Jack Fenton was down in his lab, a soldering iron held steadily in his hands while he carefully attached the last few components to what was shaping up to be one of his greatest inventions yet, aside from the Fenton portal of course.

"Steady." He said to himself, as he aligned the tough plastic cover he'd molded the night before, he had to be very careful not to jar any of the components until they were safely secured by the protective barrier. The soldering iron was switched out for a tiny electric drill and he got the outer cover into place.

"Maddie!" He called bounding up the stairs at a speed that was almost unnatural for a man his size.

"It's finished?!" His wife hugged him and took the device in her hands, looking it over with an exited gleam in her eyes. "I wait to test it out!" She said.

"What's going on now?" Jazz, asked from the top of the staircase. "Is something going to blow up again."

Jack laughed and held out the device. "The Fenton scanner!" He said. "With just a tiny piece of ectoplasm, it can track down the owner no matter where they hide! Huh, almost makes me wish that ghost boy would come flying through that door!" He pointed energetically at their front door.

Jazz looked at the door as though she really expected that to happen.

"You don't need to worry about that Sweetie." Maddie said sweetly. "No ghost will get anywhere near you, or your brother while were here."

"Speaking of Danny, I'm going to go and show him the Fenton scanner." Jack yelled and ran up the stairs. "Danny!" He pounded on his son's door, and when he didn't get a reply, figured that his son would have told him to get go away if he was busy. So he just slammed the door open.

"Danny boy! That fiendish ghost boy won't be getting away from us again!" He yelled into the empty room. That was strange, his eyes narrowed, he was sure he'd heard Danny just a few minutes ago.

"He's supposed to tell us before he leaves." Maddie huffed with a frown, and crossed her arms.

"You can't just barge into his room like that!" Jazz pushed both parents out of her brother's room and slammed the door shut. "Do you want him to lose all sense of privacy." She stomped away, grumbling angrily. "I can't believe them, so clueless. They're going to end up pushed right out of the… All they care about is their work…" Her voice faded out when she disappeared into her room, slamming her own door too.

Jack's heart sank, all the excitement of a moment before draining out of him. "Oh it's true Maddie." He moaned. "I hardly even see him anymore."

"Aw Honey." She said, gently patting his shoulder. "All children push their parents away sometime." She tapped her chin, her lovely violet eyes narrowing in though. "Though I suppose we have been working hard lately." She smiled. "We should take next weekend off, and go to that lake house. Have some family bonding time."

"The one from the TV!?" He didn't clap his hands, grown men didn't do that, but boy did he want to!

"You two really can't think of something that doesn't involve ghosts!" Jazz called from her room.

Both Fentons laughed at that. A family trip without ghosts? The very idea was ridiculous.

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Danny collapsed onto his bed as soon as he got home, wanting nothing more than to sleep through the night. It felt like ghosts of all kinds were popping up more and more frequently. The young hero was more tired now than he'd been since Spectra had been literally sucking the life out of him. Ghost attacks at all hours of the day had been bad enough, now they were going after him in the middle of the night as well.

Red was sitting on Danny's desk, looking out the window. Just the night before Danny had been woken by the young ghost beating a stringy ghost out of that window with a baseball bat. Since the Carnival a lot of ghosts had been singling Red out, trying to drag him away. Luckily none of them were a problem for the huge ghost. Danny was just worried that someone like Skulker would be next to go after the ghost child.

The halfa could feel the comforting tendrils of sleep pulling him in. Just as the world was getting dark and fuzzy, his bedroom slammed open.

Danny shot upright and Red phased under the table with a yelp and a loud thump, leaving his human clothes behind.

"Danny!" His father yelled, thankfully much louder than Red. "There you are, we've been waiting for you all day to give you the good news!"

"What?" Danny asked, still a little disoriented from his near sleep.

"Are you not feeling well Danny?" His mom pressed her cheek against Danny's forehead. "You're so pale."

"I'm fine."Danny pushed her away, taking a glance at the ghost crouched under the desk. "So what was the news?"

"Your father and I have noticed that we haven't had much family time lately, so we've decided that we'll all go on little trip. Don't make any plans this weekend, okay." His mother said.

