"Oi! Phantom!"

If someone had told Maddie even six months ago that one day she would be running around town and yelling at a ghost like a drunken man catcalling college students, she would have checked them for the signs of overshadowing. But here she was, trying to catch the attention of the infamous ghost who was flying loops around the Red Huntress some few hundred feet in the air. She didn't think the ghost would hear her from that far away, but the distant vaguely humanoid shape paused mid-loop and began a reckless descent.

Phantom stopped to a standstill right in front of her, which was very unnerving considering he had been freefalling and simply stopped there, without slowing down, as if someone had pressed a pause button on a high-speed film.

"Maddie," Phantom said with a cheerful tone of surprise. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Ghost hunting," Maddie said. "You, specifically. I have some questions."

"Wow, Phantom, what have you done now?" asked the Red Huntress, who finished her much more dignified descent next to the two. "She looks like she wants to ground you."

"I just want to talk," Maddie said. Truth be told, Maddie wanted to do a lot more than talk, but with the truce she'd struck with Phantom standing, it was all she could do. "But not here."

"Oh, you're so grounded," the Huntress joked and punched Phantom in the shoulder. "Well, I'll leave you two to it, I have ass to kick. See you around, ghost boy!" And with a blast of her hoverboard's thrusters, she was gone. Phantom looked after her for a second before turning back to Maddie. His face was a lot less cheerful, now.

"You did something, didn't you?" he asked with a suspicious squint to his glowing eyes.

"I did," Maddie said.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Phantom said and began to float slowly towards Fentonworks, and Maddie followed. "But if I'm being honest, I'm dying to know what got you out on the streets looking for me at three in the morning."

Maddie ignored Phantom's pun completely. "Me too," she admitted. She could feel Phantom's worried eyes on her, but she didn't avert her eyes from the darkened street.

"Don't tell me that is what I think it is," Phantom said with an uncharacteristically tight voice the moment he'd laid his eyes on the cockroach. Maddie had kept it in the mesh box while she sought Phantom, but also placed the box inside a small ghost shield to ensure it wouldn't escape. It could easily pass through either method of containment as far as she was aware, but she was hoping it lacked the intellect to do so.

Currently, it was dark brown and skittering around the edges of the box like any other completely alive cockroach would, poking its antennas through the holes curiously.

"Are you like that?" Maddie asked, neither of them looking away from the cockroach. "Can you… become alive again like that?"

Phantom was silent for a long while. "I can," he sighed eventually, so airy that Maddie almost missed it.

"Why didn't you tell?"

Phantom scoffed. "it's not like you would've believed me." He sounded defensive.

"That was what you did when you flew through the shield dome," Maddie said in realization and hit her palm with her fist. "That's how you pass through ghost shields and disappear from the radar."

"Yeah," Phantom admitted, a little smug grin tugging on the corner of his mouth even if he still wasn't looking at her. "Comes in real handy when everyone is out for your ectoplasm."

Maddie hummed a noise of agreement.

The uncomfortable silence stretched out between them, the only sounds being the faint background hum of machinery and the odd cockroach chirp. She felt they were on the edge of a breakthrough, one kind or another. A scientific breakthrough, or a personal one, or an emotional- perhaps all three. Phantom was radiating nervous deer-in-the-headlights- energy again, and the little hairs on the back of Maddie's neck were standing up one at a time.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Phantom spared her a glance- a side-eye, and lifted his eyebrows. "It's better if I don't tell you," he said.

"Really?" Maddie asked. "Knowing what I do now, I think I could figure it out."

"I know," Phantom said.

Maddie blinked in surprise. "Then wouldn't it be easier to just tell me now?"

Phantom chuckled. "No," he grinned. "You like mysteries and figuring things out. That's why you started talking to me in he first place. It wouldn't be fair for me to spoil it for you."

"Spoil it?" Maddie asked, crossing her arms and turning bodily towards Phantom. "Really?"

"Yeah," Phantom said, turning towards her as well and mirroring her position. "Like the ending of a TV show. If someone tells you what happens in the finale it's never gonna be the same if you'd watched it yourself."

Maddie sighed. Phantom had a point, no matter how dumb it was. "Alright, have it your way. But I will find it out."

