed the option of a last-second possession. He'd got better at recognising the signs of your average last-minute overshadowing: strangely coloured eyes, ill-fitting voices to the respective victim, the occasional ghostly aura and just all-around suspicious or abnormal behaviour. Keeping all these traits in mind, Danny scanned the area for any of them currently present in the public.

Nope. Just regular people walking around, not causing any ruckus.

Danny took to the sky again, and decided to wait a couple more minutes for whatever it was he was still sensing to make a move, but the peace and quiet continued and puzzled him further. The spirits of Amity Park were usually out and proud with their hauntings, so why couldn't he find this ghost that kept giving him the chills?

He looked at the civilians walking below him, then at the road leading to Casper High, and groaned in agitation. If he spent any more time in one place worrying about a single ghost he wasn't able to spot, he'd be late to class yet again. He struggled enough with balancing his 'normal' life with his self-appointed goal of being the city's best defender against ghosts. If he could prevent an interference from one from affecting the other, he'd consider that a major accomplishment. Thus, Danny continued his flight to school.


It wasn't until lunch had ended that he decided to bring the incident up to his friends. He, Tucker and Sam were getting their books from their lockers for next period. Their conversation started off casually enough, discussing that morning's events.

"Seriously, Sam. I swear I thought Ms. Tetslaff was gonna pop a blood vessel from the way you turned down her offer to join the track team."

"What can I say, Tucker? It's not my crowd. Besides, I don't wanna have the same special treatment the jocks get just 'cause I can run around in a circle without collapsing. What do you think, Danny?"

"Yeah, um...guys," Danny mumbled, only half paying attention to what was just said, "I was wondering...do you think a half-ghost's powers can wear off?"

His friends both stared at him, baffled by his unexpected question.

"Well that's a major change of subject!" Sam remarked.

"Sorry," he replied softly, not wanting their talk to get too loud. "It's just that my ghost sense has started triggering when I can't find any ghosts nearby."

"Nothing's happening now, so I guess we're safe here," Tucker shrugged after taking a quick glance around, hoping not to tempt fate.

"I can normally see hints of ghosts when they're close, even when they've turned invisible. Now I'm not seeing anything."

"I don't see why that'd mean your powers are going away if only one's acting weird," Tucker tapped his chin in thought. "What if they suddenly hid in someone's body when they spotted you?"

Danny shook his head.

"Whether I'm Phantom or Fenton, nobody's acted weirdly enough for me to suspect that they're being overshadowed."

"Like Tuck said, that doesn't mean your powers are the problem. So what if ghosts have gotten better at hiding? You'll get through it. If you're that worried, then maybe we could start taking a ghost tracker with us," Sam suggested.

Danny simply sighed, shutting his locker and leaned his back against it, looking down at the floor with a frustrated scowl.

"I dunno. I knew I was improving, but I guess I wasn't paying attention to all my enemies getting better too."

"Of course they are, man," Tucker said. "You've gotta be the biggest challenge these ghosts have ever faced, so that's bound to make 'em wanna step up their game."

"Yeah, but no matter what they pull, we're here to help you stay ahead of them," Sam stated confidently.

Danny didn't respond to their pep talk, still staring at the floor and angry with himself. Tucker decided to change the topic again to get his friend's mind off his worries.

"Say, how 'bout we take a trip to the mall tomorrow afternoon? I hear they've got a new milkshake bar at the food court that has over eighty flavours to choose from!"

"I'm in," Sam agreed, hoping it would prompt Danny to do the same, "but there'd better be soy options."

Danny finally looked up and smiled a little at his friends. They always tried their best to cheer him up whenever his heroism got him down.


The following day, Danny had got to Amity Park Mall first despite his low mood and was waiting for his friends to meet him inside the entrance. After calling both of them to assure him they were on their way, he idly looked around the mall from his current position to pass the time.

The mall was packed with customers, and he couldn't help but take notice of some. A bustling crowd had formed around Abyss for their half price sale, a parent was being pestered by their very loud child for a new action figure, and there was a young couple who apparently had a very messy public breakup judging by the sour looks on their faces.

His daydreaming was abruptly cut short, as a puff of mist from his mouth broke him out of his stupor.

"Oh no. Not again."

Danny was still unsure of whether to trust his sense or not after yesterday's apparent false alarm, so he had taken Sam's advice in the end and brought the Fenton Finder with him. He fished the bulky tracker out of his backpack and turned it on.

"A ghost is near," the electronic voice said immediately after the device was activated. It unhelpfully stated the obvious, but nevertheless made Danny breathe a sigh of relief that he wasn't going crazy.

