"Up for watching the chariot rides at my place?" Sam leans against the door frame, glancing into our living room from where she stands. "Tuck's already in the movie room."

I sigh, following her gaze. She probably can't see much behind me, but the rest of my household is on the couch.

"I don't know. Dad's been pretty down today, and I'd feel bad about leaving him. There are plenty of Games things we can watch later, right?"

"True." She takes a step backwards without turning away. "Stop by if you get the chance, all right?"

"Will do." I watch her walk down the stairs and onto the street before I shut the door.

Of course I'd rather be with my friends pretending to watch the festivities. But Dad always gets pretty bad this time of year, and I have to at least try to do something. I don't know how much good I really do, but Jazz is sure that having his whole family around him really helps out.

So I'll stay. What kind of superhero doesn't look after his own family, right?

And speaking of superhero stuff...

Dad's currently staring at the TV, tissues in hand and a family member on either side, so I resolve to make my basement trip quick. The Fenton Thermos isn't going to empty itself.

As quietly as possible, I slip into the kitchen and snake around to the right set of stairs.

I could probably get in trouble for not watching the broadcast, but I can always fly to a bathroom if Peacekeepers come knocking. It's been a good enough excuse in the past.

My footfalls echo off the pale steps to the basement as I walk into the room. The open Ghost Portal is the only source of light, covering all of the tables and lab equipment with a sickly green glow, but it's enough to work by.

Hurrying to the side of the portal where I can dump the thermos, I check behind me to make sure no one's coming. I don't know why they would be. But isn't everyone a little paranoid when the Games come around?

I slide the thermos into its slot and click the release button. A blue-green glow of ghosts shoots through the clear connecting tube before passing into the Ghost Zone.

There. The past few ghost encounters have officially been cleaned up.

And my parents act like I don't do any of my chores.

"Danny?"

"Aw, shoot." At least I'm already in human form.

"Dad?" I start as I turn around. "Everything okay?"

He's stopped in the middle of the stairs, trying to focus his gaze even though it's been blank since this morning.

"I was just going to ask you that, son." He pauses before sniffing and coming down the rest of the way. "Just wanted to check on the Ghost Portal?"

"Uh, yeah." I rub the back of my neck, feeling the odd warmth of the green glow on my skin as I turn towards the portal. "Everything looks fine. The Ecto Filtrator's still clean, too."

"Good, good." He watches the swirling portal for a minute before heaving a sigh and seating himself, his chair scraping on the tile. "You know, I've thought about sending you and Jazz in there a couple of times."

"Sending us in?" I glance at the portal before looking back over at him. His eyes are still red and puffy as he gazes past me.

"Yeah, at least during Reaping Day. Just in case you..." He blows his nose on his handkerchief. "But it's such a dangerous place, I don't know if it'd be any better."

Believe me, I can survive a day in the Ghost Zone. But to send us in during Reaping Day... I guess we'd be pretty hard to find. But Mom and Dad would get in huge trouble if anyone knew they helped us escape. And we'd probably be dead meat if we ever came back.

"I just—I can't lose anyone else to the Games," Dad mumbles, although he's still as loud as usual.

Letting out a breath, I pull up my own chair. Here it comes.

"Vladdy and I were the best of friends. He and your mother got along great, too. The three of us... We were a force to be reckoned with. Did you know Vladdy himself came up with the theory of a Ghost Portal?" He waves a hand at the green archway in front of us. "He was there for the first test run, too. Maybe he shouldn't have been."

Dad looks at the floor, still gripping his handkerchief. "If it weren't for the accident, for the miscalculations I made, he never would have gotten Ecto-Acne. Even if he still would have been reaped, he would have at least been in better health, had more sponsors."

"I mean, it's not your fault he got reaped." I feel like I've said this before, but there are only so many arguments I can come up with.

"Of course not." He looks over the array of gadgets set out on the lab tables. "But Vladdy missed out on so much. He never got to go out on a big ghost hunt, or help build some of these Fenton devices—" he picks up one such device that looks kind of like a radio, only to toss it aside—"see a fully-functional Ghost Portal, be my best man, meet my kids..."

He slumps over in the chair, his head hung. I walk towards him and put a hand on his shoulder, but he doesn't move.

Really, Jazz? "Just being there" is enough? It sure doesn't seem like it.

My gaze goes from the back of Dad's head to the Ghost Portal.

If there's one thing that could cheer Dad up a little, it's ghost hunting.

I carefully lift my hand from his shoulder, and he doesn't seem to notice. Before he even has a chance to look up, I make myself invisible and float silently to the Ghost Portal. I stick my head through for a quick look around. As usual, the unstable waves of green energy swamping the place make it hard for my eyes to focus. But overall the Zone is pretty still.

Except for that.

"Hey! You!" I hop through the portal, transforming into Danny Phantom. The ectopus passing by comes to a halt, hissing.

"Can you help me out for a second? You'll be back in the Ghost Zone before you know it."

It just floats there, hissing and quivering.

"I didn't hear a no." Shooting forward, I use both hands to clamp its legs—tails?—together and fling it through the portal. That's enough to make it shriek, so I turn invisible and hurry after it. There's a good blind spot behind the nearest heap of lab equipment, so I transform and duck back out where Dad can see me.

