A/N: The second-to-last chapter. Wow. I hardly thought I'd get this far. For something that was originally going to be a small side project for me to work on for the sake of winding down . . . it's kind of taken over my thoughts. Dunno what that's done for the quality, but hey. Enjoy, m'migos, I know I did.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any characters or plots associated, nor am I making any money off of this.

Chapter Twenty

How long, you might be wondering, did it take me to find a ghost to pummel the heck out of? Mm . . . counting the time it took for me to react to my ghost sense . . . fifteen seconds.

"Get back here, ghost!" I recognized Valerie's voice instantly as she flew past me.

"Not doing," was the reply. I raised an eyebrow, and jetted to join them. Both the ghost - who looked as if he'd stepped straight out of all those movies about lower-class New York - and Valerie took aim, staring at each other for several seconds.

I sighed, charged a blast in my hand, and knocked the ghost out of the sky before Valerie pulled the trigger.

"You know, I've tried the whole dramatic pause bit, it doesn't usually end well," I said, and Val turned around rapidly.

"D-Danny?" she asked slowly.

"Present. What, you miss me?"

"Erm . . ." She had tensed up, and seemed to be unsure. Finally, she relaxed. "Yeah. 'S'not easy, this twenty-four hour ghost hunting."

I shrugged. "You're telling me. Hey, spooky seems to be waking up." It was true, the ghost was starting to come back out of unconsciousness. "And I left my thermos at home, so . . ."

"Uh, yeah, sure," Valerie said, pulling her own containment device from its position on her back, and sucking the ghost in. Then she turned back to me.

"Why'd you come back?" she asked. "You obviously didn't want to be seen around here."

"Well, given that I was kind of taken from here against my will . . . coming back was my favorite option."

"Oh." She was at a loss for what to say. Obviously she had been building up to some kind of angry remark.

"Yeah, 'oh.' The government sort of sucks." That hung in the air for awhile.

"I can see why you didn't tell me," Valerie said at last. "I've been thinking about that a lot."

I smirked. "Yeah, so've I. Hey, you go home and get some sleep. Although, I have to say, I'm disappointed. You couldn't hold down the fort for a measly four months?"

She huffed. "Don't have all the zany superpowers you do, Danny."

"Didn't stop you from trying."

If I could see her face, I'm sure she would've smiled.

"No," she said. "I think I'll take you up on your offer. Think you can handle it alone?"

"Done it before, I'll do it again. Now go home. Although . . . can I borrow your thermos? I sort of flew off dramatically from my parents' house, and I don't want to, erm, ruin the moment."

She laughed. "Sure." She threw it to me. "Don't overwork yourself."

She flew into an alleyway, and it wasn't long before she - in her normal garb - appeared again, obviously headed back to her house for some sleep. I sighed. It was going to be a long day.

Step one - purge Amity of all ghost invaders.

Step two - purge all surrounding towns of the same.

Step three - come back and make sure no more had come to Amity Park.

Step four - collapse into bed, dead on my feet (ignore the pun, please, for the love of Pete, ignore the pun).

- - -

Step four didn't come as quickly as I might've liked. Well, first there was the two days of non-stop ghost fighting, then there was the matter of emptying Valerie's thermos, grabbing several more of my own, and going back to just fight more ghosts. They'd had a heyday without me, obviously.

And then there was the matter of coming home at six o'clock in the evening, every ghost I could find packaged in one of four different Fenton Thermoses, and one Masters Soup Cup, and discovering my parents waiting patiently for me . . . Toby sitting next to them, sipping what looked like tea.

"You have very hospitable parents, Danny," Toby said conversationally as I entered, ignoring the fact that I was on the verge of simply falling asleep where I was.

"Um, Danny, he said he knew you and -" Dad started to explain.

"Of course I went invisible right in front of them!" Toby said cheerily. "Funny, no? Did you know your parents are ghost hunters?" Then, without even a pause, "Hey, look, I know you're kind of sleepy, man, but do you think I can talk to you for a minute?"

