Danny put his phone into his pocket and did a small once over of the room, now it's time to start hatching his plan.

There were no cameras that he could see, not that he thought Superman would have any in his apartment. The dude could probably sense intruders from miles away using their heartbeats!

Danny took a deep breath. If he was going to do this correctly he would have to work for it. Any moment he could be caught and then the High and Mighty Babysitters would put him on lockdown. First things first, he needed to distract Superman and ensure he wouldn't notice Danny leaving the apartment. He just needed enough of a headstart to make it to Amity Park, talk to Jazz, grab his stuff, and head back. Like taking boxes from the Box Ghost, easy peasy ecto squeezy.

Alright distraction, distraction… Distraction! Danny clenched his fists and duplicated himself. He doesn't use this power very often of because it drains so much of his energy. There is a core in the original Danny, but the second Danny, who doesn't have a core, needs enough ectoplasm to stay stable long enough for the original Danny to get out of there.

The one with the core (or in other words, the 'true' Danny) will make a break for it, while the duplicate will go out and talk to Supes in the living room and distract him long enough for Core Danny to get away. Then, once he is far enough out of Metropolis, the duplicate will go back to the room and dissipate.

Danny can pick up the ectoplasm again later to regain some of his strength back. Sure, he will be fine without it, but it still helps if he doesn't want to go to the zone to charge as often. When it dissipates it will mostly stay in the energy around the room but there will probably be a pile of the stuff on the floor. He just hopes Superman doesn't see it and then freak out because he's thinking Danny had up and died again or something. The two Danny's looked up at each other before nodding. It's go time.

Core Danny was careful to turn both intangible and invisible as he floated over to the door. He then stuck his head through the bedroom door into the living room.

Duplicate Danny simply floated through the wall into the living room, visible and fully planning on giving Clark a fright about his strange entry and starting up a conversation. " Hey… Superman?" Both Dannys looked around. He thought he was still in the living room…

"Superman?" The duplicate floated around the living room. "Hello… Clark?" He looked behind the counter of the kitchen as if checking to see if he was hiding on the floor against the cupboards.

Duplicate Danny glanced over to core Danny who was still invisible and shrugged. Core Danny floated fully through the door turning visible and looking back and forth. "Where is he?"

"Beats me," he floated over and the two Dannys rejoined.

"Guess I didn't really need a plan after all." He flew up straight through the roof and darted towards Amity.


Once he realized that there was no one in his apartment, Clark began searching for a heartbeat on instinct, he remembered that Phantom didn't have a heartbeat, then switched to thermal vision to locate the cold spot the kid gives off, as well as listen to any disturbance in the wind where Phantom could be flying.

After about thirty seconds of searching, which was a bit too long in Clark's books, he managed to spot the cold signature and hear the sound of almost a dull electrical hum?

But Clark did have him now, he was heading east of Metropolis and Clark sped right after him. The kid was fast but Superman was faster.

Clark caught up to him quickly enough, starting by hovering above the boy. Clark couldn't see him or hear the air whipping around Phantom's form at all, it was like he wasn't even there. If Clark couldn't see with his thermal vision, or even hear the buzz- of what he assumed the kid said was ectoplasm- he wouldn't even know the ghost was there.

"Phantom!" Clark's voice was louder than he wanted it to be. "What are you doing?"

The boy startled so badly that he almost fell out of the sky, turning visible again to look straight up at Clark, eyes wide.


Authors Notes

Beta: BloodyBecauseYes

Hope you had a good week and enjoyed the chapter! Have fun!