A/N: I feel like I didn't properly thank you all, apologize, or acknowledge how amazing all of you are in my last author's note, but I was just so anxious to post last time that I just... did.

Anyway, I've been reading your amazing reviews after posting the first ep. of Haunted Hayride (something I'd been avoiding due to the guilt I felt for not updating), and you're all so incredibly nice! It was so uplifting and inspiring. Some of you made me cry.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me. I know it was a long wait, and I'm sorry I was gone so long, but I'm back now - for a while, at least!

If I ever think a massive hiatus is coming again, I promise to be more transparent. (Also, I'm also considering moving this to A03 someday! Probably when it's done.)

In the meantime, enjoy ep. 2 of Haunted Hayride!

-Song

It has been seven days since the hunt began.

It all started with a blip. A ripple in the ocean. A single drop of rain upon the surface waves of the Ghost Zone. Something had unknowingly stumbled into the jungle without understanding the gravity of its steps nor the sheer deafening volume of its existence.

A half-human half-ghost - a Halfa, if you will - had appeared only once before in the course of Ghost Zone memory. That ghost was an apex predator, a singular species. It was assumed it was the only one of its kind.

Until now.

What luck that Skulker had happened to be passing by the famous Fenton portal only seven days ago. Like a shark, he instantly sensed the change - the blood in the water. Something had stumbled inside his domain.

A ghost?

No. A Halfa - a new Halfa.

Skulker had watched from the shadows as the strange boy flew his first few feet into the Ghost Zone. How the boy had marveled and shivered; both with fear and the possible exhilaration that all ghosts felt upon arriving here: that they belonged.

That they might never leave.

And even though the boy did leave, though he raced back to the safety and comfort of the human realm, Skulker did not immediately give chase.

The ultimate prey had arrived, and catching it required patience. But as it turned out, tracking a ghost child in the human realm was no easy task.

In his research, Skulker had learned that the ectoplasmic signature of a Halfa blipped in and out of Skulker's scanners; its power waxing and waning with the shift between human and ghost.

Regular ghosts didn't do that. All ectoplasmic energy was always active, and each ghost had its own unique signature. If Skulker had even a drop of ectoplasm from his prey, it was only a matter of when and where he would catch them.

However, with a lack of available biological data to go off of, Skulker had had to track his prey the old-fashioned way - through sight and smell, research and study. No, this was no easy task, but the pelt at the end would be worth all the effort.

Compared to his predecessor, it didn't matter that this Halfa was a whelp. A pup. Barely able to use its powers.

Upon further investigation (and several days in the human realm), Skulker learned that the whelp was small in stature and age. Young, perhaps seventeen living years. Not even a quarter of the lifespan of a human.

Skulker thought it strange that the whelp had no protection from its much stronger predecessor. In fact, it seemed that neither was aware of the other.

This Halfa was weak, untrained, and vulnerable.

Yet the power that exuded from within him was remarkable. An untapped well of potential - a veritable ocean waiting to spill forth and submerge everything in its path.

If given enough time, this Halfa pup would reach an apex level like that of the first. It would become too powerful for the likes of the average Ghost Zone resident and upset the balance.

Skulker could claim he was doing the realm a favor by preventing a second coming of a predator Halfa - a second 'Plasmius Disruption' to the ecosystem -but he would be lying to himself.

He wanted the pelt. The head.

The power.

"You will look so splendidly draped upon my wall," Skulker whispered to the trees. It echoed down a dirt path and blew gently into a quiet cornfield, where human and Halfa waited in the dark.

…

Danny wasn't sure how to proceed. There was a presence, that was for sure, but where was it? Why was the feeling so oppressive? It was more than he was being watched. He was being followed.

Hunted.

Invisible, Danny snuck in between the landscape like a cold breeze. He wanted to discern the origin of the ghostly presence and then get Tucker for reinforcements. He did not want to engage if he didn't have to - he wasn't sure it was a fight he could win - especially without the thermos. Whatever had been on his tail all night was nearby, he could feel it.

He just couldn't see it.

A hollow chuckling echoed out from the forest. The corn stalks swayed. It sent fear through Danny, and his instincts which were usually to fight, suggested flight instead.

"Where are you?" Danny whispered.

No one answered. Yet the dread remained.

He turned around and squinted back toward the cornfield. He could just make out the sight of Tucker crouching there, waiting for the hayride. Waiting for Danny to come back.

He suddenly felt like a total jerk. Tucker was right. Danny had put everyone in danger by staying silent about this, but there was no going back now.

