"So, you gonna play it a little safer now that Valerie, the Ghost Slayer is around?"

"Yep," Danny answered his best friend, Sam. He didn't say more until said Ghost Slayer, who had recently made it her mission to seek out and destroy the ghost she blamed for the most unfortunate week of her life, had passed their lunch table. "Just wish I knew where she got those weapons." He could understand that Val was angry about her dad losing his job and her family losing all their money and most of their possessions, and her losing all of her friends. But since he had been trying to prevent it all, he'd decided it was okay to be annoyed with her; she was making keeping his secret identity secret, not to mention staying alive, a whole lot harder. If she could get her hands on an entire arsenal of ghost-hunting gear overnight that even outdid his professional ghost-hunting parents', who knew what secrets she had? He felt there was something creepy about this whole escapade.

"Or that costume," added his best friend, Tucker. "I mean, she's selling concert tickets to pay for trashed moving trucks. That stuff had to cost something, you know?"

"Maybe there's a Ghost Hunters Only E-Bay that we don't know about," Sam joked.

"Yeah, maybe you should ask your parents about that, Danny," Tucker added.

"My parents build all their own stuff. I mean, who else out there hunts ghosts?"

"What about that tiny bug-like guy with the glowy armor... Skulker?" said Sam.

"Yeah," said Tucker. "Now that was some serious tech. You don't find that stuff on Earth."

"Yeah... wait a minute," Danny started. He'd just thought of something that he couldn't believe he hadn't seen before.

"What?" Sam asked when he didn't finish.

"Valerie's gear: the wrist blasters, the shoulder-backpack cannon, the ectoplasma guns. Haven't we seen that all before?"

"Skulker?" said Tucker.

"What are you getting at?" said Sam, skeptically. "Valerie's only actually seen two ghosts. You don't think she's swapping weapons with..."

"Nah," said Danny. "Nothing like that. It's just... creepy."

"I could check the Internet," said Tucker. "Maybe there really is a Ghost Hunters E-Bay where Skulker gets his gear."

"I already know he designs his own stuff," said Danny. "He just gets his funding from..." He wouldn't have caught himself in time if he hadn't gasped from the idea that just came to him in a flash.

"What did you say?" asked Sam.

"Uh... sorry, what?" Danny replied nervously. Oh, no! What did he just say?!

"Dude, you okay?" asked Tucker.

"No! I mean, sure, I... I... forget I said anything." Please, guys, just forget about it!

"What's wrong?" Sam persisted. "You think of something?"

"I don't know," Danny sighed resignedly, half to himself. "I hope not."

"Huh?" But before Danny had to come up with a cover for Tucker's inquiry, that familiar sensation overcame him. A chill, shivering, and that tingling when you're sure someone's watching you out of the corner of your eye. He was so cold, he could see his breath. For the first and only time, he was grateful that a ghost was nearby.

His friends recognized how he froze in mid-action or sentence like pausing a video whenever he sensed a ghost, and they routinely shut up and looked around the cafeteria with him for anything weird. The only thing that caught Danny's eye was Valerie sitting down at a far table... with a box she had definitely not had before and was apparently trying to hide.

"Be right back guys." Danny wasted no time hiding or transforming but just hoped no one was watching as he took half-a-second to turn intangible and phase down through the floor. He'd have to answer more questions if Tucker and Sam watched him.

It can't be. It's impossible, he thought as he floated over to Valerie. How would he know? And anyway, why? It's not me he's after, right? Aaaah! He held back his scream, but it was a close call. Valerie's mystery package was clearly labeled "TO: Valerie FROM: Vlad". It was way too much to hope that this was some Vlad other than the one he knew.

Danny was halfway back to his table, still flying and still intangible, trying to think of what he could say to change to a safe subject, when the bell rang. He landed and rematerialized in a dark corner and waited until he saw Sam and Tucker leave without him. Good! The shock of his discovery might have caused him to say anything. As much as he appreciated having two sidekicks, he never planned to tell anyone what had happened after the lab accident, until the day he had to save his friends from two ghost octopusses. He couldn't let even his best friends know this secret, the secret about his arch nemesis.

He'd dealt with ghosts who tried to take over his body and take his place in this world, tried to kidnap him to put him in some exotic ghost zoo, even kidnapped his best friend because she was a vegetarian or turned his other friend into a monster that nearly killed him. He just took it all in stride as part of the superhero life, tried to enjoy the excitement, and have a good laugh over it afterwards. Then he met Vlad Plasmius, another human-ghost hybrid with twenty years' more experience and a castle and a few billion dollars to show for it. The one thing his money couldn't buy (besides his favorite football team, the Packers) and he couldn't take, thanks to Danny, was Danny's mother. Apparently, he had a new interest now.

"I should've known all along," Danny scolded himself as he headed for class. He had to talk; he had to let his emotions out or they'd find a way out, like making him phase through the floor or his eyes glow green. "He sent the Ectopusses and all those other ghosts to get my dad. He must have set the whole thing up: that crazy dog, ruining Valerie's life, and pitting her against me. He sure doesn't take no for an answer easily." He remembered only too well being trapped in Vlad's lab a few weeks ago as he proposed taking him on as an evil trainee. "But what's he trying to do? Kill me? He could've done that the first time we fought. But who would go to all this trouble just because they want you to join them? Guess he has nothing better to do with his time or unlimited fortune." Danny groaned as his plight gradually sank in. "So, I have an evil, maniac stalker who's determined to make me join him, spying on everything I do, who knows every move I make. How do I know if any of the ghosts I fight in the future aren't part of his huge conspiracy? Maybe I have got it wrong, and he's given up on having me but not my mom! Yeah, I wish! Oh, man, I cannot handle this!!"

It doesn't long for panic and insanity to take over when one learns that they've become a game piece on the board of the best player of the game. It took every ounce of Danny's willpower to compose himself as he sat through the rest of the day's classes. Every other minute, he looked over his shoulder or to his right or left, but paranoia felt a lot like his ghost sense. His anxiety didn't go unnoticed by everyone.

"Dude, you all right?" Tucker asked him later in study hall.

"I will be," Danny said, and firmly meant it. Now that the shock phase was over, he felt something else, too. He hadn't forgotten how Plasmius had mocked him after he'd kidnapped him. He had stopped saying the battle cry he had labeled "hilarious" because it just made him too angry. If Plasmius was really going to mess with him, he was determined to give him a good run for his money.

"Anything you wanna tell us?" Sam said suspiciously.

"Definitely not," Danny truthfully replied. He told himself he didn't think they'd believe him about meeting a villain who was obsessed with making him his apprentice, or he didn't want to put them in danger, or he couldn't adequately explain his feelings of frustration, fear, and the desire to prove himself. But he honestly couldn't tell them about his arch enemy because he was his arch enemy. Sorry, guys, he thought. This is something I've gotta handle on my own. You couldn't understand what it's like to be someone's hobby. I wonder if this has happened to anyone else before?