Danny sat with his chin propped against his fist and his pencil floating the barest fraction of an inch above his desk. He wasn't having a good day. Ever since he got back from Baltimore, his "fainting spells" had become slightly more frequent. He had managed some level of control, but he still found himself walking out of his body from time to time. One such time had happened earlier, and Dash had taken great pains to ridicule him for it.

They didn't know what happened. They didn't know what was going on. Normally, Danny would simply have grumbled angrily and walked away. He got as far as the angry grumbling when his telekinesis decided to throw Dash several feet. Fortunately, the jock had suffered little more than a pronounced bump on the back of his skull as he had landed on top of Kwan. Everyone thought a ghost had been responsible.

They didn't know how right they were.

The end bell rang; Danny sat where he was until his friend Sam leaned over and said, "Are you okay? It's time to go."

"Yeah," he answered vaguely, standing. "I'm just…not all here, I guess." He made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. Outside of his family, Sam and Tucker were the only people who knew about Baltimore and what had happened there. They chatted quietly as they walked beside him, waiting patiently for him to join in the conversation. They were good friends, the best-

Tucker nudged him lightly. "Hey, man. You're broadcasting again."

Danny paled and glanced around. "I don't think anyone else heard you," Sam reassured him. "But thanks!"

"I really got to watch that," the boy muttered, laughing slightly. He'd had to alter four people's memories already because he accidentally thought too loudly. It was a very useful skill to have, the power of suggestion. It was also an addictive one, so he used it sparingly. Or tried to, at least. Sometimes he used it without even realizing it.

But it was so nice to be able to get out of having detention. "So you guys want to go to the mall?" he asked in an attempt to steer away from that train of thought. Happy to see their friend in slightly better spirits, the two readily agreed.

The mall was filled with people as usual for a Friday afternoon. They bustled about, taking full advantage of the heated interior as they did their shopping or simply socialized. It was the perfect atmosphere for a distraction-hunting ghost boy.

"Okay," Sam began as they walked out of the movie theater. "Zombie Rodents from Planet X was definitely not worth the ten bucks."

"I don't think it was worth ten cents," Tucker agreed.

Danny snickered quietly. "I don't know. I think the part where those guys were running from the rabbit was kind of funny."

Sam pretended to seriously consider that for a moment. "Yeah, I'd pay a quarter for that scene, but the rest was just bad."

"Well, we probably should have expected it," Tucker pointed out. "The title just screams 'B-grade horror'."

Suddenly, Danny gasped as a chill passed through him that turned his breath into fog. It was almost a shock; his ghost sense hadn't gone off since his family left for Baltimore. Sam rolled her eyes and said dryly, "And that just screams 'ghost'."

With an irritated huff, the ghost boy took his Fenton Thermos from Tucker and ducked behind a large fern. A blue flash of light later, Danny Phantom flew through the fern, following the sounds of terrified shoppers until he found the disturbance. Although he would have denied it unto his grave if asked, he was overjoyed to see the familiar visage of Technus. It was a nice contrast to the waking nightmare of Baltimore.

"I am Technus 2.0!" the gremlin announced to anyone who might have been paying attention. "Ruler of all things robotic!"

He had not yet acquired an assortment of machines to act as his host, so was still in his ghostly form. He hovered a few feet above the floor outside a Radio Shack, a small army of mechanical pets arranged beneath him. Danny clamped his hands over his mouth to stifle his laughter; his opponent was not amused. "I was wondering if you ever coming back," he said. "Now, I can defeat you at last! Go, my Robo Raptors!"

"Dude, they're just toys," Danny scoffed. As if to disprove this, one of them opened its mouth and fired some kind of ecto-powered laser at him. He yelped and rubbed his arm.

"Not anymore, ghost child! I, Technus, have improved them, so that they may march on the unsuspecting humans and-" He broke off with an annoyed grumble as he realized he was once again shouting out his evil plot.

Same old Technus. It really was refreshing. Danny hoped the store owner wouldn't be too mad as he blasted the army of toys into plastic bits and turned back to his enemy. Technus glared angrily and started to speak, then changed his mind and fled as the ghost boy pulled out the Fenton Thermos.

Angel sat in the parking lot, eyes fixed on the entrance Danny and his friends had gone through. Her patience was not limitless, unfortunately, and she was afraid she had missed them on one of her many drives around the mall. She was just considering giving it up as a bad job when her quarry came hurtling out of the building pursued by something that looked like a Pontiac Firebird might if it had been melded with several televisions, an entertainment system, some DVD players, and an X-Box 360 or two. The automotive lover in her head cried out in anger at the desecration of a perfectly beautiful, if somewhat worthless until customized, racer.

She used to have a Firebird. It was red. She'd stolen it from Roho and kept it for about a week until she blew it up on his front porch. That was a nice car. Not as good as her Sweetheart, of course, but-

Little too close!

