All towns have a seedy side, even Amity Park. It's the part of town you don't want to be in after dark, where law enforcement is lacking and law breaking is the norm. Such areas are often home to several abandoned warehouses. It was one such place from which the hum of machinery emanated, sounding very out of place.

Angel carefully set her tools aside and began the painstaking process of repainting Sweetheart's fuel tank. It wasn't the first time her precious bike had been scratched, nor would it be the last. But every time, she repaired it with meticulous care.

"There you go, baby," she said as she finished at last. "Good as new. Well, once the paint dries, at least."

She turned to her helmet and shook her head. That boy had shattered the visor, and her anonymity along with it. She gazed at her faint image in its shiny black surface. Black eyes, black hair, black skin…How long had it been since the last time she had seen her face? How long had it been since anyone had called her November instead of Angel?

She ground her teeth in frustration at the ghost boy's gall. Now, she was thinking again, thinking of who she used to be. He would pay for that. He would pay dearly…

It was starting to grow dark. Night warred with the last remnants of the sunset to create a shadowy world where evil could lurk around every corner. Danny glanced around and turned to float backwards for a while as he scanned the area behind them. "I'm just saying," he said, not for the first time. "Maybe it's not such a good idea to walk around openly like this."

"You want to run, be my guest," Jack responded without even looking around. He held the ordinary bat with the word Fenton on it in a determined grip. He may not have been the smartest man in the world, and maybe that was the cause of this foolhardy vendetta. But whatever it was, he was certainly not going to take this assassination attempt lying down.

Danny huffed and gave up. It was no use talking to Jack Fenton when he had that look in his eyes. "You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything. Hey, I'm just a ghost; what do I know?" He grumbled in that vein for some time.

Jack didn't respond in any way, but inwardly, the rusty cogs of his mind were beginning to turn. The ghost kid reminded him so much of his own Danny; it was eerie. They even looked kind of alike. Someone said once that everyone has their double; that didn't make it any less creepy. They'd even been hurt in the same place, almost as thought they were the same person…

No, that was impossible! Danny was undoubtedly alive, and Phantom was undoubtedly a ghost. No one alive could also be a ghost. Besides, he had seen them both in the same place once. It was nothing more than the world's weirdest set of coincidences ever. He returned his attention to the monologue at hand.

"I mean, it's not like anyone ever appreciates anything I do," Danny was still going on.

"Phantom," Jack interrupted. "You complain too much."

After a moment's silence, Jack sneaked a looked at his temporary ally and found it returned. "You know, you'd complain, too, if every time you tried to help someone, they screamed and ran. Or tried to kill you. Or send you to the Ghost Zone. Or capture you in the Fenton Ghost Weasel." The boy ticked each item off on a white-gloved finger, and looked down at his father again.

The ghost hunter, for his part, stopped walking to look back. Everything in his experience had taught him that ghosts were evil and somewhat dimwitted creatures who delighted in terrifying the living and needed to be sent back to where they came from. If this was an act, then Jazz was right; he was more intelligent than most ghosts. This, of course, led him to wonder if he'd been wrong about everything. "So…ghosts aren't evil?" he asked, both tentative and skeptical.

Danny shrugged. "Nah, most of them are. But some of them…eh heh, us, I mean! Some of us just want to be left alone."

Jack crossed his arms and decided not to debate the ghost boy's terminology. It was bad enough Maddie had convinced him to work with the creature without having to find out exactly how many of his theories were wrong. Instead he walked forward, purposefully forcing the ghost boy to go intangible or move. Danny chose the latter and returned to following his dad.

"Look," he said after a protracted break in the conversation. "If you're going to insist on fighting Angel yourself, you're going to have to trust me a little more. I may need to turn you intangible or something, and I don't want you freaking out or anything."

"Yeah, yeah," Jack answered cantankerously. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "And just so we're clear, you're to stay out of the way."

"Well, I'm not going to do that if you're about to be killed, D-…Jack…"

"What did you try to call me?" Jack demanded, clearly thinking it had almost been an insult, to his son's relief.

"Nothing." He grinned impishly and went intangible to let the bat swing through him. Oh, it was so much fun to be able to torment his dad without getting grounded. The mood became serious again far too quickly.

Up to this point, Jack had been asking people if they had seen a black motorcycle. Most of them had; it was difficult to miss eight cop cars as they sped by in pursuit. Now, however, there were fewer people out, and no one had seen Angel or her entourage go by. Consequently, the two of them were simply walking forward. Danny had offered to fly reconnaissance, but Jack wanted the ghost boy where he could keep an eye on him. Finding Angel had probably been taking longer than it needed to, but that no longer mattered.

She had just found them.

