"Because planes still fly faster than me," Dan said with a laugh as Valerie paused around the corner. "And when Tucker told me who Andrew said was here, just taking a plane seemed like the best idea."

"But why was he here to begin with if he lives in England?" Danny asked.

"Stratford," Sandruu interjected.

"Whatever."

"Repairs," the cyborg went on as though Danny hadn't spoken. "Technus built this stuff, and he's the only one who can fix it. I found Valerie when I followed him back down to the portal. Kat must have already found you."

"Hey! Yeah!" Danny exclaimed, leaning forward. "Truce with Technus?"

His older self laughed just a little maliciously. "I finally grew into my Ghostly Wail," he explained as though it should have been obvious.

There was a sudden halt in the conversation as the assembly noticed Valerie step into the kitchen, then Lucy decided to ask, "Hey, man, you still outside?" Although Danny continued to stare with that borderline-terror expression, his older self scoffed and shook his head.

The ghost hunter lifted an eyebrow at the odd turn of phrase. "She was just starting to circle the house when I got in."

There was a collective groan from the future Fentons. "Man, she'll be out there for hours!"

"I'll get the windows…" Sandruu moaned, standing.

"Man, it was a totally bi…twitchin' day, too."

"Every single time…"

"More than enough, kids!" Dan announced loudly, earning an interesting look from his younger self. The boy seemed about to make a witty comment that would probably have been answered with a glare, but Sandruu interrupted with an alarmed shout and the heavy, squealing crash of metal against metal. Three of the kitchen's occupants went straight through the walls, but Valerie still got there first.

"Oh, no…" Danny whispered. Valerie glanced at him, shaking his head in denial and drifting slowly backwards. She had never seen a ghost pale before. On her other side, his older self was in a similar condition.

The thing at Sandruu's feet was vaguely human if, by human, one meant that it had it four limbs and a head. However, its limbs were metal daggers and its head had been crushed. The cyborg backed away and opened his mouth to speak, but the thing twitched and started to stand again. Danny gave a wordless shout and blasted it, his older self barely a split second behind. Their expressions were identical and terrifyingly unreadable.

"Daddy?" Lucy ventured. She had pulled off her glasses, and her glowing eyes flickered through the entire color spectrum, or so it seemed. Suddenly, her chosen moniker, Kaleidoscope Phantom, made a great deal of sense.

"It's called a slayer," Dan answered, recovering faster than his younger self. "Lucy, leave your bracelets off. I want the two of you to go to your grandparents' house and barricade yourselves in the basement." He shook his head and turned back to the teens as though just remembering they were there. "You two go with them."

"No!" Danny yelled. "She's my responsibility!"

"And if you die, what happens to them?" Dan pointed out heatedly. "You die, then I die, and they're never born!"

"What is going on?" Valerie demanded, stepping between them. They didn't actually seem to notice and would have continued the argument if a sudden explosion hadn't heralded the loss of the front door and surrounding sections of wall. The young ghost hunter gasped at her first good look at her future self, striding through the remains.

"Hello, lover," future Valerie all but purred, her eyes fixed on Danny. "We came back for you, just like we always said we would. Together…forever…"

…forever…

"Over my dead body," Dan snarled, boldly jumping between the kids and the possessed woman. Danny actually allowed that, although he did place himself in front of Valerie. Sandruu dashed forward to join the boy behind his father leaving Lucy, the only truly helpless one, to find a place to hide.

It's not amante, whispered a confused voice into their minds.

"We're here for the ghost boy," Silver's human host added. Behind her, the fog gathered and swirled, and seemed to take the forms of various people who had clearly been murdered.

Murder victims…

Valerie let her gaze trail over to Sandruu, who stared at the shifting fog with an expression of loathing both like and unlike his father's. Suddenly, she understood why any conversations about his capture ended with "Best five months of my life." His friends had become something like that, and that was something he couldn't face. The whole realization took less than a second, and she was staring into the swirling fog again as a single word echoed in her mind.

Malice…

"Silver, let her go," Dan ordered. He raised an ectoplasmically charged fist, though whom he might have been aiming at was something of a puzzle. "Maybe I couldn't hurt you, then, but I can now!"

What is this "now and then"? Silver whispered, honestly bewildered. Perhaps you'd like to play with us? We're playing Serial Murder. You can be our first victim.

"Won't that be fun?" future Valerie added at the Malice's direction. And behind her, immune to the Malice's shifting, hovered Silver. The younger Valerie looked at Danny, who was clearly terrified and still trying to protect her. She looked at his older self, who appeared to feel the same way. She looked at Silver and wondered what could be so bad about a ghost that a forty-four year old man could still be so scared. Then she looked at her older self…then she really looked.

The woman's eyes, behind her helmet, were completely blank. Her mouth was twisted into a sneer that only emphasized the lack of soul within. "Is that…me?" the girl muttered, bordering on panic herself.

As if in answer, twin roars rang out from either side of Silver's potential victims. Valerie had barely any time to see the hulking brutes before Danny knocked her to the floor and made them both intangible. She cried out as gunshots ripped through them, certain that they should both have been killed. And amidst all the noise, inside their heads, Silver just laughed. After a moment, the boy twisted around and returned fire while his future self did likewise to the other creature.

"It's me she's after," he informed the man, helping Valerie stand. "She doesn't recognize you."

Dan shook his head, glared at the Malice, and said, "Fine. Go!"

Danny nodded once and shot straight through the roof. Future Valerie, predictably, summoned her jet sled to follow. Past Valerie finally seemed to find bearings her again and shouted, "What the heck was that?"

"That was Silver," Dan replied quietly.

"But who is that?" Lucy asked, creeping back through a wall.

He seemed about to say something, thought better of it, and replied, "No one important. Andrew, take care of your sister. Go into the Ghost Zone if you have to. If either one of you gets killed you're both grounded for the rest of eternity." The siblings managed half of a smile between them at the old joke and headed out. Dan drifted into the air.

"You're not going to give me orders?" Valerie was unable to stop herself from asking.

Dan froze, and his hands clenched into fists. "At this moment, I really don't care what you do." Staring off after her future self, Valerie really couldn't blame him.

A/N: You probably haven't noticed yet that I've played around with the order of my stories again. I really should just not bother. Number Twenty still stands, though. /totally can't wait/