Chapter 11: Family Reunions

Danielle woke up the next morning in feeling her hair being ruffled. She had fallen asleep over the side of Danny's bed. "Danielle?" She heard a voice saying softly, as she was gently shaken awake.

After a sleepy moan, the young girl raised her head and rubbed the drowsiness out of her eyes. After opening them, her weariness almost vanished and her face lit up as bright as the morning sun that was shining in through the window.

Danny was awake, sitting up in the bed and looking down at his little cousin with bright green eyes that were filled with the livelihood she remembered and knew full well. "I knew I recognized you." The ghost-boy said with a bright smile of his own.

"Well, I'm glad someone has without me having to give them hints." Danielle responded. Then she jumped up from the floor and threw her arms around Danny's neck, though still being careful of his bandages. "You're back!" She said happily, with a laugh.

"You're back." Danny said, returning the hug. "I didn't think I'd be seeing anyone again after what Freakshow was doing to me." Danielle felt tears of joy starting up in her eyes, but she managed to hold them back. "That was you wasn't it?" Danny asked her, while still in the embrace. "You were the one supporting me, just before I blacked out."

"Mm-hmm." Danielle responded with a nod. When she finally pulled away, she asked with a bit of concern in her voice, "How are you feeling?"

"Much better than being in that Blood Blossom ring." Danny said, looking over his bandages. Then he took the time to look his clone cousin up and down. "Wow."

"What?" Danielle asked, feeling a bit awkward.

"You know, when I woke up, I didn't recognize you at all at first." He said, "You're all…well…grown up."

"Yeah. Long time no see, huh?"

Danny slid off the bed and as soon as he was on his feet, the teenage girl just couldn't help giving him another tight hug. "Man. I almost thought you were a goner back there." She said, as Danny again returned her embrace, laughing from her enthusiasm.

"So did I."

The two ghost hybrids hadn't seen or even heard from each other since the last time Danielle had dropped by, and now after such a close call, they were happy to both still be alive. Danny backed away from his ecstatic clone, inserting his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. "But I believe I have you to thank for my salvation?" He asked.

"Well I…had some help." Danielle responded, looking in the corner where Wulf was still curled up, asleep. "Or…a lot of it." she finished in retrospect.

Danny followed her gaze to where the sleeping ghost-dog was. "Whoa!" He jumped back, a little surprised to see the huge, furry mass. It was rather strange that he had missed it before. "Wulf?" He walked over and knelt on one knee next to the giant dog, and looking over his massive body, that even though was laying down was just about to Danny's own, full height. "Man. I forgot how big he was. And my parents say that I've grown." He said.

"He told me he was a friend of yours." Danielle commented from behind him.

"Are you kidding? This guy and I go way back." Danny patted the giant dog's black fur before starting to tell Danielle the story of how he had first met him.

Wulf had once been a prisoner of another one of the ghost-boy's spectral enemies named Walker. When Danielle asked, the male hybrid explained that Walker was the warden of the jail in the ghost zone that Danny had once escaped from. Wulf was a runaway prisoner that Walker had always tortured to do his bidding in trying to track Danny, so he could lock him up again. Danny helped Wulf to escape from the power-hungry jailer and they had been friends ever since: even though Wulf had ended up back in Walker's custody when the great dog purposely got in the way of a portable ghost-portal that was originally aimed at Danny while they were fighting Walker together.

Then Danny told his little cousin of how Wulf had later escaped the ghost-jail again, meeting Danny in this exact campsite. They had a chance to fight alongside each other again in order to help some other friends out. As soon as the job was done, Danny had set Wulf free.

So Wulf had also been working for someone against Danny, before. Just like how Danielle had once been working for Vlad. Yet just like how Danny had helped her, he was able to understand that Wulf was simply a slave who longed for freedom and went out of his way to help him. As a result of Danny's sympathy for the beast, despite his frightful appearance, he had made a very valuable friend that had now helped both Phantoms out of rough situations.

"But how did you come across him?" Danny asked, as soon as he had finished his tale.

"He found me." His girl clone responded, crouching down beside him with her hands on her knees. "And just in the nick of time too." Then looking back at Danny, she commented, "I never really stuck around long enough to know what kind of company you keep, huh?"

"No. You were usually always…flying off dramatically." The two hybrids giggled at this.