The ectopus is still making noise, darting around the basement. It's enough to get Dad's attention—he's on his feet, even if he still looks disoriented. For a second I panic that he doesn't have any ghost-fighting equipment on him, but that's not even remotely possible. He doesn't exactly look ready and raring to go, though. Maybe I need to up the ante.

The ghost is still flying around haphazardly, and at some point it crosses in front of a small mirror. Making sure Dad's not looking, I point and shoot a little beam of green energy. With a high-pitched whine, it bounces off the mirror and knocks the ectopus towards me.

"Oh, no!" I yell. "A ghost!"

"Danny!" Dad finally lunges for the nearest weapon. "Look out!"

He rears back before throwing his arm forward, the glowing line of the Fenton Ghost Fisher zipping out. With a grunt, he swings his arm in an arc, and the hook comes around, snagging into the corner of the ectopus's wide mouth. The ghost screeches, its legs struggling, but Dad spins himself around. His "catch" follows him in a wide circle until he snaps the fishing pole back, dislodging the hook. The ghost's momentum sends it flying back through the portal.

The fishing line swings back, wrapping itself around the pole. Dad keeps it in hand as he hurries towards me. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I smile. "Thanks, Dad."

He takes a deep breath before pulling me into a bear hug. "Nothing's going to hurt you while I'm around, Danny boy."

"I believe you." After another minute of suffocating in his jumpsuit, I pull back a little. "You... want to go back upstairs?"

Sniffing, he slaps me on the back. "Yeah."

Jazz clutches her textbooks to her chest. "That's all it took, huh?"

I shut my locker, checking one of the hallway clocks. "It's not like he was totally back to normal afterwards. It just brought him a little bit out of his funk."

"That's still great progress, though." She tilts her chin up to glance at the ceiling. "Maybe we could do this a couple more times. It would be good for him."

"Whoa, what? You're not going to say something like—" I go into a falsetto—"he needs to recognize and understand his feelings—or something?"

She leans against the last locker on the wall. "He doesn't need grief therapy. He lost a really good friend to trauma—it seems like a pretty normal bereavement response to me. If we can do something to lift his spirits, I think we should. Oh!" She turns the second she notices Sam and Tucker approaching. "Good morning, fellow Ghost-Getters! How would you feel about taking a week off?" She throws in a wink.

"Uh..." Tucker exchanges a glance with Sam. "What?"

I take a step closer to my friends. "We might leave the ghost hunting to Dad for a little while."

Sam frowns. "No offense, but there's a reason you take care of it yourself."

"Yeah, but..." I sigh. "I have to do something to help my dad out right now. And, uh, Danny Phantom can always swoop in to help him out if he has to."

"That's true." Tucker dodges a tuba as a band kid hurries down the hall. "Are you going to hire a whole ghost brigade for him to fight or what?"

Jazz rubs her chin. "We do have access to the Ghost Portal. We could pull in as many as we want."

"This idea is sounding worse by the second," Sam says, crossing her arms. "Leave all of the ghost hunting to Mr. Fenton and let more ghosts into the real world?"

"Come on, Sam," I respond. "It's not like we're going to let the Ghost King in or anything. Just the less threatening ones. You know, Box Ghost, Klemper, some ectopuses—"

"Ectopi," Tucker interrupts.

I roll my eyes. "Ectopi. Just enough to take his mind off of things."

Sam's face has hardly brightened. "You do realize we could still have an actual ghost attack in the middle of this? You're just making more work for yourself."

"I can handle it." The warning bell nearly cuts me off.

"And I can help!"

Glances are thrown as we try to figure out where the voice came from, but then a girl slips around the corner. Hands in the pocket of her hoodie, she leans back against the wall of lockers with a grin.

I feel my eyes widen. "Dani? What are you doing here?"

Jazz repeats her name, frowning at her. "You know her, Danny?"

"She's our, uh, cousin? It's complicated."

"Oh, is this Jazz?" Dani perks up, stepping over to my sister. "Nice to meet you! I'm Dani Fenton." She grins. "Also Dani Phantom."

Jazz just stares for a second before shaking it off. "Nice to meet you, too, Dani."

Sam smirks. "He told you it was complicated."

"I'll explain later." I turn to my "cousin." "Not that I don't mind seeing you, but aren't you cutting it a little close to the reaping?"

"Hey, I wasn't here for that. And it's not like it would even matter, anyway, since I'm not on their lists."

"You still need to watch it." Tucker takes a step back, in the direction of the classroom. "The Capitol can update their lists any time, whether you were actually born here or not."

"Fine, fine, I'll be careful."

I start to follow Tucker to the classroom, but Dani stays behind me.

"So what exactly are you guys planning?" she asks. "Some kind of ghost outbreak?"

Frowning, I check the hallway to make sure no one heard that. "How about I explain it to you later? I kinda have class right now."

She nods, her shoe squeaking as she takes a step backwards. "Okay, sure. Meet you at your house!"

"Don't get caught," I call over my shoulder as she speeds down the hall.