Danny was close to falling asleep in his cereal bowl when his ghost sense alerted him to the little green disturbance. Skulker didn't seem to be very good at being invisible, at least to other ghosts. The humans didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. He was just debating whether or not he wanted to move when his ghost sense went off a second time, followed closely by the Fenton Ghost Finder.
Jack, naturally, had jumped to his feet and grabbed the nearest weapon to hand, then went charging into the lab. Danny noticed his mother's eyes flick in his direction, but his brain was too sleep-fuddled to dwell on it. Even the nanobots had trouble getting started again.
Grumbling, Jack returned to the table and dropped into his chair and proceeded to stare thoughtfully into his breakfast. "Hey…Maddie?" he began slowly. "Did you notice the ghost kid looked different yesterday?"
Danny repressed a grin; he knew where that was headed.
"No, dear," Maddie replied, giving her husband a somewhat puzzled look.
"Yeah, neither did I. But that was him down in the lab, and he was all white for some reason."
Danny ducked his head a little more, desperately trying not to laugh. "I better get to school," he choked out, fleeing the table.
Jazz narrowed her eyes slightly and stared after him. "Um, I'd better drive him. Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad." She gave her parents a quick kiss on the cheek and raced after her brother.
"Huh!" Jack shook his head and sighed. "These kids. Always in a hurry.
Maddie made a noncommittal noise, staring between her children's path of retreat and the stairs to the lab. Maybe she should talk to Danny, she thought. She hated being left out of that part of his life.
"So…you're Skulker." Shade's eyes may have been on the computer screen, but his attention was focused on the little ghost that sat on top of it. He found it rather difficult to believe that such a weak little thing was the force behind one of his strongest enemies.
"Yes," Skulker sighed, once again. He wanted nothing more than to blast the boy into next Tuesday, and the fact that he couldn't even convince Shade to shut up about it grated on his nerves. He hated it when people found out about his true form; it always led to discussions just like this one. It had quickly gotten to the point where simply being out of his ecto-skeleton automatically put him on edge.
Shade tried to repress a grin as he glanced up. "You are?"
"Yes! I am!" He huffed in exasperation and shook his head. "Are you sure you're the ghost child's alternate?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Skulker opened his mouth to respond, more than happy to argue the point since he couldn't fight it out, but a knock at the door effectively silenced him. The two ghosts became invisible as Maddie's voice called softly out, and the door crept open. "Danny, are you in here?" she asked, looking around.
There was nothing to see, and she narrowed her eyes. It was a little past noon, and her son shouldn't have been home. On the other hand, she was certain she'd heard his voice, in which case, he was in big trouble. Principle Ishyama should have called if he wasn't at school, but maybe the woman didn't know. She was wondering if she'd been mistaken when she noticed the slight tilt of his desk chair, as though someone was sitting in it.
How ominous?
Maddie strode forward and saw the chair right itself ever so slightly. Repressing a grin, she sighed theatrically. "Well, since Danny's not here, I suppose I'll just have to sit down in this chair."
There was a faint creak and a muffled thump as the ghost boy became intangible and hit the floor. True to her threat, she sat down and swiveled the chair to watch mysterious hand- and footprints appear in the carpet. She thought she heard smothered laughter behind her, but she wasn't worried about the other ghost. After a few minutes of staring in the general vicinity of the boy's head, a squeaky little voice said, "She knows you're there, pup."
Shade sighed and materialized in his ghost form, hands in the air and grinning nervously. "I didn't do it."
Maddie chuckled and turned back to see the little ghost attempting to stand impressively on the computer monitor. He didn't succeed very well. "And who are you?"
"I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter," he proclaimed proudly, earning a raised eyebrow.
"You are?"
Skulker rolled his eyes. "Don't start…" he grumbled quietly. There was a faint whine, and a beam of light dragged him, complaining loudly, into the Fenton Thermos.
"Don't mind him," Shade said apologetically. He had a longing look in his that Maddie couldn't place the reason for, although she had her suspicions. Settling on a safe topic, she gestured at his outfit. Having forgotten her husband's comment from breakfast, she didn't immediately realize that she wasn't dealing with her Danny.
"I think black looked a little better," she began the conversation.
Shade switched to mild puzzlement and shrugged. "I get that a lot."
The woman wondered at his bare hands and feet, toyed with the thought of just letting it go and leaving, then lowered her head and took a steadying breath. "Danny, we need to talk."