Before he could take a single step to investigate, however, the voice chimed in again a second later: "Ghost located. Thank you for using the Fenton Finder."

He raised an eyebrow and glanced around. Like yesterday morning, there appeared to be humans and nothing but humans, all going about their business with no glowing auras or signs of being possessed. It wouldn't be the first time one of his parents' gadgets was busted, but the odds of both his sense and the tracker being wrong at the same time should be low.

Then he remembered when the Fenton Finder was first created and smacked his palm against his face. Great. It was tracking him! At least it was working as intended and not malfunctioning after all. If only Sam and Tucker were here to help him use it.

While it was less reliable in the hands of another ghost, it should technically be able to detect more than one of them at the same time, but it would've been more useful if it could home in on a specific spirit instead of all of them. He muted the distracting monotone voice and focussed on the radar. Besides the large one in the middle indicating himself, sure enough, there was another red dot on the screen. Unfortunately, it wasn't projecting any kind of floor plan of the building, nor any indicator of distance; just a small arrow flashing at the top. Again – only useful if you were hell-bent on tracking down every single ghost regardless of morality like his parents were.

Ducking behind a conveniently-placed trash can near to the wall, he transformed into his ghostly alter ego and began to follow the vague directions on his parents' invention to find out where this unwanted guest was sneaking around.

"C'mon, c'mon!" Danny muttered to himself, tapping on the side of the Fenton Finder. His eyes were firmly fixed on the screen. The interference from his own ecto-signature wasn't making it any easier as the other dot he was following frantically jittered about on the radar, so he began to fly about aimlessly all over the mall, desperately trying to get the readings he was after.

The ghost boy flew to the clothes store crowd, causing a few startled screams, then to the mother and child, finally making the kid shut up out of fright, and over to the couple, who greeted him with an unpleasant "Get out of here, creepy ghost kid!"

The red arrows now pointing every which way from the confusing signals combined with the horrible impression he was leaving on the public was driving him mad. Danny couldn't take the stress any more. Letting his temper finally get to him, he threw the tracker to the ground from the height of the second floor, shattering it to pieces.

Just as he was distracted in his frustration, he suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain in the back of his shoulder. Danny swung around, desperately scrabbling at his back until he plucked out the offending object: a small dart with the remains of a strangely coloured liquid inside of it.

The teen dropped the dart almost immediately before he had time to think. His fingers went numb and found himself slowly losing altitude as he hovered in the air. Whatever was in that dart was fast-acting. His vision was even starting to blur, but he still tried his best to make out his attacker in the retreating crowd. No white suits, no ghostly glows, no teenage girls on hoverboards. Heck, no brightly coloured jumpsuits. Where exactly were they? The question lingered in his mind as he fell to the floor and slipped into unconsciousness.


Danny woke up with a start. He had no idea how long he'd been out. Probably not long, as he was thankfully still in his ghost form. He was now trapped in a phase-proof net, tightly contorting his limbs into an uncomfortable position. It might have hurt had he been able to feel them.

The environment wasn't something he'd expected to see after getting knocked out. A lab or facility of some sort would be his main assumptions, but instead he had been dragged into an empty retail unit still in the mall that was up for rent. It looked like it had been that way for a while now. Dust covered the floor and the only remains of whatever store had occupied this space were some large metal shelves making up a couple of aisles. The light fittings had been removed, leaving the store barely illuminated by the light outside shining through the misaligned window shutters and the subtle blue glow of his net.

As he heard footsteps approaching him from the front, Danny tried to will a ghost ray into one of hands to frighten them off, but to no avail. Needless to say, the stuff in that dart packed a punch.

The dinginess made it hard to fully see his captor as he strolled towards him, but he could just about make out the figure of a broad, muscular man clad in the same shade of black as his hair, harbouring a variety of anti-ghost gadgetry that was strapped on his belt, back and wrists.

Danny had never seen him before in his entire life. Was he a brand new ghost hunter? This guy looked too well equipped to be any kind of rookie in the field. The young hero had no intention of seeing how experienced they actually were, and attempted in vain to wrestle with both the net and his nerves to break free and get out of there.

"Let me go!" Danny demanded. "Who are you?!"

The mystery man chuckled.

"Did you enjoy our little game of hide and seek?" he asked mockingly.

Danny was all too familiar with that deep voice, and his eyes widened in realisation. After all this fretting, it turned out to merely be an old foe wearing a new face.

"Hello, ghost child."