Danny sighed miserably. He didn't like keeping secrets from his friends, especially when they knew his biggest one. Still, he found himself wishing that he had not told them about the previous night's adventure. "I wasn't in any danger," he tried to reiterate.
His friends fixed him with the combined force of their glares. They were clearly unconvinced, not that he could blame them. He had trouble convincing himself. After a few moments, Tucker asked, "Well, did you figure out how many of them there are?"
Danny scoffed. "Yeah, way too many. I don't what I'm going to do if they decide to attack."
"You could always let the Paranormal Society handle it," Sam pointed out. "That is why they're here."
He looked around the Nasty Burger simply to avoid their eyes. It was on his tongue to tell them exactly why he didn't trust the men from the PS, how their former head had been both directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of countless people. He had just decided to change the subject instead when his ghost sense changed it for him. "Ah, not now," he groaned.
"Where's the ghost?" Tucker asked. He was saved from having to look by a loud crash as a human body flew through a window. Screaming naturally ensued.
"Where's Danny?" Sam demanded.
The techno geek spotted him first. "Where do you think?" He gestured toward where a black and white blur was about to engage something that looked like it might have been an alligator at one time.
It roared and lashed its tail and nearly took out a few more of the PS members that had come to stop it. It lunged upward to snap at Danny as he plowed into it right behind its head. It was probably a good thing that he never realized how close he came to being snapped in half like a twig. "What are you supposed to be?" he mocked, backing away. "A reject from 'The Crocodile Hunter'?" The thing roared again and whipped around to snap at him; again, its teeth closed on open air.
Someone yelled, "It's the ghost kid!"
Someone else yelled, "It's Inviso-Bill!"
Danny rolled his eyes. "It's Danny Phantom!" he yelled back. Then there was only time to dodge energy blasts from the various ecto-weaponry while not getting ravaged by a mad alligator.
One of the hunters lassoed the creature with some kind of glowing cord. After a moment, it vanished to a chorus of cussing. Danny took the temporary respite to wonder what had happened. He thought they had caught it, but they acted like it had gotten away. The attack almost started again, then came to an abrupt halt as a scream split the air.
"Danny!"
And a painfully familiar accent drawled, "Danny! Oh, Danny! Mercy, boy, save me!"
"Put her down!" The boy hovered uncertainly, hesitant to move forward lest the Ghost Master hurt Sam, but hesitant to do nothing.
Suddenly, a blast of green energy hit the ghost from behind. Danny lunged forward to catch his friend and set her safely on the ground. "Guys, get out of here," he ordered quietly. Finally in agreement, Tucker dragged Sam away.
"Stay out of this, Fenton!" someone from the PS was yelling. Ghost Master was nowhere to be found, but Jack and Maddie had arrived. Danny shook his head and wondered at how life had gotten so confusing so quickly.
"You take care of that haunting team," Maddie returned. "The ghost boy is our responsibility."
"Then why's he still walking around?"
"Um…floating…" Danny corrected him. He was subsequently ignored, which seemed very strange. His ghost sense continued to go off, but he didn't see anything. Additionally, even Jack had failed to notice his comment. He was beginning to get a little worried.
"Don't worry, little half ghost," laughed a source-less voice. "Why don't you come with me and let us explain?"
"I don't need you to explain anything," he answered, still looking for the speaker. "You're ghosts, and you've attacked humans."
She laughed again and materialized barely a foot from his face, eliciting a startled gasp. "You're very young, aren't you? Haunters aren't like rogue ghosts, little boy. We feed off fear; injuring mortals is counterproductive."
"Is that supposed to make a difference to me?"
She narrowed her eyes, and just for a moment, her breathtaking features were replaced by something horrible and unspeakable. Then she smiled, if coldly, and the moment was gone. "You are very strange, aren't you, little boy? Fine. But when you grow tired of the mortals, come back and see me."
The apparent gypsy vanished. After a moment, the Paranormal Society noticed Danny was still there and began firing. He had just enough time to see both Maddie and Jack protesting before they were all out of sight again.
The Fenton household was unusually tense. Jazz had finally left for the library to get away, but Danny had stayed behind, ostensibly in case he needed help with his homework. In reality, he needed an explanation that he couldn't ask for. He sat at the kitchen table and tried to concentrate on math and his parents simultaneously.
"Acting like we're not completely competent…" Jack grumbled, the irony lost on him.
Danny glanced up to see his mother hide a smile. "Jack, dear," she sighed. "Why don't you go for a drive until you cool down? Maybe you'll find a ghost."
He seemed to perk up a bit at that, so the boy added, "Yeah, I heard there's one that hangs out in the graveyard this time of day."
"I'll get the weapons!" Jack announced, his usual overly-boisterous self once again. Danny snickered at the thought of unleashing his father on Kat. She certainly deserved it for telling it the whole school that Danny Phantom had a boyfriend.
A few minutes later, Maddie laughed quietly. "Your father…Well, hopefully, he'll stay out of trouble."
"Sure you don't want to go with him?"
She shook her head and sat down. "The only ghosts out there right now are those haunters. I just hope he doesn't try to go after them. The PS' last count had twenty of them."
Danny cringed but took the proffered opening. "What's a haunter?"
His mother gave him a rather curious expression before answering. "They're relatively weak ghosts alone; that's why they work in teams. Together, they can pool their powers and abilities to come up with some pretty spectacular haunts." She leaned back slightly, a wistful smile playing across her lips.
"Your father and I, for our honeymoon, went to this adorable little bed and breakfast in Missouri. It had about five haunters that everyone thought were murder victims from its seedy history. The owner almost threw us out when we told him we would catch them. Since they weren't hurting anyone, we went ahead and let them stay. Of course, we still keep an eye on them from time to time."
The boy thought about that for a few minutes. "So…they're not evil?"
"Oh, honey, they're ghosts," Maddie laughed. "They're naturally obsessive and selfish, and probably very evil. But they're not usually dangerous, no."
"Then why is the PS hunting them down?"
She shrugged. "The same reason we do, I imagine." She stood again, heralding an end to the conversation, but Danny had one last question.
"What's a ghost master?"
Maddie froze, and for a moment, he thought he had asked the wrong thing. Then she relaxed slightly and turned back. "A kind of wight, I believe. They lead haunting teams. We've encountered so few of them, I don't quite remember everything. Your father has some books on the subject down in the lab. You should look through them, if you're interested."
The phone rang. Danny stayed where he was until his mother went running through the house to the front door, probably to go rescue her husband. After some deliberation, he went downstairs to look through the Fenton Ghost Library.