"Well, anyway." Danielle began again. "Wulf has been helping me out quite a bit the last few days. When I got to Amity Park and found out that you were missing, he helped me to find you." A moment of silence came in which Danielle scoffed shaking her head at a recalling thought. "It's kind of funny actually, because all he had to do was sniff me in order to pick up your trail that followed the train tracks. I think we must smell the same to him."

"Well I'm not surprised, really." Danny said, now scoffing himself. "I mean, you are a clone of me. We probably have the same ecto-plasmic signature."

"Yeah. That's what I thought too." Danielle commented before going on with her tale of events, "When we found you at the train, Wulf was the one who jumped into the fire and saved you."

"Fire?" Danny said, looking slightly confused. He looked at his many bandages. "I thought I remembered a fire before passing out." He said softly. "But I thought I might have been hallucinating or something. That the Blood Blossoms were inflicting so much damage on me, it was becoming external."

"Nope. Those were from the fire." Danielle said to him, nodding towards his wrapped burns.

After a second's pause of Danny looking between the sleeping dog and his little cousin, he asked, "But weren't you afraid of Wulf when you first saw him? I mean…I know I was."

"Oh, yeah. I was terrified." Danielle nodded vigorously. "But when I found out he actually saved me, I realized he must be okay."

"Wait. Saved you?" Danny asked, after she said this. "From what?"

"Oh, right." Danielle responded, slapping her head in remembered that Danny didn't know about her power dilemma she had experienced. "Well, a couple nights ago I had a bit of a run-in with some ghost-hunters."

"What?" Danny sounded slightly taken aback at this news.

"Yeah." Danielle went on. "They had a device that completely drained my powers for the rest of the night. And even when it wore off, my powers were still on the fritz for a while. I was flying about a hundred feet above the woods when it happened too and it made me go unconscious." Danielle showed her older cousin where the device had hit her. Danny's eyes widened at the resulting scar. "Don't worry, I'm fine now." She said quickly after seeing the concern on Danny's face. "But, if it hadn't been for Wulf, I'd…" she hesitated before slowly saying the rest. "…I'd probably be getting dissected on another examination table." As the very thought entered her mind, she shuddered at the memory of being back in Plasmius' lab. Danny put a comforting hand on her shoulder when he saw this.

Then after a pause, he urged her on. "These ghost-hunters. What did they look like?"

Danielle bit her lower lip trying to remember. "Well…I didn't really see their faces. It was late at night when it happened, so it was pretty dark." After a second of thinking, she then recalled a few of the main things. "But they had these flying machines that they chased me in, and I do remember that they were wearing these white suits and…"

"I knew it." Danny suddenly interrupted, and standing up. "The Guys in White."

"Huh?" Danielle said, completely confused.

"That's what they call themselves. They're a ghost-hunting agency that's funded by the government." Danny explained

"So, you know them?" the clone girl asked, now standing up, herself.

"Know them? They've been chasing me around since before you came along. They're also the number one reason I moved." Danny walked back over to the bed, looking out the window above it with his arms folded. "I knew they'd still be up to no good."

"What do you mean?"

"After the Disasteroid, even with my new reputation as a hero, there are some ghost-hunters out there who still have me listed as their number one target. The Guys in White must have attacked you, thinking it was me."

"But I thought the government was on your side, now. Why would they still be funding people like that?"

"I never reported them." Danielle gave Danny a strange look before he turned back to her and explained, "After moving, I never ran into them again, so I felt I didn't need to." He shrugged defensively. "But…" Danny clenched a fist and hit the inside of his palm. "You let me know if they cause you any more trouble and I'll be sure to turn them in myself."

Danielle smiled with a nod of agreement. A few minutes of silence followed in which Danny stared back out the window and Danielle stared at the floor, thinking, when she remembered something she was wondering about. "Hey, Danny?"

"Hmm?" Danny turned to her again.

"Just before you passed out, you froze the ground to put out that fire." Then with a bit of awe in her voice she asked, "How did you do that?"

"Oh, yeah." Danny looked at his hands, laughing a little. "My ice power. My Phantom Phreeze, as I like to call it."

"How long have you had it?"

"I've always had it. I just never knew I had it, or knew how to use it until another ghost friend of mine taught me how."