Danny flew slowly through the forest, phasing through trees. He tried not to go too far from Tucker, but the chills running through him suggested that he may have to go deeper into the trees. Danny heard a groaning, rumbling sound to his right and stopped short. Then he relaxed a little.

It just was the tractor pulling the first wagon full of paying customers through the haunted hayride. Danny realized vaguely he wouldn't be there to help Tucker jump out and scare anyone, but it didn't seem to matter much given the current circumstances.

Then something crackled in the air, sending his ghost sense into hyperdrive. He ducked just in time to avoid the oncoming blast of ecto-energy careening toward his head. It crashed into a tree behind him and sizzled there, burning into the wood, leaving behind a smoldering patch.

Danny gasped aloud and became visible. Someone below him screamed.

"What the hell is that!?" shrieked Brittany James, the undead slutty nurse.

At first, Danny thought she was referring to him. When he looked down at her, though, she was running away, glancing back every few steps at something else.

Danny spun around midair, fists raised. Behind him was something big hiding in the shadow of a large oak, perched upon a branch. It glinted slightly, like metal in moonlight, and Danny squinted. It was a ghost. A ghost that looked like it was wearing full-body plate armor. Danny's brain immediately thought: robot.

Whatever it was, the ghost raised its right arm.

What? Danny thought, just as three small shots fired.

They were, impossibly, tiny missiles. They crackled with a fiery ecto-energy; powerful, dangerous, and overwhelming.

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and willed his body to become intangible, and thankfully, he did. But he still felt the sharp bite of one arrow slice through his right arm.

"Ah!" he cried. Unable to concentrate, he lost his intangibility, and became corporeal once again.

Damn, that hurt, he thought. Wait... That hurt!?

His arm was dripping with green ectoplasm which trickled down to the forest floor below. He jerked to the side in time to avoid the second missile aimed right at his left leg. The arrow embedded into the tree trunk behind him with a loud thunk.

The third shot that missed exploded with a sharp green flash, and then hot orange flames erupted in the bark of a distant, dry pine. Danny turned in horror, clutching his right arm. This whole week had been dry and cold, and he knew that, if he let this go too long, the forest - maybe the whole farm - would go up in flames.

"Okay, Mr. Roboto," Danny said, turning to the ghost in the trees. He couldn't see it anymore. It had moved. "Domo Arigato and all that, but you're so going down."

A deep, cackling voice echoed back at him. The sharp smell of burning wood filled Danny's nose as he searched for the source of the laughter.

"Come out!" Danny yelled. "Face me!"

From behind him, the ghost struck, shoving Danny hard in the back and sending him flying into another oak. He felt his whole body make contact with a crash, and the oak trembled, dropping leaf after dead leaf to the forest below. Danny didn't have time to right himself before the ghost caught him in a steely grip by the throat.

"Easy, whelp," the ghost said. "Don't move another inch."

Danny was now face to face with the ghost and didn't like what he saw. A military-grade Terminator-looking monster with gray metal skin, flaming green hair and a robotic face like a human skull. Its armored hands were outfitted in heavy gauntlets, cannons, and all manner of electronic panels. Its eyes were glowing green lights, and its teeth shone like jagged bones without lips to cover them.

Had he still been in his human form, Danny's heart would have pounded, and he would have begun to sweat. But there wasn't time for that.

Over the cyborg's shoulder, Danny could see the tree from before, once smoldering with green fire, now burning a hot orange. Pieces and branches fell to the ground, igniting the dead grass, brush, and leaves that quickly erupted into flames.

At this rate, the whole forest would burn down.

People were going to get hurt.

Danny couldn't let that happen. He steeled himself, though his arm hurt very badly now, and he brought his right leg up so fast and hard that he shoved the cyborg away. The ghost looked surprised and grunted as it flew back several feet in the air. Danny rushed forward, brought down both fists upon the cyborg's head, and hammered it to the ground.

"Who are you?" Danny cried.

The ghost turned and raised its right arm again. Danny's eyes went wide. Two more missiles shot from the cannon on the ghost's metallic arm. Danny tried to fly backward in time, but one took a slice out of his left shoulder.

"Ahh!" Danny screamed. Green ectoplasm bubbled up quickly and began running down his left arm now, his right arm still throbbing from the first shot.

Danny couldn't understand how the ghost's weapons were hurting him. So far, nothing had cut or bruised him when he was in ghost form. It was part of the whole half-dead deal. Flight, invisibility, intangibility, super strength, and a sort of immunity to pain.

Well, there was always a little pain. Of course there was. You don't get thrown into an amusement park ride or face down a dragon without a little pain. But the amount done to his ghost body was never enough to last. It always fades. Sharp for a second, but then a dull ache - like after you stub your toe a little. It never lasted.