Jack gripped the bat in both hands and set his feet like a baseball player. Danny hovered just above his head and tried to be ready for anything. A block away, Angel sat astride Sweetheart with one foot against the ground. She revved the engine and spared a moment to wonder what the idiot thought he was going to do with a baseball bat against a speeding motorcycle.

"Come on!" Jack baited her. "What are you waiting for?"

She revved the engine again and kicked off the ground as the bike charged forward. Danny shot a blast at the front wheel again, but Angel expected it this time. She swerved expertly and readjusted her course.

Jack shifted his weight slightly; she wasn't heading directly at him. Even he could see that she was daring him to hit her. He smirked, more than happy to oblige. As Angel came into range, he swung. Wood met metal and broke in half.

Angel swerved to face her victims and hefted the black jousting lance she had been hiding. It folded down to be only a foot long and extended to six feet. Impractical for actual jousting, it was nevertheless an effective weapon for a biker to use against foot traffic.

Jack may have been somewhat of an idiot, but he wasn't that stupid. As Angel charged forward, he turned and ran. Danny caught up quickly and lifted his father off the ground just as Angel went by beneath them. "Okay," he said. "Remember that little talk we had about me helping?" Jack grumbled something unintelligible; in the heat of the moment, he had kind of forgotten about the ghost boy.

Behind her helmet, Angel narrowed her eyes. Her mysterious employer had been right about one thing: she was not going to be able to finish off Fenton until she had dealt with Mr. Hero. She idled where she was until they both came back to the ground, then threw her lance at the boy's heart. Unsurprisingly, he became intangible.

"What are you?" she called.

Jack and Danny wore almost identical expressions of incredulity as they looked at each other and back at Angel. "I'm a ghost," he answered dubiously. "Didn't Plasmius tell you anything when he hired you?"

Angel kicked off the ground and circled her victims slowly, like a sheep dog might to keep his wayward herd in line. "I don't believe in ghosts," she confessed. "But you, boy…you're something alright."

"Who the heck is Plasmius?" Jack yelled, feeling woefully out of the loop. "And why do you keep trying to kill me?"

"For two billion dollars," Angel answered. "I was hired to kill you and stop Phantom by any means necessary. And I've never failed a job." With that, she charged forward again, fully expecting the ghost boy to make the two of them intangible. In one swift movement, she swerved the bike and snagged her lance. Now facing them again, she threw her weapon just as the boy went tangible again. He cried out as it struck and knocked him to the ground.

"Enjoy your last moments, Jack Fenton!" Angel yelled.

Danny yanked out the lance. It wasn't a bad wound; it had caught him just above his white belt, which meant it had barely grazed him. It didn't even hurt anymore. He grinned a bit evilly that Angel had fallen for his trick. As the biker charged forward again, Danny fazed through his dad to meet her head on. She wasn't expecting it.

Jack walked cautiously up behind a very concerned ghost boy. He hadn't seen much of what happened since he had cringed and looked away. He was honestly surprised to be standing here now. He was even more surprised that a ghost was actually showing concern for the person who had just tried to kill them. Or whatever it would have done to a ghost. "Is she dead?" he asked quietly.

Sweetheart had flipped over backwards when it smashed into Danny's ectoplasmically charged fists. It had landed on top of Angel, who hadn't really moved since. Danny was saved from having to go into angst at having killed someone when she slowly pulled herself out from under the bike. Visibly relieved, he answered, "No."

A siren signaled the arrival of the local constabulary and two cop cars pulled to a stop. "Well, I guess that's that," Danny said happily. He gave his dad an ironic salute and shot into the sky.

"Hey!" Jack yelled after him. "Hey, you! I'm not through with you yet! Get back here!"

Angel watched in a slight daze as one of the policemen tried to get Jack to calm down and get a statement while two others walked towards her, guns drawn. She put her hands in the air slowly and let them arrest her. She was too hurt to fight back right now. Well, it wasn't the first time she'd ever been arrested, but she hated it every time. She glared daggers at her target through her cracked visor. He thought this was over.

She smirked.

A/N: Random, nah. You just made me remember that I've been meaning to ask. And Faith, thankies! This all started as a way for me to force myself to write something every day, and consequently, I post something every day. It's tough to do, too, but I love it.

Oh, everyone! I'm writing a crossover. It's really painful for me because I despise them, but Hermes made me do it. Eh...you'll see. What I'm trying to say is, I'll be posting it no matter if anyone is interested in reading it, but would you guys be interested? You wouldn't have to know the source material for its other half because I explain everything, so it would be like reading any of my other stories. Except the rating would probably go up. I dunno yet; so far it's not turning out as dark as I expected it would. Anyway...