Seeing as it was possible he'd escaped or something, I found this to be relatively urgent, so I dropped the thermoses on the coffee table, and walked up to my bedroom with him.

"Whaddaya want?"

"To explain, o' course. You know, I read the news today -"

"Oh boy," I said dully, finishing his sentence. "Don't go off with the Beatles stuff right now, Toby."

He smirked. "You're getting good at predicting that!" he commented. "Anyway, I read the news and there've been a whole lotta Phantom sightings 'cross town. Made your comeback, then? I guess that means that the paparazzi will be knocking down you door this time tomorrow."

"Yeah," I said, sagging even more just at the thought of that. Something I hadn't quite considered was the media. Dang, I hated the media.

"Well that's good for you. Anyway, because I don't want you to do anything stupid, amigo -"

"How did you get here?" I interrupted. "Did you escape?"

He flashed a toothy grin. "Escape. Yeah, right. Why on God's green earth would I try to escape, amigo? Life's good. And I got trust. They sent me. Anyway -"

"They sent you?"

"Dur," he said, looking at me strangely. "You can't escape Mt. Ivory, Dan. I'm just here to tell you -"

"Why would they send you? What if you run away?"

"What part of 'it's impossible to escape' didn't you understand? Besides, they own me, I respect that, it's all good. I just wanted to explain a couple of things so that I could get back. And, if you must know, they created me, and all that. Test tube . . . um . . . teenager. Been fifteen for twenty years! I was supposed to be a Cold War spy. Then I turned out to be a bit of a failure -" He faded out of visibility right then, as if to prove his point. "- so they shoved in Mt. Ivory and I've been there ever since. Well, the war ended, but that's besides the point, so -"

"Dangit, Toby, don't spring this kind of thing on me. They made you? You work for them? Is that how you know all the stuff you know?"

Toby sighed, and starting talking much more slowly. "No. I am considered too far below them to be told highly sensitive information and all that crap. But I was born and raised to be a spy, so that's just what I do." At this point he faded back into visibility.

"But you can't control your invisibility!"

"Nn. I have other skills. Look, can I just tell you what I have to tell you and be done with it?"

I inhaled deeply. "Sorry. I'm just tired, and my brain's kind of fried. What is it?"

"You want to know why they let you out?"

I stared at him. Now it was my turn to speak slowly. "Because I'm human and it's the law, maybe?"

He burst out laughing. "Y-you honestly believed that bull? Damn. What, you think you can do what you do and still be human? Brother, it was all staged - not the part with Dr. Redd, but she was the one who kind of accidentally brought the plan together. The GIW screwed up big time. They're just covering their tracks, and you're the perfect person to do it."

"What?" I said dangerously. I was too tired to deal with this.

"They couldn't protect this town. The diseases in your blood did disappear, the stuff they were going to use to solve the ghost problem once and for all. So they used the whole 'you're human' bit as backup. It was a beautiful lie, something you might be able to appreciate. So, yeah, the Guys in White need you here so that they don't look like asses!"

I opened my mouth, and then closed it. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming in frustration. "So you're telling me they sent you to tell me this after I spent two days ghost hunting -"

"Would a normal human still be awake - hell, alive - after all that?" he asked. I glared at him.

"Don't rub it in. So they sent you after all that just to tell me that they're using me."

He smiled. "Naw, they sent me to tell you a couple things Dr. Redd 'forgot' to mention. The whole voting thing, for you? Not so much. And, um, school, and, actually, free speech. Ignore the whole damn Bill of Rights. It's not for you. America's not all it's cracked up to be."

I did my fish bit again, before inhaling deeply. "So they sent you here to tell me that not only am I not human, but I have no rights to speak of?"

"Well, you can't be discriminated against because of race, class, creed, or religion . . . But species, hey, that's still open. Come to think of it, I don't think that was in there . . ."

I sighed, rubbing my temples, and eased onto my bed. "Get out of here, Toby. Just get the heck out of here. And don't come back."

"Will do!" he said brightly, and he bounded back up the stairs. I forced myself to go to sleep before I could think about the implications of what he'd told me. I just couldn't win, could I?