Author's Note: This story is going to be a quickie compared to Time Phantom and Legacy. I'm thinking something like five chapters. Perhaps more, perhaps less. It's not intended as the epic I wanted Time Phantom to be.

Hector Souphannavan knew amulets quite well. And in his sagely wisdom, he was unmatched. Sure, it was true perhaps that Jason Blood, the bearer of the demon Etrigan, was ultimately a better sorcerer. And perhaps there were masters of dark arts even greater than he. But Hector was undoubtedly the world master of amulet-based magics. So it was no surprise when the young sorceress Jinx came to him—as Jason Blood typically worked for the side that upheld the law, as much as Etrigan hated it.

"Navan," Jinx addressed him by his commonly used name. His super villain alias, he supposed, though he didn't really consider himself a villain. Just a simple merchant. "I would like to do business with you."

"Very well, dear. Tell me what you're interested in: A power-amplifying broach? An evil-repelling artifact? What'll it be?" Despite being from Europe, his accent had long blended in with the local dialect in the quaint Ohio town he operated from.

"No, actually. I am looking for something… Something that will give me the ability to find ghosts, and to control them." Jinx removed a small bag of diamonds she'd taken from the Troika stash. "I trust this will be sufficient payment?"

Hector took the small brown burlap sack and untied the leather cord sealing it shut. He shifted through the diamonds, not counting them, but making sure they were real. "I believe it will," he said. "I'll be right back."

Proceeding to a back room, Hector shut the door. He then dumped the diamonds on a table and removed a turquoise cufflink from his pocket. "Hanma Sousala Ta Rana!" he chanted. The amulet glowed and a beam of light burst forth from it, consuming the diamonds. When it cleared, they were all there. They were indeed real.

Hector decended to an underground chamber beneath the back room and turned on the lights. He looked at his walls, upon which were shelves and shelves of magical artifacts, many magical artifacts indeed. And he was personally certified by the Academy's best to wield all of them. Using a small light-giving gem to guide him, he searched a dark corner till he found what he was looking for. It was indeed a ghost-controlling amulet. And it was the only one he couldn't use. He was certified to, but it required a certain touch. One must have had previous contact—very intimate contact—with ghosts to be able to use it.

In short, one must be a ghost himself or herself, or if not, must have been possessed by a ghost at one time or another. And if rumors Hector had heard were to be believed, that very thing had happened to Jinx a couple years back. So Hector was glad to get rid of the liability. After all, he couldn't use it anyway. Was it really that bad that he made a little money off of it?

oooo

Jinx tapped her foot impatiently. What could be taking the old man so long? She wandered around the shop in curiosity. The upfront trinkets were just that—souvenirs with no enhanced properties. Most "magical" amulets were infused with strange powers by strange beings that many an ancient man worshiped as gods. But when those beings died or disappeared, for whatever reasons, man decided to try their own hands at such artifacts, usually with rather lackluster results.

A noise startled Jinx, and she looked up to see the man known as Navan exiting the back room with a small box. He placed the box on the counter and motioned for her to come over.

"This should be exactly what you need, child."

Jinx resented being addressed that way, but did not complain. "Thank you."

"One more thing." Navan cautioned as Jinx pulled the box closer.

"Yes?" Jinx said as she opened it. The amulet was shaped as a scarab or spider—Jinx didn't know which. It had what seemed to be a ruby, divided into four sections, imbedded in it, protruding from the front and back and split by the golden metal skeleton of the amulet. It was beautifully crafted.

"This can only be used by certain people—people who've had a little experience with the afterlife."

"If that's all, then you have nothing to worry about. Shall I go?"

"If you don't need lessons, then go at any time." Navan replied.

Jinx laughed. As if she would accept a lesson from such a low-class magician. Besides she didn't have any diamonds left. "No thanks. I'll manage."

Amity Park

"Just be on the lookout, OK?" Danny pleaded with his friend Tucker Foley over the phone.

"Yeah sure, whatever you say," Tucker replied. Camco-Soft had just released the new Mangler Brother's game for PC and Tucker was too busy mangling to pay attention.

