Once Valerie put this Sam down, she decided to question her upon the area. She'd worn the hunting suit. And Sam fortunately had missed her arrival, so for the moment Sam was taking her as human, or at least an equal which was a change from her most recent status, treated as an inferior in both worlds.

"So why come here? That looks like Dalv technology."

"Similar. Though this suit is based on Dalv technology, some of the stuff has been enhanced, and others removed. The ghost tracker is far more sensitive than the one Mr Master's supplies to his hunters. That's probably what's kept the Fentonworks busy, despite the tech and money advantage."

"That doesn't make sense. Why would Vlad cripple his hunters?"

Val looked at Sam's device. The Fenton's may have tripped over themselves in her old reality but from what Danny had said their devices did detect him. It was mainly the mental block that stopped him from being found and destroyed. What reason would Mr Fenton have for giving such a good hunter a crippled device?

"Time to deal with the forces of evil." Sam states. "Accompany me, please."

Val rolls her eyes. Was she ever this bad herself? Probably, but she considered ghosts dangerous, rather than evil. Still even so it wasn't as if Jack would be working with a ghost. It wasn't as if... Then she groans internally at her sudden realisation. Sam had asked if she was a "Ember fan too?" And Clockwork being so surprised at finding that Ember had given birth fourteen years ago. In this world she had never been born, and so did not exist. And without her birth Ember would have stayed a hunter.

"I think I'd better talk to the local experts." Val stated. "I need to know what the state of play is here. Yes, it's haunted. But I need to know the dangerous ghosts and who will cut deals. Important basics."

"Ghosts are evil. What else matters?"

Valerie sighed. Sam was if anything more stubborn than she was. Sam could probably be offered proof that Val was part-spirit and ignore it because it didn't fit into her world view. At least she had demoted Phantom from 'Evil' to dangerous and uncontrollable. There was a difference. Walker was Evil, with the capital E, but tended to be firmly controlled by laws.

"I just don't get you, Val. You look to be more gung-ho than me. Yet you don't believe ghosts are evil?"

"Not necessarily evil, but they're all dangerous, and often uncontrollable. I think there's a difference. Not that I'm not going to destroy them if I find them in this world. But as much as I try to avoid it, sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils. I've even got it wrong on occasion."

Sam understood what Valerie was driving at, even though she didn't like it. Evil was not that same as stupid. Ghosts had problems with each other, so by choosing to back the right ghost at the right time you could tip the scales to help humans. Maybe just maybe she ought to be just a teensy bit more flexible. Valerie was obviously more experienced despite her naivety. Still it was to head back towards Fentonworks, and introduce her new friend to the hunting group.

Back at the Masters mansion Danny came back and turned into is human form. Sam had been saved by a weirdly dressed hunter. At first he thought Ember had updated her look which she was prone to do on occasion, but it turned out that this was not so. The biggest advantage he had was that he was a natural flier. At first he had thought that suit was Dalv technology, but something was not quite right about it. He couldn't quite put his finger upon it, but it seemed too linked to the wearer.

He'd be seeing Sam tomorrow. How come she had a crush on his human form, when she kept trying to blast his ghostly one away? That was surprising. He was trying to find the person who had overshadowed her, but he wasn't having much luck. Tucker was against him dating Sam, but Sam was a person he really liked, and she liked him as well. There was just one problem - her attempts to destroy him. Tucker did advise against dating her, but Sam was brave, independent, and even in her own way fun. He really liked her.

Still as much as he didn't want to admit it Tucker was probably right, Sam was a disaster waiting to happen. If only he could find out who overshadowed her, but every ghost he knew could only find human Sam during that period. He suspected Desiree knew something by her smirk, but she was keeping quiet, and there was no way to get her to tell. One of her base rules was client confidentially. She just couldn't tell people about what her victims wished for.

While Danny was doing his thinking, Sam and Valerie arrive at the Fentonworks. Unfortunately for Ember was also there and took Valerie to one side instantly. Ember gazed penetratingly at Val. "So how come you're a Valkyrie?"

Val had at least considered this carefully. "I'm a spirit of what might have been. She who was my mother was one. She is no longer my mother, yet she still exists." Ember wouldn't work out Val's cryptic answer for sometime to come -not until much later. Val also had the opportunity to observe a grown up Ember with her father. And while it was obvious they both knew what the other was, they were truly in love, while worried about the approaching doom of the relationship. Just five years and it would end. If Ember had stayed in this world for fourteen years without causing too much trouble, perhaps spirits could control themselves. She wondered when Sam would work that out.

But things were already coming to a head in the ghost zone. Clockwork looked at the Observants and saw a terrible future, which in this timeline could not be avoided. Yet when he peeked on Valerie's old timeline he saw it had been. And he wondered why, until he saw the difference. There Sam was a friend, and while Valerie had hunted Danny Phantom with as much gusto as this world's Sam did, she had never considered him Evil - only dangerous.