The atmosphere became perceptibly cooler in response to his barely-contained discomfort. "Um…"
"I know what happened," Maddie went on, charging ahead before she could lose her nerve. "I know about the accident, and I know about all the ghosts you have to fight."
"I'm not…Danny," Shade interrupted. The room temperature continued to drop.
"Don't lie to me." Maddie spared a brief moment for the feeling of déjà vu. It seemed like only yesterday she said that very thing to him while they huddled in an alley in Baltimore. "I've known for a long time."
"But I'm not-"
"Danny, I don't hate you!" she cut him off almost desperately. "I just want to help!"
"Mom!" Shade bit his lip. He knew the room must have been like ice because he could see Maddie's breath. Forcing himself to calm down, he continued. "Maddie, I'm not your Danny." There was a pause while she processed the emphasis. "They call me Shade."
There was a longer pause. "Where's Danny?" Maddie all but growled.
The temperature plunged again, this time out of fear. "School!" Shade exclaimed. He took a few steps back, the better to cower.
The ghost hunter/enraged mother drew a weapon at random to point at him while she picked up the phone. "You had just better be telling the truth, ghost!"
Shade gulped as he stared down the barrel of an ecto-pistol, not paying much attention to the audible half of the conversation. He saw the barrel start to shake slightly and knew he needed to regain control before his powers started to go haywire, but he was far too scared to focus. What if Danny wasn't there after all? He couldn't defend himself; not against her. He jumped as something clicked, but it was only the phone. The weapon moved out of his field of vision.
"All right," Maddie said through chattering teeth. She wrapped her arms around herself for what little warmth she could salvage. The sudden appearance of snow wouldn't have been at all out of place. "You can calm down; he's fine."
Shade sank to the floor with a relieved sigh and began to explain his presence from the beginning. Maddie listened without interrupting; he might have been reciting a memorized speech, and she didn't want to break his train of thought. She listened with some degree of skepticism at first, but his tale was almost too incredible to be a lie. When he told her about losing his Maddie, her demeanor switched to concerned mother. She couldn't help but wonder how her Danny would have reacted to losing her. By the time the story was over, she was practically in tears. There was a rather pronounced difference between knowing her son risked his life and having a third party explain, in excruciating detail, how he almost died.
"So…here I am," the boy finished lamely, having glossed over the details of Vlad's return.
Maddie dried her eyes and resolved to find this Plasmius character. It had not yet occurred to her that he might also have a second identity, so she focused instead on the issue at hand. "And this other Skulker is after Danny, now?" She waited for Shade's nod. "And Electra helps to make him more powerful?" After a moment's thought, she held out her hand for the Fenton Thermos and, aiming for the desktop, hit the release.
"Finally!" Skulker attempted to roar. Sadly, he only succeeded in a comical squeak. The thermos wasn't nearly as uncomfortable in his present state. Indeed, it was only slightly less roomy than being in his armor's control center. However, the complete sensory depravation was still enough to make it horribly claustrophobic, and he still hated it on general principal.
Suddenly, he found himself staring into an oddly menacing pair of red goggles. The painful reminder of his size forced him to take a few nervous steps back against his will.
Maddie smiled, an expression that wouldn't have looked out of place on Ted the Alligator. "Now, Mr. Skulker," she began in a dangerously friendly tone. "You're going to tell us all about your armor's weaknesses."
"Why would I do that?" he ventured defiantly.
"Do you really want to find out?"
If she wasn't human, he might have been in love. Since she was human, he settled for respect of a formidable opponent. "I have a condition," he said.
Maddie scoffed. "You're not in much of a position to bargain," she reminded him.
Skulker raised his arms in a gesture of temporary submission. "Just don't send me back to the Ghost Zone without it, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know." Although, maybe not everything, he amended silently.
Ghost hunter and hunter ghost started at each other for several long minutes, each trying to gauge the other's reaction, searching for weakness and insecurity. Finally, Maddie leaned back and held out her hand. "I can agree to that."
Sharply aware that she could crush him with little effort, Skulker grasped one of her fingers. For a moment, he worried that she going to break his hand anyway, then the world became a confused blur as she lifted him onto her shoulder.
"Both of you go invisible until we reach the Assault Vehicle," she commanded. "Jack's down in the lab, but I don't want to risk him seeing you." She gave Shade a meaningful look as he faded from sight, and went to make her excuses to her husband.
Maddie hated lying to him, but he was too slow to simply embrace change. A mother had to do what a mother had to do.