"Wait a minute, you're friends with other ghosts besides Wulf?" Danielle said, completely changing the subject.

Danny scoffed at her question. "Well of course. I would have thought you of all people would know that not all ghosts are evil."

After thinking on this for a second, Danielle had to admit that he was right. She let out a rather embarrassed laugh and shrugged. "All the ghost encounters the news talks about you having are just enemies."

"Well then, maybe you should stick around more often." Danny put in, giving her a suspicious smile.

He had a right to do so as well, as she was always running off before staying for very long. Danielle just returned the playful look, "In the condition you're in right now, Danny, I plan on it."

After the two laughed together at the banter, Danielle looked down at her own hands. Another thought occurred to her that she then expressed to her respected peer. "That ice power." She began. "Do you think…since you and I are…practically the same…that maybe…I might have it too?"

Danny considered this matter for a moment. "Hmm. I don't know." He finally said. "Vlad gave you your powers from secretly observing me using mine, right? And I didn't even know about the ice power, then." But after a short pause Danny also said, "Then again, you just might. You do have the ghost-sense."

"What does that have to do with it?" Danielle asked, with a bemused shrug.

"It's a part of my Phantom Phreeze. So if Vlad gave you enough cold energy to generate the ghost-sense, then maybe you can somehow harness that energy in other ways.

"But not in ways like putting out huge fires, like you did?" Danielle asked, a little disappointed.

Danny hesitated before admitting, "Probably not." But then he approached his little cousin and put his hand on her shoulder. "But, cheer up." He said. "You still have some things over me to make up for that."

"Like what?" Danielle asked, wondering how she could possibly have anything over the original person she was made from.

"Well, you're younger, more agile, have a better element of surprise on your side because no one knows you're half ghost yet, and you can use the powers that we both share in ways that I can't, like emitting ecto-ray charges from your feet, as well as your hands."

Danielle felt flattered that he was able to name off so many things without even hesitating. She smiled, feeling a little better…though it still would be cool if she also had the Phantom Phreeze like Danny did.

Just as she started to daydream of the kinds of things she could do with a power that could freeze anything on contact like that, Wulf began to stir in the corner, waking up. The two cousin hybrids both looked in that direction just as Wulf opened his eyes and saw Danny.

The great dog's head immediately perked up with a joyful expression at the very sight of him, and then he suddenly jumped from his sleeping place and tackled Danny to the floor on his back.

As soon as he was down, Wulf wildly started sniffing him up and down and happily licking his face like a puppy that was glad to see its owner after coming home from a long vacation.

Danny laughed as the dog continued to move his muzzle all around him, tickling him with his nose. "Down boy. Down." Danny said playfully, and trying to push the giant dog's snout away. Considering Wulf's gigantic size, this was practically impossible.

Danielle couldn't help but laugh at the way the two looked, wresting on the floor. It was so amusing to her that she didn't bother trying to help getting Wulf to calm down.

After licking Danny's face several more times, Wulf finally got off of his long-last-seen teenage hero, saying a few words in his weird tongue.

"Yeah, it's great to see you too." Danny responded, sitting up.

"I knew you might know his language?" Said the girl ghost, after she stopped laughing.

"Esperanto?" Danny said, looking up at her, while still sitting on the floor. "Nah. Only a bit." He told her, shaking his head. "It's Tucker who understands Wulf best. And even he struggles sometimes."

Suddenly at the mention of Tucker's name, both ghost-hybrids were hit by the same thought. "Wait. Tucker." Danny started to say, with urgency growing in his tone. "Sam. My family!"

Danny quickly scrambled to his feet. How could they not have even mentioned his relatives this whole time? His concern for their safety was the whole reason he had ended up in the state he was now in.

Danielle quickly ran up to her concerned cousin, grabbing his arms to calm him. "It's okay, Danny. I'm sure they're fine." When Danny didn't look very reassured, she added. "They'll be along."

Or would they? Danielle didn't see them coming all, last night and they certainly weren't here now. Even if they didn't know exactly where to look in the woods, they would surely have at least come around to check by now, especially if his friends had been to this campsite before. If they were taking this long, what if Freakshow did still have them?

Just as Danielle was starting to think that this might be so, something suddenly came spinning through the broken window by the door and headed straight at the Phantoms. All three ghosts ducked in cover as the flying thing zoomed above their heads.