"We're going to stay at a lake house." Dad yelled. "A haunted lake house."

"Oh." Danny slumped down again. "You know, I'm actually feeling kinda sick, maybe I should just stay home." He was having a hard enough time avoiding ghosts around town, he didn't want to go somewhere that was actually haunted.

"Nonsense, Danny." Dad said. "The weekend's still two days away, you'll be in great shape by then, and we'll have some father-son bonding time. There'll be fishing, ghosts, ghost fishing. It'll be great."

"You just rest up now." Mom said, brushing aside his hair. "And I'll bring you up some soup later."

His parents left and Danny let out a loud sigh, then went to lock his bedroom door. At least Red would be away from all the ghosts targeting him.

"Not like we were gonna get any rest this weekend anyway." Danny said to the half asleep ghost crawling out from under his desk. "You okay? I think we need a better way of hiding you from my folks. You sure you can't go invisible yet?"

"Meh." Red flopped onto the computer chair and looked out the window. "'m too tired to worry and so're you, try n sleep."

"You sleep, I'm used to this." Danny closed his curtain. "If a ghost comes in here we'll handle it."

"I'll handle it better if I can see it coming." Red pulled the curtain open.

"We'll handle it." Danny said, and closed it again.

"I told you before, it's not your problem." Red groaned and fell back into the chair.

"Ghosts are always my problem." Danny said, he'd already beaten back one ghost invasion, some extra ghosts wasn't going to break him. "My friends are my problem."

Red tensed up, and Danny thought he was going to change the subject like he did whenever he didn't want to talk about something. Then the ghost sighed and his boy sagged into the chair,

"It's not the ghosts." Red said. "I cant sleep because I'm being stalked." He looked back at the hidden window. "Since that freaking carnival. I told you carnivals were never good."

"We'll they won't find you at the lake house, so that's a thing." Danny said, going back to his bed. "At the lake, far away from the city, we'll see em… Wait." He frowned at the ghost opening his curtain. "How we gonna hide you from my folks."

"Easy." Red sat back on the desk. "I just won't go."

"You can't stay here alone." Danny said. "What happens if you have an accident with the ghost hunting equipment."

"I'm not a little kid." Red said, taking a scissors to his jester's hat.

"Or you could get stuck in the thermos." Danny grinned. "Hey Red, the thermos."

"Heck no." Red said. "I'm not a freaking pokemon."

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Saturday came and Danny finally got a chance to sleep, on the eight hour drive to the haunted lake house while Jazz was reading and his parents were talking excitedly about testing there new equipment. The thermos containing Red was tucked away safely in Danny's backpack.

The haunted lake house really looked the part. It was made of faded, grayish wood and surrounded for miles by dark creepy woods.

"If you need us we'll be looking for a good place to set up!" Dad said, his arms full of equipment.

"Have fun kids!" Mom called and the older Fentons ran off.

All Jazz did was sit on an old porch swing with her book and tell Danny not to get into any trouble. What she thought he would do in the middle of nowhere was anyone's guess. There were no other people around for miles. Danny wandered around the house, making a show of checking out the dusty old furniture whenever someone else walked by. He went into every room, then into the surrounding forest, waiting for his ghost sense to go off.

When he was deep enough into the forest that his parents wouldn't notice anything, Danny let Red out of the thermos near the lakes edge.

"I hate that thing." Red said. "I'm going to burn that thing in the darkest corners of the darkest place I can find." He glared at the thermos. "I can't believe I let you carry me in there."

"You should have taken the chance to relax." Danny said.

"See how well you relax when you're driving in a car with people yakking on about all the ways they can tear you apart." Red shook himself. "Did you know that ghosts melt?"

"My parents are harmless." Danny said, confident he could draw away their attention and free Red if he were ever caught. "You can hear when you're in the thermos?"

"Kind of." Red said, looking around at the darkening forest. "Anyway, what's the deal with this place?"

"Look here." Danny pulled out the pamphlet he'd stuffed in his pocket. "It says that the original owners just disappeared one day, and that anyone who stays overnight is harassed by their vengeful ghosts." He waved his hands and spoke in his deepest campfire voice.