"Tuck, this is serious! There may be a ghost-obsessed sorceress headed this way and I'll need all the eyes I can get!'

"Can't you get Sam to help you with this!"

"I already HAVE asked Sam, Tucker. She already agreed. Who do you want me to go ask, Jazz? Yeah right. She doesn't even know I'm half ghost—she barely BELIEVES in ghosts." Danny didn't want to sound whiny, but he knew he did. And for good reason too, as Tucker was near impossible to carry on a conversation with when some new technology, and the new Mangler Bros had individual bump mapping on each rendered pixel on each cel-shaded voxel of all the normal mapping and lighting effect present on each and every polygon. And it ran at as smooth 120 frames per second to boot.

So, yeah, Tucker was definitely in love with it. "Fine, but if my save game gets corrupted I'm blaming you," Tucker agreed.

With reluctance, Tucker tapped the quicksave key and powered down his computer. In a way, Danny's ghost powers were cooler than any video game. But videogames, unlike Danny's powers, didn't bring back bad memories of being nearly burned to death, attacked by multiple ghosts, and almost becoming a monster because of a casually stated wish that happened to be overheard by a dead harem girl/genie.

"Is there anything I can do?" Tucker asked a few minutes after arriving at the Fenton house.

"You do realize I didn't ask you to actually come over, just to stay alert." Danny told him while polishing the Specter Speeder.

"Oh yeah, right. And I closed down during a download too. Darn it!"

"Tucker, FOCUS!"

"Right." Tucker said, though it was clear his mind began to wander immediately.

"Tucker."

"I'm focusing."

"No, you're not."

Just then, Jack Fenton in his big orange hazmat suit (as usual) walked into the room.

"Danny! I've got some great news! I've figured out who the white-haired ghost boy is!"

"That's a lie; it's not me!" Danny lied.

"Of course it's not you, son, it's Red Hairiiiiiiiiiiinnng…"

The last part was drawn out in a yell, as the oblivious Jack stepped into the bucket of water Danny had previously been using to clean the speeder, and stumbled, slipped, and smashed his way into the hovering speeder. Danny jumped off, but he could do nothing to actually stop the barreling vehicle. And stopping it might have saved Danny a lot of trouble, as it slammed into the control panel for the ghost portal, shorting it out and causing it to open.

Before anyone could say anything, Danny noticed two things: The good news was that his father was unconscious. This was good news only because of the bad news, which was that Johnny 13 and Kitty had burst forth from the portal at almost the instant it had opened.

"See, Kitty," Johnny said, "I told you camping out in front of the portal was a good idea. I knew it would open eventually."

"Um…" Danny just stammered.

And to make matters worse a blue haired gothic punk rocker also stumbled from the portal, seemingly in a hurry to get away from something. "I swear that Klemper is going to drive me insane! And I thought that stupid cowboy Rose was bad…"

Then the rocker named McLean seemed to realize where she was. "Oh," was all she could say.

"Um… Hi?" Danny tried.

The three ghosts glared at him.

"Um… How bout I'm GOING GHOST, then," Danny yelled as the duo of white rings slid around him and transmogrified him from Daniel Fenton, C student, to Danny Phantom, super hero. (This was the reason his dad's concussion was so convenient.)

"Tucker, get out of here. I'll handle these three."

Tucker complied.

"Handle us?" Johnny mocked. "We haven't even done anything wrong yet!"

"'Yet' being the key word." Danny shot back while charging forward.

"Now that you mention it, you do owe me a repair job on my bike." Johnny said as he summoned a green glow. "Shadow, merge."

The dark bad luck specter lashed out, catching Danny across the jaw (apparently, merge meant 'hit the Ghost Boy so he couldn't prevent the merge, and THEN merge', clever, don't you think?) and then melded into Johnny's green aura, which apparently wasn't bright enough to hurt him. The figured produced by this fusion was like Johnny, but with jet-black hair, ashen orbs for eyes—and his clothes were dark as pitch and seemed alive, shimmering with faint traces of movement.

"Now, about that payback," he said as he charged at Danny…

END CHAPTER 2