Straightening back up, they looked behind them to see what was trying to hit them as it circled around again.

To Danielle's astonishment, it suddenly stopped in midair, right between her and Danny. The flying thing seemed to be a metal boomerang with a little bit of green along the edges and a small, blinking light. The bent corner of the boomerang turned, pointing between the two hybrids as if confused on which direction to go in next. As it did this, Danielle's memory sparked. Hadn't she seen this somewhere before?

The light the boomerang had started flashing green as it pointed at Danny and began spinning rapidly again. Danny managed to dodge just as it started zooming at him. Wulf snapped his jaws at the flying piece of metal but it swerved out of reach of his teeth as the light started to blink red and circled back around, hitting Danny square on the back of the head.

"Ow!" The boy exclaimed, rubbing where it hurt, as the boomerang finally fell to the floor. "I have got to get my dad to fix that." He said, looking angrily at the device that now lay motionless on the old wood panels they stood on.

Danielle bent down and picked it up to examine it. But she didn't really have to, because the gadget pelting Danny in the head like that, instantly reminded her of where she had seen it before. "Hey, isn't this the thing that smacked Vlad in the head just before…" Her question was interrupted by the sound of distant voices calling Danny's name from outside.

Almost instantly recognizing them, the cousin hybrids looked at each other with growing excitement and then rushed to the broken window that the Boo-marang had flown through.

Their expressions glowed with joy as they saw Sam, Tucker and the Fenton's coming out of the thick cluster of trees and into the clearing of the campsite.

Both Phantoms sighed in relief when the last of them emerged from the woods. They did escape. They were finally here.

"Told you they'd be along." Danielle said, turning to her cousin. Danny smiled back at her with immeasurable gratitude and then rushed outside to greet his loved ones. Danielle followed onto the porch and stopped at the steps to watch as Danny and his family became reunited once again.

His treasured peers all crowded around him with joyful greetings and individual hugs from each. Jazz and Sam seemed like they were on the verge of tears as they embraced Danny, now that they have discovered that he was alive. After Danny had pulled away from a particularly warm hug from Sam, Danielle saw them kiss.

She blinked, slightly surprised at this almost sudden reaction and nearly started laughing. Danielle knew that her cousin was an especially good friend with this Goth girl, but had she really been gone so long that she had missed how strong a relationship has grown between these two friends?

Wulf had phased out of the cabin and stopped behind Danielle. Danny had now moved on to welcoming everyone else that was now joining in for a group-hug. Danielle smiled, watching this heartwarming scene her cousin was participating in.

She didn't think she ever felt such appreciation for people the way Danny did. She imagined that they all must have been worried sick over him. The young clone couldn't blame them though. She had carried him off in possibly the worst condition he had ever been in after any experience. She couldn't deny feeling a kind of longing for the extensive kind of love her cousin was receiving from so many people that he cared for in return. Not like the way Vlad had treated her.

As the last of the family embraces were exchanged, and feelings of relief were expressed, Danny's parents looked up to see Danielle standing on the porch. As soon as she made eye contact with them, she started to feel a bit nervous. Danny soon followed the gaze of his parents to where Danielle and Wulf stood. He jerked his head, beckoning her to come over to them. When she hesitated, he gave her a look of reassurance. This made her feel a bit better, but she was still a bit slow when she started walking down the steps of the porch.

As the teenage girl approached the crowd, Danny's parents walked up to her. "And to whom do we owe the life of our son?" Mr. Fenton asked Danielle, with a smile.

"That was Wulf." Danielle said, indicating the spectral dog, who remained standing on the porch. "He's the one who got him out of that circle. I barely did anything."

"Are you kidding?" Tucker said, coming up from behind Danny's father. "You did a number on Freakshow when you locked him in his own cage and made him fall in that mud puddle." He said, energetically.

Then Mrs. Fenton approached with her own comment. "You also got his ghost-partner stuck in his own Ghost Trap."

"Not to mention got us the keys to our locks." Jazz put in, tossing the key ring she still had in the air and catching it again in one hand, with a smile.

"So that's how you guys got away." Danny said when he saw the keys. Then smiling at Danielle he put in, "and you say you barely did anything."

Danielle couldn't help but shrug with embarrassment.