"'Course." Red plucked the pamphlet out of Danny's hands. "That'd be much scarier if I weren't a vengeful ghost, maybe they have tea. Or…," he read from the pamphlet, "…we can slam doors, bust the fuse, scream in the woods. All the usual stuff." He frowned down at the paper. "Unless they want to, drag their hapless victims to their watery deaths at the bottom of the lake. "An icy wind blew through the darkening woods, and lifting leaves to swirl all around the two boys. Red sighed and gave Danny a bemused stare. "Ima be at that party for sure."

"You try dragging my family anywhere and you're going back in the thermos." Danny said, folding his arms and frowning at the ghost.

"Come on, just a little one." Red held his hands close together, a small smile on his lips.

"Don't even joke like that." Danny laughed.

Red stood at the edge of the lake and peered into its murky green water, his usual gloominess reasserting itself. "Where are they anyway?" He asked. "Wasn't your father all excited about father-son bonding time?"

"They're setting up their equipment." Danny said. "Do you remember anything about yours, maybe you used to go camping?" Danny had never thought of Red as someone who spent a lot of time outdoors, or someone who spent a lot of time indoors either, he wondered how much of the original person carried over to the ghost, if they even counted as the same person.

"Nah." Red submerged his hand in the water and splashed at a frog. "Hey, what's that?"

There was a shape across the lake, too far away for Danny to make out what it could have been, but it didn't have a ghostly aura so he wasn't too worried about it. "Probably nothing." The halfa said.

"Nothing?" Red looked over his shoulder, a sharp smirk on his lips. "Or the creature that got the original owners? Whatever happened to them must have been pretty grisly for them to stick around."

"It's not a ghost." Danny said. "Ghost sense hasn't gone off."

"I never said it was a ghost. Maybe they summoned something else, something they shouldn't have messed with…" The shape started drifting closer.

"No they didn't." Danny kept his eyes on it.

"Maybe they ticked it off and it's still taking out its aggression on whoever come to this lake house." Red went on.

"There's nothing like that here." Danny crossed his arms a frowned at Red.

"That's the real reason they haven't left, they're afraid of being found out by it, and they chase off anyone who tries staying here to spare anyone else the same fate they had to endure."The ghost boy said.

"I don't think a log could do that, Red." Danny said, only noticing how fast his heart had been beating when it slowed down at the now identifiable piece of wood floating across the water.

Red's excitement dropped and he tossed his hat at the log. "Wet blanket." He grumbled. "Still wonder what got this place it's reputation."

"You didn't hear my folks talking about it?" Danny asked.

"Hey I wasn't awake the whole time." Red shrugged.

"Speaking of my folks." Danny put a hand near his chin. "I haven't heard them in a while, we should probably get back before…"

"GHOST!" The older Fentons charged towards the lake, flinging the jack o'ninetales at Red.

The ghost took off running into the woods, Danny's folks not far behind. The halfa went after them, calling for his parents to wait.

"You can catch the next one Danny!" His Mom called back.

Red had run far enough away that Danny couldn't see him anymore, but he could clearly hear his folks shouting excitedly about catching the elusive lake ghost. The only way Danny could think of to get the ghost out of trouble was to transform into his ghost form and lure his folks away with the hope of a better catch.

'They'll probably think Phantom got me if they don't see me when they run back.' The idea was kind of funny if he didn't think about what they'd do to someone they thought had hurt one of their children. They'd put even more effort into chasing after him for the rest of his life. 'Hey.' Danny could almost feel the proverbial light bulb clicking on.

"Mom, Dad!" Danny screamed in his most frightened voice and jumped into the lake. "A ghost is dragging me into the water! Help!"

Within seconds, Jack and Maddie Fenton were calling his name and charging back through the trees. His dad pulled Danny out of the water while his mother shot at where he'd been with her ecto blaster. If he'd been fully human the guns wouldn't have hurt, but the few shots that grazed him stung even when he wasn't transformed.

"It's okay!" He said. "It's gone it swam away."

"What's going on here?" Jazz came stomping up to the rest of her family. She gasped and pulled Danny away from his Dad, hugging the boy to her. "You're all wet, what happened?"

