A flock of birds rose suddenly into the sky amid the raucous sound of terrified chirping. The black and white blur that had startled them twisted around slightly to fire a beam of green energy at the heavily armored ghost in hot pursuit. Skulker dodged the blast and returned with one of his own. "Give it up, whelp!" the Ghost Zone's greater hunter called out. "We both know you can't run forever!"

"Maybe I'm not trying to!" Danny yelled back. It was an idea he had gotten one day when he had been teleported to an alternate reality. Granted, he had been fighting the alternate version of Kat at the time, but it made sense that a powerful enough shock would disable Skulker's ecto-skeleton.

He saw the power station ahead and grinned rakishly. All he had to do was get Skulker in there and-

"Leave my brother alone, you big meanie!" squealed Fiona suddenly. Danny groaned and turned to see the ghost girl swoop down from the sky and crash into Skulker. They both went down hard, but she was the first to recover.

"Fiona, get out of here!" the ghost boy ordered. "I've got everything under control."

Skulker pulled himself to his feet and checked his wrist unit. He stared at in confusion, tapped on it a few times, then muttered something about how it couldn't have been broken. Fiona took that moment to hit him with an ectoplasmic energy blast that actually blew a sparking hole in the middle of his armor. She followed right behind it with a body slam that threw him to the ground. Danny rolled his eyes and pulled Skulker into the Fenton Thermos. Before he could say anything, Fiona squealed delightedly, "We make such a great team!"

"I could have handled that myself," Danny grumbled.

"Well, of course, you could have!" was the almost condescending reply. "But I'm here now, so you don't have to be by yourself anymore! I'll help you a lot more than Kat ever did!"

It was true that Kat refused to help Danny fight ghosts. At first, she had claimed that she was a pacifist. When Danny had finally confronted her about the obvious lie, she had confessed the real reason. "You're almost one of a kind, Phantom," she had said. "And there will come a day when you have no one but yourself to depend on. Not your friends; not your family. I know it's depressing, but there it is. If I help you with the little things, I'm taking away your ability to handle the big things on your own. I'm not going to do that to you because I'm your friend. But don't ever think that means I won't be there if you need me."

It was a good reason, and one the boy had decided to accept. He didn't quite get it exactly, but he accepted it. Rather than argue the point, however, he slung the Fenton Thermos over his shoulder and headed for home. The less time he spent talking to that leech, the better. He paid absolutely no attention to her as she flew next to him, jabbering on endlessly.

The trip back to Fenton Works seemed to take about twice as long as it actually did, but they eventually made it. Danny released the irate Skulker back into the Ghost Zone and momentarily considered doing the same to Fiona as they both became human again. She followed him upstairs and out the front door.

All he wanted out of life was for the girl to get out of it. Was that really so much to ask for? His friends weren't even his friends, anymore; they were Fiona's. The only time anyone noticed him anymore was when he was around her. The rest of the time, they ignored him. It wasn't even like a conscious decision, either. It was like they couldn't acknowledge him.

"What do you want?" Danny sighed.

"Just to be with you," Fiona answered, perplexed. "To be your sister."

"You're not my sister."

She pouted like a child might, her bottom lip thrust out in what was supposed to have been a cute manner. "Of course, I am." She might have gone on, but something caught her attention. She froze, and for a fraction of a second, Danny thought she looked like a rabbit. He followed her gaze to see the dark haired woman from the day before sitting behind the glass window of a little café. She was scribbling furiously on something, probably one of those papers she had lost.

Fiona took a few steps back, then said a hasty farewell and went quickly back the way they had come. Danny watched her go, then turned back to the woman again, trying to figure out what had his twin so spooked. He spent a few seconds wondering if it would be a good idea to go over there or not, then dashed across the street and slipped inside. She was muttering to herself, something about a badly contrived coincidence. As he crept up behind her, he was able to see a little of what she wrote. It said something about some kind of creature, but she shoved it into her little bag before he could see more.

"Uh…hi," he said, grinning nervously. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

The woman ducked her head shyly, her face the color of a ripe tomato. "Oh, n-n-no," she stammered. "I was…uh…j-just leaving…" She smiled slightly as she stumbled out of the chair and practically fled the establishment. Danny shook his head, amused. The lady acted like she was talking to some kind of celebrity. She couldn't have been what scared Fiona. He glanced back at the table and noticed that the woman had left one of her papers behind. He picked it up, intending to chase after her and give it back, but curiosity made him look at it first.

It was an ordinary sheet of notebook paper that had been covered in swirls, doodles, and random lines. What little text there was consisted of a grocery list, some nonsensical math equations, and the words, "The M.o.C. escaped. Don't forget to chase after it."

"M.o.C.?" he muttered. After a moment's hesitation, he folded the paper and shoved it into a pocket, then left for the cemetery. Maybe Kat would know what it was. For once, however, she was nowhere to be found. Danny went into ghost mode and flew circles around the cemetery until he was sure she wasn't just hiding.

It was too early for the bars open, and her grocery store would already be closed. He considered chasing her down, but went home instead. It was almost time for dinner, and there was a vague chance that he might be missed. He doubted it, but there was a chance.

High above the city, he closed his eyes and drifted at a leisurely pace. It was always so peaceful in the sky, a welcome change from his home life of late. He scoffed as it occurred to him that he could have walked into the kitchen and changed back, and his parents still wouldn't have given him more than a passing glance. He had to get rid of Fiona, but how?

Worse, what if things didn't go back to normal after she was gone?

He sighed as his house came into view. That was a chance he would have to take. Nothing would get better as long as she was still around.

At home, his entire family plus the interloper were sitting in the living room in front of a muted television. So intent were they on Fiona's lies that they barely acknowledged his presence. He ran upstairs to his room and closed the door, then flopped onto the bed to stare at the ceiling, trying to figure out what M.o.C. might mean.

He didn't know why it was eating at him so much, except that Fiona had been scared of something in the vicinity of that woman. The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Almost like…

"Like a badly contrived coincidence," he whispered.