Sam now came up to Danielle. "By the way, how did you get away from Freakshow and Lydia when he started chasing you?" She asked.

"Oh. Um…well…" Danielle was a bit shy in wanting to reveal that she had broken into Fenton Works and took a device of theirs, but she supposed it would have to be uncovered sooner or later. She unclipped the gadget from her side and presented it to Danny's parents.

Maddie took it and after a short examination, she said to her husband, "Hey, it's the test-model of the portable Ecto-Depleter." She said.

So they had renamed it. Thank goodness. "Did you find this at our old house?" Danny's mother asked, looking back at Danielle.

The young girl looked down at her feet, guiltily. "Yes ma'am. I did." She said. "I don't think Wulf and I would have been able to lose Freakshow if I didn't have it." She said defensively, but remorsefully at the same time.

To her surprise, Danny's mother just started laughing. "Oh, don't be so apologetic."

She said.

Then Mr. Fenton added his own remarks, "Yeah. Though I do wonder how you could have gotten into the house, if it helped to save my boy, I'm glad you were able to find it and put it to good use." The other Fentons nodded in agreement.

Danielle felt relieved after this response. Even though she had broken some rules on the way, they understood that it was for a good cause; seeing the result was that the youngest member of their family was saved from a slow and terrible fate.

After Tucker looked at the gun-like device in Maddie's hands, he seemed to think for a second before asking if he could take a look at it. Danny's mother was pleased to hand it over. The techno-geek was starting to get an idea now that he had his hands on another piece of technology besides his cell phone: which was still out of service in the abandoned campsite. He walked passed Danielle towards the porch, where he would take a better look at the device and see if it fulfilled his current needs.

Just before he reached the porch steps of the cabin, Danielle said behind him, "Gee, Tucker, I didn't think the mayor of Amity Park would think of getting a tattoo."

Tucker turned around, looking absolutely befuddled. "Tattoo? I don't have a tattoo."

"Then how do you explain the green, bat-shaped one on the back of you're neck." She asked, with a skeptical look.

At this comment, Tucker's eyes widened. "Green…bat-shaped…" he stuttered. And his hand bolted behind his neck.

Confused at this reaction, Danielle looked around at the others but was surprised to see that everyone else was looking just as alarmed as Tucker. Danny suddenly dashed over to the African American boy by flight and moved behind him. When he saw the green tattoo that was indeed stuck to his dark skin, he gasped.

"Hold still." He said urgently to his friend and charged up a small ecto-charge in his hand. As he touched the tattoo with an ignited finger, Danielle jumped, as the green bat-shape suddenly started moving and took flight, right off of Tucker's neck, with startled screeches.

Danny blasted the green bat with an ecto-ray from his finger and it vanished with a puff of green smoke.

Seeing the tattoo move instantly struck fear into Danielle as well, now that she understood what it really was.

As soon as the little green tattoo had disappeared, several others suddenly started flying out of their own hiding places that were on the other's figures. Before they went far, Danny nailed each of these with plasma rays, making them all disperse, leaving nothing but green vapor that disappeared as well.

"Oh, no." Sam said, sounding scared, as soon as the green entities were gone.

"Lydia's tracking-tattoos." Danny confirmed.

"Tracking-tattoos?" Danielle repeated. "Wait. She can use those as tracers?" She asked, completely stunned and pointing in the air where the mobile tattoos had disappeared.

"Yes, unfortunately." Tucker nodded, nervously feeling the back of his neck.

"We better get out of here before they find us." Danny said to everyone and began leading the way back to the woods.

However, before Danielle even took a step to follow, the icy breath of her ghost-sense emitted from her mouth. "Um. Danny?" She said to get his attention, and her dread steadily climbing higher.

Danny's ghost-sense must have gone off as well, because he turned back to her, looking anxious himself. "You think they already have?"

"Uh-huh?" The girl clone nodded nervously.

Everyone's fears were confirmed as they heard distant sounding cackles and horrifying cries coming towards them, fast from the trees. They looked ahead only in time to see a green mass emerge from the woods and hit the ground a distance in front of them, and suddenly dispersing to reveal the cloaked, tattooed ghost and her evil ringmaster companion.

"No." Danielle whispered, fearfully.

"Oh, yes." Freakshow responded. And a triumphant and wicked grin spread across his pale face.