He never bled.

Danny avoided the second shot again and flew down to attack the cyborg on the ground. The ghost stepped up to meet him and they locked hands. Danny tried to overpower the ghost, restricting its movements until he could land a direct blow. Tucker had always joked about Danny's new super strength but felt powerless now. The ghost was shoving him back down into the earth as though they were wrestling for their lives, and Danny was definitely in the wrong weight class.

"Die again." The ghost released one of Danny's hands to pull back his heavy armored fist.

Danny ducked, there was nothing else to do. He twisted out of the ghost's grip and flew up again, but heard the telltale shot of another missile. He turned, but before he could react, he was encapsulated in a glowing blue net, which pulled him backward and nailed him to the tree just beyond.

He dangled there, helpless and bleeding. The forest around him was properly burning now. It was only a matter of time before this tree caught fire.

The ghost approached once more - leisurely this time. The pace of a predator that had well and truly trapped its prey. It took a knee on the nearest branch that could handle its tangible weight, and rested a large arm on it, as though it and Danny were going to have a team huddle before the big game.

"Well," it said in an extraordinarily deep, male-sounding voice, "that was easier than expected. Here I thought you would be more of a challenge. I suppose that's the difference between a mature Halfa and a whelp. Experience."

Danny blinked, uncomprehending. "A… a what?"

The ghost grinned. "A specimen that doesn't even know its own taxonomy. Delightful."

Danny didn't like being called a specimen. What was this thing anyway? How did someone die and become a cyborg?

"Seriously, who are you?" Danny snapped.

The ghost looked proud, puffing its large chest out like a gorilla.

"I am the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, Skulker. You, my little Halfa, have the honor of becoming my greatest catch."

"A ghost-hunting ghost? That's-"

"Familiar? From what I've observed, whelp, you have captured and released your fair share of my kind. Don't pretend that what I do is any different just because you are half human." Then Skulker thought about it. "Well, I suppose I don't release them like you do. What a foolish mistake on your part. Don't you know that is how you make enemies? Predators?"

Danny felt sick. "You've been observing me?"

"Since your arrival in my territory I have matched you movement for movement. I know where you den, where you eat. Everything."

"Dude, that's too much information."

Skulker shrugged his huge cyborg arms. "I like to be thorough on the hunt."

The playful bloodlust in Skulker's expression was too much. He was seriously ready to end Danny and would enjoy doing it. The net was constricting, but Danny tried tearing it, using all his strength to fight his way out. When that didn't work, he tried to go intangible and phase through it, but that failed too.

His attempts at freedom only made Skulker laugh all the more.

"That net is a human invention specifically built to catch ghosts. I re-engineered it for my purposes, of course. No ghost can phase through, nor break, my traps."

Danny was starting to feel that anxious panic that surfaced whenever he was in ghost form. Without a heartbeat or quickened breath, his mind filled in the missing gaps of his flight instinct with pure dread.

"What do you want with me? What did I ever do to you?"

Skulker stood up from his kneeling position on the branch. He looked incredibly blasé about the state of the forest around them. The fire was growing into an emergency. Danny now heard the loud screaming of parents and children, of people running, and the screech of fire truck sirens echoing through the forest. He thought of Tucker and Sam. Was Tucker still safely hiding in the cornfield? Was Sam rushing into the burning forest to come find them? The vivid image of Tucker or Sam running through a blazing forest only increased the panic rising in his throat.

"Why you? What did you do?" Skulker repeated. "You exist."

"What kind of reason is that!?" Danny cried.

"It is the only reason," Skulker said. "I could say that your counterpart is too mature. Too dangerous. That by learning of your existence, and then killing you, I am preventing another ecological catastrophe. Stopping your growth before the Ghost Zone's power imbalance is too great."

"What counterpart? What power imbalance?" Danny cried. "What the hell does any of that mean!?"

"But it would be a lie," Skulker continued, unbothered. "The truth is, you are my greatest conquest. No other ghost can claim they have captured and killed a Halfa before, not even Walker. I will be the first and, Fate willing, the last."

Danny didn't understand anything the ghost was saying. Skulker seemed completely insane. Who was Walker? What was a Halfa? What was Danny's counterpart?

Why me?

Skulker raised his right arm again, this time pointing it directly at Danny's head. Danny stared down the sharp tip of what looked to be another deadly arrow crackling with ecto-energy. Skulker flexed his fingers and knocked the arrow back. An electronic whine came from his wrist, charging up the weapon, preparing the shot.

"Any last words, whelp?"