Wow, another LONG hiatus. Sorry 'bout that!

I do have a backlog of about 20,000 more words for you guys, so it shouldn't be taking me this long, but I didn't like the way that I wrote Shifting Tides. I wrote this chapter last year and, upon returning to it, was disappointed with how it had turned out. It was barely two pages long and was mostly a quick angsty scene. Instead, I decided to dig a little deeper and set up some fun "foreshadowing." I know you'll spot it ;)

Once I figure out how to end Shifting Tides (hopefully in the next chapter), we'll be back on track again much more smoothly.

Until then, please be patient and send me some encouragement! I love having you all here!

-Song

"Were we too harsh?"

"What if he'd broken Dash's face?" Sam asked.

"We have to have Danny's back, Sam," Tucker sighed. "You know what he's going through."

"I know, but sometimes he forgets that he's supposed to be a normal seventeen-year-old kid."

"We're all supposed to be normal seventeen-year-old kids but we aren't, Sam. We're like… ghostbusters now!"

The pimple-faced college kid at the concession stand blinked at them.

"Can we help you?" Sam asked him angrily.

"Uh, can I take your order?"

Sam and Tucker ordered and then sat at a concrete round table with stone benches. The table's cream-colored umbrella took away some of the morning heat.

"Look," Sam said, picking at her salad and the first food she'd had all day, "I know what you're saying, but sometimes it feels like…"

"Like what?"

"Like Danny could be dangerous if he set his mind to it? Could turn into an ectoplasmic weapon that could go wild at any moment if he forgot who he was?"

"He won't."

Sam rested her chin on her left hand and considered this. She rolled a cherry tomato around in her bowl for a long time.

"I hope you're right."

Tucker eyed her with a strange look.

"Should we go find him?" Tucker finally asked her.

"I don't know. If he wants to go all invisible and leave us behind, I say let him."

"You're not giving him enough credit. We hurt his feelings."

"He's not thinking clearly-"

"But we're still Team Phantom, remember? We have to have his back."

Sam stabbed the cherry tomato and brought it to her mouth. She chewed upon it angrily for a moment and swallowed. Her stomach growled at the introduction of food, and she realized that maybe she was having a rough morning.

Her parents – in their khakis and sweater vests – had bullied her out the door about her outfit, claiming she should wear a bikini and bright, primary colors. They had told her again and again that boys wouldn't like her if she kept looking like a vampire queen. She had been so mad that she neglected to eat and met Danny and Tucker at the bus stop like normal with a forced smile on her face.

Maybe Danny and Tucker had given her shit about her outfit, too, but they were allowed. She didn't mind when it was them. They were her real family – them and her grandmother who had bought her the black outfit in the first place. But when Dash had called her ugly and pale, maybe that hurt a little bit too much.

But then Danny had gotten abnormally aggressive and it was like everything had blown up all at once. She hadn't been fair to Danny, but the tension coming off of him was getting more worrisome. Was he an ectoplasmic coil ready to snap, or just another hormonal teenager?

Yet none of her worries were good enough reasons to invalidate Danny's feelings. If he was a coil ready to snap, then she needed to support him, not stretch him further.

"Okay," she finally told Tucker, her shoulders slumped in defeat. "I'm sorry."

Tucker reached out and held her hand. Beneath her sunglasses Sam frowned a little bit in confusion. Tucker was never this touchy before Danny's accident. In fact, he had been very touchy lately. Maybe he needed some comfort, too? Was she seriously becoming this emotionally deaf to her two best friends? Well, not any longer.

She gave him a friendly squeeze back. I'm here for you both, it said.

"Don't be sorry," Tucker told her. "I get where you're coming from. We can't treat Danny's powers like a toy. He is powerful, but he's still himself. That's not gonna change."

"You're right."

"I always am," he said with a grin." Come on, let's finish eating and go find him."

.

.

.

Danny regretted his decision to "go it alone" almost immediately. He thought he would find a lawn chair, get some sun, and be left in peace. Less than five minutes in and the sun was too hot on his pale skin. The students around him were too loud. Some kid was screaming that the wave pool was too scary and the kid's mom wasn't being too nice about it.

Yeah, it wasn't as peaceful as he'd hoped.

Part of him wanted to hunt Dash down and put him at the bottom of the wave pool. Figuratively, of course. The other part of him wanted to just let it all go.

