All right. I'm a little concerned about this one, but I'm still trying to smooth out a few rough edges on the next chapter that I'm working on even now. Hopefully, despite the shortened length, this chapter will still receive a good response from you, readers.

Chapter 5: Ghost Town

Wulf sped through the woods on all fours as Danielle held on, looking over the top of the giant dog's head. Even though the trees were quite thick, Wulf maneuvered through them as if he knew the whole forest by heart. (Which he probably did.) Any space he might not have been able to squeeze through, he simply turned himself, and his rider, intangible to run straight on without stalling.

Gradually, the woods began to thin out and Danielle was able to see Amity Park beyond the trees. The two came out of the woods with a giant leap and as soon as Wulf's feet came back into contact with the ground, he continued his way onward towards the town, just as speedily as ever.

There was a wide stretch of empty plains between the woods and the town that perhaps stretched for a few miles. Still, with the speed Wulf was racing at, in the range of perhaps five to ten minutes, he and the ghost-girl riding on his back reached a hill. Over which Amity Park lay beyond. Wulf slowed to a stop as they reached the top of the rise, where they could overlook the city.

As Danielle took in the view of her cousin's hometown below, she gaped in scared surprise. The town seemed grayer and less lively than the last time she remembered it. As her eyes continued to scan the town below and she began to feel emotions of sorrow and apprehension rising. Even from this distance, she could see smoke coming up out of a few places.

"Gee, it didn't look this bad from the woods." Danielle said to Wulf. "If it looks like this from afar, I can't imagine what it might look like on the streets." The young girl began to worry as she thought of her cousin, hoping he was all right.

"Come on." She said to her friendly mount. "We better get down there and see if we can find Danny. Or maybe one of his friends." Wulf nodded in response, and started his way down the hill towards the town.

The ghost dog turned the both of them invisible as they drew nearer to the cluster of buildings. At first though, it seemed that they didn't need to. Hardly anyone seemed to be around as Wulf entered the streets, sniffing the air as he went.

The girl on his back knew it wasn't that early in the morning. The streets should be much busier by this time. Very few cars were going along the road now and anyone who was walking outside seemed to be always glancing around, especially up at the sky, as if nervous about something.

Danielle noticed one man in particular, who seemed to be just a regular guy on his way to work (judging by the suit he wore and the briefcase he carried). He was constantly looking over his shoulder as if fearing something would jump out at him any time. No sooner after Danielle was just thinking this than she unexpectedly jumped in seeing a floating green mass phase through the sidewalk, right in front of the suited man: An attacking ghost. It hovered in front of him as the man froze on the spot in fright.

At that precise moment, Danielle noticed her own elevation above the ground became less and less. Wulf, still invisible, must have been bending down. But why? What was he doing?

The young hybrid clone looked up again, and saw that the floating green specter was starting to hover closer to the man. When he suddenly started running in the opposite direction, the ghost glided after him with mischievous cackles.

When this happened, the ghost-girl felt the surface she was on suddenly tip to the side. She had unknowingly loosened her grip on Wulf's overcoat in watching the scene, so she slipped off of the still invisible, ghost's back. Before she hit the ground though, she felt something catch her and set her down lightly on the concrete of the road. She looked down at her feet to see them reappear as Wulf's unseen but reliable paw released her.

The next thing she knew, Wulf himself had become visible again, and bearing his teeth, he bolted after the ghost and the man running from it.

"Wulf, wait!" Danielle shouted behind him and began to run after him.

Wulf soon passed the chase-scene and slid to a stop in front of the man, scaring him and making him stumble backwards. The man seemed to be more terrified of Wulf than the ghost who was chasing him (which also stopped at the sight of Wulf). The man raised his briefcase in front of his head, as if afraid that Wulf might hurt him, but instead, the giant dog sprung right over the alarmed man and at the ghost behind him.

Danielle had just gotten there to assist the man in the suit when Wulf growled at the floating green mass, extending his claws like how he did when he fought the tattooed ghost. At the sight of the claws, the ghost let out a scream of fright and took off, phasing through a nearby building.

It was a store of some kind and just as the ghost disappeared behind the display glass, Danielle heard more peoples' panicking cries. Some of them even came running out the shop: Apparently in terror of the ghost who was fleeing for refuge from the humongous black dog.

When the horrified screams of the store-crowd faded, the teen girl turned back to the man on the ground. "Are you okay, sir?"

The man was shaking and he stuttered a bit with his words. "W-w-where'd that m-mo-monster go?"

"Uh…in the store." The girl told him confused, but offering a hand to help him up. Why was he asking where the ghost went? He saw it when it flew off.

"Not that one." The man responded, taking her hand. "The big hairy one." He added as he was pulled to his feet and dusted himself off. Danielle then realized that he must have been meaning Wulf. In fact, when the girl looked around for him, she couldn't see the green clothed animal anywhere.

