Author's Note: I own nothing.

16 A Crazy Theory

Sam jumped at the tap on the door of the ops center, they were five hundred feet off the ground. No one should be knocking. Kwan glanced at Sam who hesitated then nodded. He yanked the door open, revealing Dani, standing with the Red Hunter on his hoverboard. He floated them into the ops center. The teens stared, none of them had seen the Hunter up close. Sam spoke first.

"Did we win?" He was very curious what had gone on aboard the ship. The Red Hunter had never been part of their plan. Dani was dripping wet, and despite the cold January air outside she wasn't shivering. Sam left off the turn table, snatching a blanket from of the cabinets and tossing it around her. He hoped it would remind her to act cold. She shivered, his message must have gotten across.

"We did, thanks to the hunter here." She said jerking her thumb at where the Red Hunter was hanging by the door. Sam raised an eyebrow as Dani took the wheel steering the blimp back to Fenton Works. Kwan and Star cheered hugging each other as the few other teens high-fived. Dani expertly landed the blimp flipping a few switches, the balloon of the blimp deflated, folding itself back into the top of the ops center as the base locked back into its usual position. Someone leaned next to her.

"You're really good at this." She grinned at the Red Hunter.

"My parents are constantly trying to teach me things, some of it sticks." She said running her hand through soaking hair. "Oh, here." She pulled his blaster out of her belt. He shook his head, folding her fingers over the blaster.

"Keep it, you might need it." He held her hand for maybe a minute longer than he should have. When he realized that she had gone bright red he stepped back, heading for the door. He pulled it open and unfurled his hoverboard and took off without another word. Silence filled the room, until Kwan whistled.

"Red Hunter's got game!" He said and swore as Star elbowed him in the side. Dani buried herself deeper in her blanket. "What he does!" Sam rolled his eyes at them. Dani cleared her throat.

"You guys should probably get out of here, my parents are gonna be pissed at the mess from the party and that I took the ops center without asking." She said wringing some more water out of her hair. Everyone but Sam left. Once they were alone Sam frowned at Dani.

"Is it smart to get that close to Vince? He didn't spot you change did he?" He asked and Dani shook her head tucking the blaster back into her belt.

"No he didn't see." No need to tell Sam that she'd accidentally responded as Phantom to Vince looking for Fenton. She could keep that slip to herself, not like anything was going to come from it. At least she hoped. She headed down into the house with Sam ready to face her parents.

Dev got a text from Kyle to meet in the morgue at the end of his shift and frowned. He didn't like going down to the morgue. But at the end of the day he dragged himself there regardless. He was a bit surprised to find Angelica already there, sitting in one of the office chairs from Kyle's office. She nodded to him, nursing a large iced coffee. Kyle stuck his head out of his office with a grin.

"Dev! Finally! Now we can get started!" He nodded to the seat next to Angelica. "There's a coffee waiting for you." Dev took the seat gratefully picking up his coffee.

"Why exactly are we down here?" Angelica asked and Kyle wheeled a white board out of his office.

"Because it's high time we pool knowledge!" Kyle exclaimed pulling a green dry erase marker out of his lab coat pocket. "Ok, thus far what do we know about the ghost girl?" He said pulling the cap off the marker. Dev rolled his eyes, Kyle watched way too many cop shows, if he started calling this a murder board Dev was leaving with his coffee but for now he decided to humor his friend.

"Her name is Dani Phantom. She's fifteen."

"We have a concrete age?" Angelica asked and Dev nodded.

"Yeah, she didn't mean to but she slipped when she came to visit me in my office." He explained.

"So, Dani Phantom. Fifteen years old." Kyle paused. "How did she know you were looking for her?" The room fell silent. Dev had never thought of that. The precinct didn't exactly advertise who was on what case. He shook his head.

"No idea." He said leaning forward. Kyle frowned.

"Ok, what else do we solidly know?"

"She's dead." Angelica pointed out.

"But no one knows she's dead." Dev added. Angelica raised an eyebrow at him. He nodded. "She's a talker when you push her buttons." Kyle scribbled something down on the board. It now read 'Dani Phantom, fifteen, dead/missing (?)'.

"I finally got to meet her the other day. We found out she uses Fenton tech and wears a Hazmat suit. But here's the thing." He ducked back into his office and came out with a standard Hazmat suit. It looked almost nothing like Phantom's outfit It was bulky, had a massive hood and bulky lead lined gloves. "Hers isn't standard. It's custom." Angelica's eyes went wide.

"But the only people in town who do custom Hazmat suits are..."

"The Fentons." Dev finished her sentence before she could. He stood pacing in front of the board. Kyle nodded.

"Which leads me to our other conundrum! Now I have a nephew at Casper High, Wes, my sister's kid. He was there for that whole thing a few days ago, with the pirate ship?" Dev nodded. It was another very odd circumstance. Most of the parents in Amity had vanished, only to show up on the pier claiming they'd been taken captive on a ghostly pirate ship by a woman with flaming blue hair. The story went that they'd been saved by Phantom and the Red Hunter, apparently working together.

"What do the Fenton's have to do with that?" The only odd thing about this most recent debacle that involved the Fentons as far as he knew was that their oldest Jazz had been on the ship too.

"Before the Red Hunter and Phantom showed up, Wes says Dani Fenton rallied the teens to go get their parents back. And she was damn good at it. If there is one competent ghost hunter in that family it's Dani not her parents. But it get's weirder." Angelica interrupted.

"I don't remember seeing Dani. Fenton. Phantom was there but not Fenton, not that I saw." Kyle pointed to her nodding.

"Exactly, no one ever saw Phantom and Fenton at the same time, not even for a moment. As far as Wes has seen Dani always seems to know when a ghost is around. Like she's got some kind of sixth sense." Kyle said and Dev frowned.

"A ghost sense." Both of the others turned to him. "One of the teens who was infected with that ghost bug a few weeks ago, saw Phantom. She explained the power that Paulina was exhibiting. She called it a ghost sense." Dev frowned. "Do you have a map of Amity?" He asked and Kyle nodded.

"I'm a step ahead of you." He pulled a small ring at the top of the white board revealing a map covered with green marker dots. "Every dot is a place Phantom's been sighted. Notice a pattern?"

"They're all teen hangout spots. Unless something major happened like at the old hospital, they're all places the teens from Casper High hang out."

"She's been seen a lot around the school." Angelica said, but she sounded unconvinced. Kyle though nodded.

"And the closest I've gotten to a match for Phantom from a missing person's file? Dani Fenton. She's the right height, the right age, the right build. She has access to the tech and the Hazmat suits." He said ticking things off on his fingers. Angelica shook her head.

"What are you implying here Kyle?" She asked a bit exasperatedly.

"I'm saying I think there's only one Dani in Amity Park. I think there's only ever been one Dani in Amity Park. I don't know how, but I think Dani Fenton is Dani Phantom."