She kicked against the ground and sped off just as an errant energy blast struck the pavement. Phantom saw her, not that she cared. He was otherwise occupied, and if he chose to start a fight once he finished, she would be more than happy to oblige. She was getting bored waiting and stalking.

Danny noticed the biker in black, but it didn't click right off. He was a little too preoccupied. The battle would have been going much more smoothly if the mall hadn't put that car on display. It was for a charity auction or something. Technus hadn't actually given him a chance to read the sign.

"So what's your plan this time?" he called. "Taking over the world with mechanical toys?"

"No!" Technus protested. There was a pause, then, "It was, but now I have to think of a new one."

Danny rolled his eyes and dodged a blast to return with one of his own, and they sparred for a long time. It was cathartic, almost. He had never noticed how goofy the "Master of Technology" really was before, and couldn't help but grin.

"Hey!" the object of his train of thought protested. "I am not goofy!"

Oops.

The monitor screens flickered slightly and Technus froze. "Running low on power?" Danny asked, the picture of innocence.

In response, Technus abandoned his hastily constructed host and swung his charged energy staff at the boy. Danny cried out as several hundred volts charged through him. "We'll finish this later, ghost child," the older ghost informed him as he fled.

Danny rubbed his side, a peeved expression on face. He knew he should go after Technus, but he had told his parents he would be home right after the movie. Any other day, he might have followed his opponent anyway, but Jack and Maddie had taken to overreacting to his absences ever since…

"I'm doing it again, aren't I?"

"Yep," affirmed Sam as she and Tucker walked up behind him.

He sighed, though more in irritation than angst for a change. "I'll see you guys later."

They said their goodbyes and watched him fly away. "It's good to see him looking better," Tucker said.

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Who'd've thought Technus would actually be good for something?" They left together, neither paying much attention to the black Harley that sped across the parking lot ahead of them.

Danny trotted up the stairs to his room, grateful that no one else was home. Jack and Maddie would ply him with questions about his day while Jazz tried to convince him to talk about everything that bothered him. He just wasn't in the mood. Finally, he felt a little better, more like a human and less like a spectral ball of angst.

On the other hand, he seemed to have developed something of an aversion to being alone, and the lack of people in the house actually made him feel claustrophobic. He wanted everyone to go away, but the second they did, he wanted them to come back. It was a really weird feeling that, happily, only hit him every once in a while.

After a moment's hesitation, he curled up on his bed and closed his eyes. With any luck, his parents would simply accept that he was sleeping and not try to wake him. It wasn't the first time he had done this on purpose, but it would be the first that he had gone any farther than the walls of his room.

The world turned a blurry, shimmering sepia, like a very old photograph that had yellowed with age. He looked around his room and took a steadying breath, for all the good it did without lungs. It was almost like trying to move around under water. He spared a glance for his immobile body lying on the bed, then plunged through the door and left the house.

He found his quarry at the mausoleum in the middle of the cemetery, grumbling about something. Hey, Kat, he called.

She flinched and looked around, blinking owlishly in his direction. "Ah, geez…" she breathed, turning away again. "Do me a favor and don't talk in my head, please. When did you learn that, anyway?"

A few days ago, he answered, shrugging. And I can't really help it like this.

She froze and turned back around, then blinked and squinted at him. "Oh, for the love of evil," she moaned, though with an impish glint in her eyes. "You can go invisible and intangible at will. What do you need astral projection for?"

Well, I didn't ask for it. But I was hoping you could give me a few pointers on not using it.

They stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Kat nodded vaguely, then started laughing and shook her head. "And Dad says you're completely brain dead. Okay, Phantom. Ask. You know you want to."

Right… He gave her an odd look, clearly not understanding what she meant. I was just kind of hoping you might know someone else with this power who could teach me how to control it.

The girl closed her eyes and removed her top hat in a gesture of mourning. "Then again, maybe he's right," she said quietly. "Dear, the best advice I can offer is to just use it until you get it. And don't stay out of your body for more than an hour or so or it hurts like…well, like a word I'm not going to say around your virgin ears…to get back. Now, if you mind, I have work to do."

What kind of work?

"I lost a bet."

What bet?

Kat snickered quietly. "You remember Ghost Writer, don't you?" She laughed at his response. "I'll take that as a yes. We bet that Dad couldn't fix his keyboard."

Danny thought about that for a moment. And he didn't?

"No, he did."

The boy thought about for a moment longer. You bet against your dad?

Kat raised her arms in a gesture that was half shrug and half defeat. "It seemed the safest bet." Then, as an afterthought, she added, "I still say it's going to blow up later, though."

She vanished in blue smoke without another word, leaving Danny to make his way home in considerably brighter spirits.