"Wulf?" she called, looking around, confused.

"What?" The man must not have caught what she said. Thank goodness.

"Oh…um…nevermind." The teenage girl quickly covered her mistake at calling out to the thing the man had been most petrified of. Though she did wonder where Wulf had gone…until she felt the rush of air of something unseen breathing next to her on her left. Wulf had turned invisible again and was standing beside the teen ghost.

Trying not to show this, the young hybrid cleared her throat and spoke to the man again. "But, are you all right, sir?"

"Oh…well, yes. Yes, I'm fine." The man told her, straightening up. "Thank you for your concern." He nodded his head at her. but then he looked at her funny and started glancing up and down the street with a confused expression. "But wait a minute. Where are your parents?" He asked, looking back down at her.

"Huh?" Danielle hesitated. Not answering and looking to the side uncertainly. She didn't have parents. But she couldn't just tell that to a total stranger, because then she would have to explain the reason why. The only person she ever considered as any parent, however temporary, was Vlad Plasmius.

"No child should be wandering the streets alone these days. It's not safe with all these ghosts about." The man told her when she didn't answer.

Danielle was about to argue that she wasn't a child and that she could in fact take good care of herself, even in worse situations, but then she thought better of it, and simply responded to avoid a complicated conversation that she wouldn't have time for, "Yeah, you're right, sir."

The man nodded at her again in approval and then started walking down the sidewalk again as if the ghost attack had never happened but still looking warily around just the same. "But, sir, I'm sure Danny Phantom is taking care of the problem right now." Danielle called behind him, almost wanting to reassure him that there was nothing to be afraid of.

The man turned to face her again and to her bewilderment, he just scoffed, shaking his head. "Young lady, there wouldn't be a problem in this town if that were the case."

The teenage girl blinked, taken aback by the response as the suited stranger started back on his way. Danielle watched blankly as he turned a corner and out of sight.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She said aloud as Wulf reappeared out of his invisible state next to her. She looked up at Wulf who just shrugged his broad and hairy shoulders in listening to Danielle's and the man's conversation. This made Danielle start to ponder on what the man had just said. Before she could get a proper train of thought going however, her ghost-sense went off. In the same moment, the ghost and hybrid alike heard another disturbance nearby and ran in its direction.

Danielle turned a corner that led to an alleyway with Wulf right behind her. As they did, they saw two more ghosts chasing a group of three teenage boys up the alley in their direction. The boys rushed passed the ghost-girl and her doglike friend, crying out for help.

Wulf sprang into the alley at the oncoming ghosts, out of sight of the boys who were running from them and he pounced on one of them.

The boys had stopped running to look behind them, seeing that the teenage girl wasn't fleeing herself. "Hey, girly! Run for it!" The nearest one called out.

Danielle looked back down the alley and realized the second ghost had bypassed Wulf and was coming at her, but she stood her ground. With the limited power she could use, she clenched her fists and secretly charged up some green energy: small enough to be hidden from the panicking boys, but strong enough that it would have a significant effect on the ghost.

The girl-hybrid dodged out of the way of the ghost's aerial-attack and as it passed her, she grabbed it by the tail with her charged up hands, then slammed it to the concrete surface of the street.

The boys, in seeing the girl's action, stood gaping her wide-eyed. The green malefactor she had brought down seemed just as surprised as the boys were.

Danielle walked up to the ectoplasmic entity she had just grounded and pressed her foot on it. A concealed charge of green energy was emitting from her foot to help keep the ghost in place.

The ghost looked up at her in anger as it struggled for release. Its hybrid foe only looked back down at him with a deadly glare from the glowing, bright-green eyes of her ghostly form.

When the ghost noticed her eyes, its expression suddenly became fearful in recognizing a well-known enemy of all unfriendly ghosts looking out through the eyes of this young girl. It swiftly went intangible and disappeared through the gravel of the street with no intention of coming back.

Danielle looked at the gravel where the ghost had disappeared, confused at what had just happened, before her eyes faded back to the human's clear blue. Nevertheless, she then looked up at the boys who were still staring at her, open mouthed. "Don't call me 'girly'." She simply said, putting a hand on her hip and frowning at them.

"Yes, ma'am." The first boy said, now smiling at her, flirtatiously. Danielle cocked an eyebrow at him. "By they way, just what would a cutie like you be doing out on the streets of this haunted town by herself?" He asked her, taking a few steps towards the girl.

"Obviously, not looking for any protection from you. Seeing as I just scared off the thing you were so afraid of. Can you tell me where the mayor of this town resides?"

"And yet you seek directions from us?" One of the other boys said, also sounding like he was hitting on the ghost-girl.