Silence fell between them again, but this time it felt less like Maddie was drowning in someone else's distress. Sure, Phantom was still fidgeting and staring at the cockroach again, but it was less to avoid her gaze and more to actually look at the insect.

"…you do realize you've just created a super powerful and probably immortal half ghost cockroach, right?" Phantom asked eventually.

With a sinking feeling of realization, Maddie's eyes fell on the cockroach. It was ghostly once more, and had scuttled right out of the little mesh box and was currently testing the waters on the ghost shield's edge.

"Please tell me you have a way of containing it."

Maddie could only bite her cheeks.

"Unbelievable," Phantom said and shook his head.

"Well, in my defense, I didn't know that would happen."

"Didn't know, huh?" Phantom scoffed with a half grin on his face. "You were trying to replicate what happened to me in small scale, with extensive knowledge of my abilities. You were just too caught up in the thrill of experimenting to put two and two together in advance."

Maddie frowned and glared at the ghost. When he said it, it seemed obvious. Of course a successful experiment would result in… whatever the cockroach had become- organic ghost, or what had Phantom called it, half ghost? He was right, she had been too swept up in the thrill of discovery to think her hypothesis thoroughly. "No use lamenting it now. Do you have any ideas?"

"Me?" Phantom sputtered. "You're asking me for ideas?"

"You're the ghost Houdini here," Maddie said. "You've probably noticed, but we've never managed to hold you for long. You'd be the one of us to better know what would keep that thing contained."

"Hmm, no, not really," Phantom said with a sort of apologetic smile and rubbed the back of his neck. "I know how to escape, not how to hold. I know a guy, though."

"Would this… 'guy' be the Wisconsin ghost?"

"Plasmius, yes," Phantom nodded. "I don't think I want to subject the little guy to that, though."

Maddie raised an eyebrow in question, hoping the spectre would elaborate, but his train of thought was heading elsewhere. "I also know a few places," he carried on, visibly lost in thought, "where it wouldn't find it's way back to the human world for a long time, if at all. Then again, if there's the chance it can breed with the things in there… no, not that place. What about that place… no, Frostbite would be mad, even if he'd never say it to my face. What about- nah, he'd just say no… Have you considered having a pet cockroach?"

Maddie snorted. "A pet cockroach? Really?"

"Oh yes," Phantom nodded with a serious expression. "I hear they can be trained."

"Trained? Phantom, it's a cockroach."

"It's a ghost cockroach. Some ghost animals posthumously gain higher intelligence. Maybe this bug is the next Einstein."

"Phantom, I'm being serious."

"So am I, even if I don't sound like it," Phantom said. "I'm gonna try talking to it. Turn off the shield, would you?"

"If it flies off, it's on you," Maddie said but turned off the shield. Phantom picked the cockroach up without any hesitation, plucking it intangibly from its box. The insect waved its antennas wildly around, but once Phantom deposited it onto his open palm it did not skitter away and into the darkest corner possible like cockroaches were known to do. Instead it looked as if it was feeling Phantom's ghostly aura with apparent curiosity.

Suddenly the cockroach flashed brightly, and the tiny ring of transformative light appeared. Once it was ghostly once more it chirped a few times, and seemed to turn its bugly attention to Phantom. The two strange ghosts stared at each other intently, but nothing seemed to be happening.

"So, was that-"

"Shush!" Phantom whispered sharply. "We're talking."

That didn't look much like talking to her, but then again, communication between ghosts had never seemed as important as other subjects. But now that she looked at it, the cockroach was small enough to be fully immersed in Phantom's aura, and whatever the obvious visible differences between may be, they were the same 'species' of ghost, so to speak. As Maddie watched, a triumphant look spread to Phantom's face.

"We can understand each other," he said with a face-splitting grin. "Heh, never thought I'd be this happy about talking to a bug. Anyway, he's super confused about everything, having just died and all. I can relate, to be honest."

"You actually talked to it?" Maddie couldn't help asking.

"Yeah, sort of," Phantom said and brought the bug closer to his face to better look at it. "I like this bug, mind if I keep him?"

"I can't really stop you, now can I?"

"No, but I thought it'd be nice to ask."