Chapter Four

The sun went down slowly; before it, the ruined city appeared to be in flames. It chillingly reminded Phantom of Pandora. His Amity Park had looked a lot like this one when she attacked. He dropped his chin onto his fist and sighed. He was starting to get homesick.

This place was so much like home, yet so different. When he tried to think about it, it made him dizzy. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his parents, his Jazz, his Sam and Tucker. This place…as Kat would have said, the actors were the same, but the play was different.

That, of course, brought up a question he had been avoiding. Why was this Kat evil, and what did it mean for his? He was more than happy to be distracted by the sound of a window opening.

"Hey, are you okay?" Danny asked, finally having found the ghost boy sitting on the roof above his bedroom window. When his initial question prompted no response, he leaned on the windowsill and continued. "Jazz and Dad were talking about you earlier. I think she's kind of warming up to you." He glanced upward again, but there was still no visible sign that Phantom was paying attention. "Um…so how's the view?" he tried to joke.

Phantom half-smiled. "I've seen worse."

"This is pretty normal for you, huh?" Danny remarked. "Having weird things happen, I mean."

The ghost boy sank through the roof to join his double by the window. "Well, not this weird," he confessed.

"I heard Dad telling Jazz it would be pretty dangerous."

"Nah, Pariah'll be easy to beat once the ecto-skeleton is running."

"I meant using the ecto-skeleton…"

Phantom had been pointedly not thinking about that. Finally, he shrugged and said, "Your dad's more competent than mine. I should be fine."

They shared a grin and stared quietly at the window until Phantom remembered something he had been wondering earlier. "Hey, where is Plasmius here? Why isn't he around?"

Danny shrugged. "No one's seen him since Mom…uh, he just sort of vanished."

He wasn't taking his mother's death well. After close to two months, he was still waiting for her to come back, and Phantom didn't want to point out that she might not. Instead, he let the subject drop completely.

"Must be pretty cool to have ghost powers," Danny said suddenly.

Phantom smiled. For some reason, their conversations kept coming back to this point. He had the strangest feeling that the boy was plotting something, but that was none of his business. "Why don't we go see how your dad's coming along?" he suggested.

"Can we go through the floor?"

Laughing, the ghost boy carried his double straight down through the house to the lab. That was another thing he had noticed the past couple of days. It was as though Danny was trying to get used to how ghost powers felt when used on him. The boy had been drilling Phantom almost relentlessly about how his powers worked, seeming especially interested in what it had been like when he first got his powers. Jack and Jazz had questioned him extensively on the subject, as well, but theirs had been an academic interest. Danny's was more personal.

Down in the lab, the Ghost Portal was closed for the day. There were tools and such strewn across every available surface while Jack worked tirelessly on the Fenton Ecto-Skeleton. Jazz had left some time earlier to go on her rounds and make sure all the communities had enough supplies.

"Danny, just in time," Jack said, glancing over his shoulder. "Go try to raise your sister."

Phantom watched the boy run upstairs. "Why do you keep the radio in the kitchen?" he asked.

Jack gestured at the lab in general with a drill. "Too much interference down here. Can you get that welder?" Once he had it in hand, he sighed and said, "You know I'm not sure this will work, right?"

"It'll work," the ghost boy replied firmly.

"You know, I still don't know that I believe all this alternate reality stuff, but…" He stopped and turned to regard Phantom, then shook his head. "If it's an act, it's a good one."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that, so they both grew silent. Phantom hovered and stared at the closed Ghost Portal for a while. "Why do you keep opening it?" he asked at last.

Jack took a moment to figure out what he was talking about. "You mean, why are we still waiting for Maddie to come back?" He thought for a few minutes. The truth was that there was no reason. It had become simple habit to wait for Maddie to come home. Danny was the only one who still believed she would. "For Danny," he responded at last. "Our Danny. He blames himself."

"I noticed. What happened?"

"It was during one of his attacks, back when he and Fright Knight still considered us a threat. We didn't know about Vlad being a ghost yet; that's when we found out. He decided to kidnap Danny to get to Maddie or something like that. She was trying to save him when Pariah showed up."

He didn't finish his narrative, but Phantom could fill in the blanks. Maddie tried to save Danny from Pariah and was killed. Vlad disappeared, then; maybe he was distraught. Danny blamed himself. Doubtless, he thought that if he hadn't been weak, his mother would still be alive.

The subject of their discussion came bounding down the stairs. "Jazz had to deal with a couple ghosts. She's fine, but the Assault Vehicle broke down, so she needs some help."

Jack muttered something not very nice about ghosts in general. "Can you two go? I want to get this thing finished tonight."

Danny grinned happily at the idea of flying through the air again; it had quickly become his favorite pastime. He grabbed his plasma rifle, and the two boys set off. Although the weather was unseasonably hot, it was rather chill at their altitude. Below, a few ghosts wandered aimlessly through the empty streets. Danny sniped at them and laughed.

"Man, this is cool!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah," Phantom agreed. "I think this is my favorite power. Although invisibility comes pretty close."

"That would be awesome, to sneak into the girl's locker room!" He sniped a few more ghosts, then realized that his companion was very pointedly not saying anything. "You've done that?"

"I plead the fifth."

Danny shook his head. "All right, fine. But only because Jazz is down there."

Phantom snickered. He angled their descent to land next to Jazz and stood guard while the two of them worked on the RV. It was very quiet, enough to make him nervous. He heard Jazz and Danny chatting behind him, but didn't pay much attention. Actually, he didn't pay attention to much of anything; he knew his ghost sense would warn him if any ghosts got too close.

A sudden rumbling heralded the repair of the Fenton RV; he had expected it to take longer. As he started to turn, he heard Jazz yell at Danny to get out of the way, and became intangible just in time for the RV to charge through him. "Everyone okay?" he called.

"Yeah, we're fine," Jazz replied breathlessly. "At least, now I know what was wrong with it."

The RV's engine growled menacingly as it got turned around. "You really think you can protect them, ghost boy?" came Electra's voice from sound system.

Kat could possess machinery; Phantom filed that bit of info away and rushed to his friends' aid. As the RV accelerated again, he made the three of them intangible, then carried them onto a low roof. "Uh…stay," he said and rushed off without waiting for a response. "Why are you doing this?" he yelled to the rampaging vehicle.

"Are you kidding?" Electra called back. "This thing is nice! I might have to move in!"

"I meant, why are you attacking me? Why are you evil?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" A weapon rose out of the roof and began firing lightning at the ghost boy. He dove and dodged for a few minutes, then went intangible and flew through the RV. He had done this to overshadowed people on occasion. Normally, he was able to knock the ghost out; today was no exception. Electra was hurled from the RV so hard that she bounced a few times on impact with the ground. She manifested her cane and twirled it like a baton as Phantom joined her. "Well, bugger!" she announced jovially.

"Fine!" the ghost boy exclaimed. "If you want to fight me, then fight me. But leave them out of it."

Electra regarded the tip of her cane and smirked knowingly. "So that's your weakness, is it? Compassion?" She pointed her cane and shot a bolt of blue lightning at overhang Danny and Jazz were hiding on. Phantom abandoned the fight to make sure they were okay. Jazz seemed fine, but Danny's leg was at an unnatural angle.

"He's unconscious," Jazz informed him. "And a good thing, too. This looks like a pretty bad break."

"Round three is mine, ghost boy!" Electra called. "Tend to your human pet. We will meet again; count on it!"