The hybrid rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head. "Nevermind." she said, annoyed and started walking away.

The boys started to follow her calling out to her with things like,

"Hey, wait up."

"Don't we get a name?"

"Didn't you ask us something?"

"Don't you know it's rude to go walking away after asking someone a question?"

Danielle spun back around, giving the boys a warning look. But she didn't need to because Wulf had just returned from his business with the other ghost in the alley.

The boys stopped dead in their tracks at the mere sight of him. Danielle, after a glance at Wulf behind her, looked back at the boys, smiling mischievously. Wulf suddenly let out a single, dog-like bark at the three boys, who then high-tailed out of sight, screaming as they went.

The young ghost teen giggled as she watched them run for it, and thanked her friend with a pat on the muzzle.

Thinking back on the battle, the ghost teen had taken note that she was able to hold the ecto-charges for much longer this time. Even though when she made the charges, she felt she was straining it a bit. It would probably still be a while before she could release a fully, powered up plasma-ray, but she still seemed to be doing all right without that ability, for now.

The girl-reflection of Danny still didn't have the information she wanted, though. She was hoping to get directions of where the Foley or the Manson residence was. Maybe even City Hall. Perhaps the next person she ran into would be able to give her such input. So, with her furry ghost-counterpart at her side, the ghost hybrid continued down the street.

As the two ghost friends strolled their way down the sidewalk of Amity Park, Wulf's ears perked up as if listening to something, and in the ghostly teen's next exhale, the icy breath of her ghost-sense came forth from her mouth again. Another one? When she noticed the black-furred creature looking up towards the sky, Danielle did the same.

Far above them, she saw yet another ghost flying over the city without a care in the world, as if it practically owned the place. That was now the fourth ghost she had seen. All of these appearances happened within just a few minutes of each other, too. And not once during any of these, did Danny Phantom show up. Was this what that man meant? Were all these ghosts around because he was right about Danny not doing his job? Where was Danny?

A chilling breeze rustled the girl's ebony hair as she started to worry that her fears she had gotten back at the cave looked to be confirming themselves. Danny would never willingly abandon his own town. Something must have gone terribly wrong. But what?

After a minute or two later of walking, the teenager felt something on her leg, near her foot. She stopped in mid-step and looked down to see that it was a piece of paper that the wind must have blown into her. It looked like some sort of torn up, newspaper clipping. Curious, the cousin of the ghost-hero bent down and picked it up.

She smoothed out any wrinkles it had, and after just a glance at the torn up piece of newspaper, she realized that on it, was a photographed picture of Danny's friend, Sam. "Missing?" Danielle said aloud. Wulf peaked over the ghost-girl's shoulder as she began to read.

Samantha Manson, (age 18) was last seen

while attending a normal day of school on

Tuesday, February 5th at Casper High.

Around 11:20am that day, a female ghost,

cloaked in red, attacked the school's halls.

Fellow students watched, horrified, as the

ghost took the teenage girl captive,

escaping by phasing through the ceiling of

the high school with her. None of the

witnessing students seemed to know where

the ghost had taken thier fellow schoolmate, or

in which direction it had fled with her, but city

authorities are making their best efforts in…

The rest of the article had been ripped off, but it had already revealed quite a bit of information to the ghost-hybrid who had read it. "Sam's been kidnapped?" Danielle whispered.

She looked back at the article, where it said, February 5th. "That was weeks ago!" She said, looking at Wulf. He seemed to understand this well enough because he was also looking concerned. Danielle continued skimming over the clipping, for another part she remembered reading. "A female ghost, cloaked in red." She recited aloud. "That must be the same ghost who came snooping around the cave. I knew she might have been up to something." She thought out load to her doglike friend.

Before another thought entered the girl's mind, she heard the sound of shattering glass up ahead. The two ghost companions looked up at the noise. "Oh, great." The teenage girl, groaned in frustration. "Must be another ghost-attack." After she finished saying this, Wulf, bearing his large teeth again, leapt off in that general direction.

Tucking the torn-out newspaper clipping in her hooded-shirt pocket, the female hybrid sprinted off after Wulf. As she ran, the words of the article she had just read kept running through her mind.

This was definitely not good. Amity Park seemed to have become a chaotic playground for ghosts, and Danielle just found out that one of Danny's best friends was captured by one of these flying reprobates, almost a month before. And somehow, the teenage clone of the famed ghost-fighter had a feeling that the worst news of this town's recent events was yet to come.

Okay, I'm hoping this chapter was as good as the other ones the readers have claimed to be. I know it's shorter than most of the other chapter's I've already written, but I hope it still helps in setting up what I'm planning will happen next. Plus, this seemed to be a good place to end a chapter called Ghost Town, which I thought was a good way of introducing the current state Amity Park is in right now.