"A ghost pulled me into the lake." Danny said.

"And I pulled you back out." His dad said proudly.

"They won't be trying that again." His mom holstered her blaster.

"A ghost all the way out here?" Jazz, hugged her brother tighter, seemingly ignorant of the fact that the place was supposed to be haunted, or maybe she'd just thought it was a hoax. She held onto him while she alternated between lecturing her parents about so much stress in his formative years and fussing over him.

Danny looked over her shoulder and saw Red stifling his chuckles from where he was half hidden in the shadows of some tree branches. Red held a finger up to his lips then pointed at the lake. There, floating just above the choppy water was a shape with two glowing red eyes.

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Everyone else had calmed down and settled in for the night, Red was safely back in the thermos where no one could find him.

Every time Danny started drifting off the old house made another creepy noise and dragged him back to wakefulness. He was still cold even with the mountain of blankets he'd been buried under by his overprotective sister and whenever he closed his eyes he could feel something watching him. He took a deep breath and sighed, a trail of vapor escaping his mouth.

It was only as he was watching it disappear that he remembered it was way too hot out for him too really be that cold. If a ghost attacked he wanted it as far from his family as he could get it. He took Red's thermos and tried to phase through the walls, but some electricity bounced off it and shocked him.

A ghost shield, that was good, it meant nothing could get into the house. He was going to give it up and go back to sleep when he heard a quiet 'clack, clack, clack,' echoing through the house. He told himself it was just his Dad tinkering with one of his inventions, but went to check it out, just in case.

Gripping the thermos tightly he tip toed across the creaky wooden floors. There was nothing in front of his parents door and he breathed out a relieved sigh. When he turned to go back something howled in the distance, sending shivers up his back.

Out the corner of his eye he spotted something.

A dark wavering mass hovered at the end of the hall. For a moment, nothing moved, then the creatures eyes fixed on Danny. The boy tripped in his haste to put some distance between them, dropping the thermos. It fell on the release button and Red appeared behind Danny.

Before the irate ghost had a chance to say anything, Danny grabbed hold of his head and turned it to the creature. All at once it lunged at them, both boy's let out a scream and ran away. They stumbled through the unfamiliar house, trapping themselves in dead ends and just barely managing to get away before the creature caught up to them.

Soon they found themselves cowering behind some boxes in the dusty, creepy attic.

"I can't believe we actually ran up here." Danny whispered. "It's the most cliché gets caught by the monster ending there is."

"Woods is worse." Red whispered back. "They always get chased down when they go for the woods."

They listened carefully for the clack clacking of the monster, eyes fixed on the ladder into the attic.

"Hey Boss?" Red looked at the other boy.

"Yeah." Something loud was thumping through the house now, Danny was tensed for the moment he saw it again. It's smoky form seeped into the room, drawing close to the two boys.

"Why are we hiding?"

Danny opened his mouth, the answer on the tip of his tongue when he realized that he had no idea. There was nothing about the situation that was too different from any other ghost they'd fought.

"I don't know." The halfa admitted. "You wanna..." He gestured at the door. "Let's just get this over with. I'm going gho…"

Before Danny had the chance to transformed his parents stormed into the room. The smoke ghost was wrapped in the jack o'ninetails and slammed to the ground. It reared back and tried to ram into its attackers. Then an ecto blaster was set off, flashing the monster's shadow across the walls.

Danny and Red watched from their hiding place, unable to look away.

"Boss." Red whispered. "Your parents are awesome."

"Yeah." Danny whispered back.

Neither of the boys noticed Jazz watching them from the top of the ladder.

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Sunday night Danny collapsed onto his bed and buried his face in the pillow. He let Red out and the ghost slumped into the computer chair.

"Not like we were expecting a break." Danny mumbled.

"Meh." Red yawned. "Breaks are for the weak."

"I'm feeling pretty weak right now." Danny groaned.

Red chuckled tiredly.

"Wanna watch a horror movie?"The hero cracked open an eye.

"You're the boss, Boss." Red spun in the chair and flicked on the computer.

It was an old movie about a haunted house where blood dripped from the walls and ghosts screamed in the basement. Danny and Red were asleep ten minutes in.