Sam and Tucker weren't wrong, he conceded. If knowledge about his powers got out he would be a lab rat. Even his own parents would probably strap him down to a table, say "hold still, Son," and open him up to see what was inside.

No, they wouldn't do that. Danny shook his head hard. It wasn't the first time he'd had that nightmare. His mom thought he was just being an angsty teenager when he wouldn't hug her goodbye before school. His dad didn't notice the way that Danny skirted past him in the kitchen. Sometimes he would wake up at two in the morning in a cold sweat, thinking that someone was standing over his bed with a scalpel, but that was always just his imagination.

So yeah, maybe Tucker and Sam were right about him keeping up appearances, but that didn't mean Danny had to like it.

As the sweating became unbearable, a cold shadow cast over him, blocking out the sun. Danny squinted one eye open and peered up to see who it was. It was hard to tell. He could only see that they were very tall with broad shoulders and a thin waist.

Shit.

"Go away, Dash," Danny warned, closing his eyes again. The shadow didn't move.

"I said," Danny growled, opening both eyes and rising from his chair. But when he looked up toward who he'd thought was Dash, a shapeless being stared grimly down at him. Its eyes were a faint, poisonous green and its teeth were long and sharp.

"Oh," Danny squeaked, his posture quickly becoming defensive. "Not Dash. Got it."

The shadow gave off a menacing sound; a cobra's hiss. Then it was gone in an instant. A puff of smoke. After a month of ghost hunting, Danny knew that he didn't imagine it. Danny looked around him quickly, his neck prickling, but only saw students, kids with their parents, and employees. No ghost. No shadow.

He shivered. Sheesh. Even the Lunch Lady ghost hadn't seemed that menacing and she'd tried to kill him. Maybe it was better that he hurried off to find Sam and Tucker again. What if the three of them were in danger?

Knowing Tucker, the best place to start would be wherever there was food. He followed the brightly painted signs that said, "food" or "snacks" and started heading in that direction. He rounded a corner and realized he'd gone too far. He was facing a dead-end that led to the door of a utility closet disguised as a large rock. Employees only. It probably opened to the inside Terror Mountain, a giant waterslide and the best part of Floody Waters. Just as he was about to turn around and find his friends, his shivering got worse.

"Oh no," he said aloud as a small cloud of vapor fled his lips.

Ghost sense. It's still here.

The chipped grey paint of the fake rock before him darkened slowly. It was like ink spilling onto a page, growing and ballooning out, getting darker and bigger with every second. Danny took a quick look around and then, seeing no one, quickly transformed. The flash of light that usually accompanied his transformation from human to ghost - something he still didn't understand - flashed. For a split second, it pierced through the creature now forming into the hulking figure from before. It retreated half an inch and then kept coming. Danny blinked, surprised, but he didn't have time to think about it. The shadow's hissing came again and, now having been seemingly disturbed in its resting place, flew at Danny with outstretched talons the color of absolute darkness.

"Fine," Danny said, and he dug his heel into the concrete, then kicked off, taking flight too.

Arguably the best part about being half-dead was flying. The worst part was how often a ghost would gut-punch you at a velocity that would kill a normal teenager. Danny took it like a champ with only a single whine of agony before he reared back and kicked the shadow in the head. Or at least, that was the plan. The shadow was formless all of a sudden. Danny's foot passed through it, and the freezing temperature of the ghost against his leg was palpable.

"Shit-"

The ghost cackled with the sound of steam hissing against hot metal and grabbed Danny by the hair. With a forceful throw, he hurled Danny into the utility closet door. Danny had the wherewithal to turn intangible just before he touched it and found himself tumbling inside the employees-only part of Terror Mountain. It was nearly pitch black except for the safety lights along the floor. Large pipes painted black and pumping water through the ride crisscrossed over his head. A narrow path damp with condensation and humidity lay before him and he started to run down it. The shadow ghost clawed its way through the darkness after him.

Eyes. Fangs. A formless shape.

Danny saw it everywhere and then nowhere. It was there. Then it was gone. The route inside the fake mountain was confusing and littered with cigarette stubs and plumbers' tools. Danny was about to phase his way out of there entirely when something struck him in the back and he fell to the floor.

"Shadow," a rough voice hissed above him, "what did you fetch for me?"

The cackling came again. Danny's ghost sense was going off like crazy. There were now two of them.

With the last of his strength, fueled only by fear and the instinct to flee not fight, did Danny launch to his feet and escape through the wall.