Jazz clutched the strap of her bag tightly as she looked up at the large entry doors for the "Gotham Ghost Hunting Convention," secretly praying to clockwork that Danny wasn't in there, and that he just got lost and this was a whole big overreaction on her part. Another deep breath — Sam was right, she needed to calm down. Finding Danny would be really difficult if she was hyperventilating every five minutes.

Her parents had been inside since six in the morning setting up their booth. She had told them that she was going to sleep in and meet up with them later, while secretly, she was brainstorming how to find her lost dead brother in a city full of people that are actively hunting him, and others like him, down.

She always disliked her parent's work, even before Danny died and they became more of a threat to him. They had always prioritized their work on "The Ghost Zone" way ahead of their own children. Sure, they were interested in taking care of Danny for the first two or so years, but then he became boring just like she had when she was that age. Their work was just simply more important than their own flesh and blood. Of course, the kids would be fine fending for themselves for ten hours a day while their parents worked in the lab experimenting on some stupid green goo!

They were entirely neglectful, leaving out experiments around the house that could easily hurt (or kill) one of them. If CPS had ever come by their house they would have failed the second the Fenton Automatic Ectoplasmic Ghost Turret aimed at the evaluator's head when they walked through the front door. Even before Danny died, he and Jazz still had accidentally gotten shot with weapons in the house. Luckily they had only received minor burns because "these only hurt ghosts, not humans."

Jazz hated it! Ever since she was five years old, she had to take care of her little brother. She taught herself to read and write, and she attempted to cook for them once and a while, not that it ever really turned out without a fire going off in the kitchen or something attacking her from the fridge. She received her cooking skills from her parents, all right.

Eventually, as she got older, her phone number became attached to all of the bills and medical records. If anything happened with Danny at school, her number was called, not her parents'. Even then, the teachers didn't mind! They knew that Jazz would take more of an interest in Danny's social and educational well-being than they did. Mr. Lancer would even pull her aside some days to tell her about problems Danny was having in school and how she could help him overcome them.

Talking to her parents about Danny was a last resort — even then, it's not like they would retain any information if it wasn't about ghosts or some experimental talk. And once they got home they would just tell Danny he couldn't play video games for a week and then go back downstairs to finish their latest invention.

Jazz has always taken care of Danny, whether she wanted to or not. And it pains her so much that she has to see his looks of fear from across the dinner table when their parents talk about how they plan to dissect Phantom in great detail. She hated herself for the fact that she didn't even notice that he died for three whole months! She was just as bad as her parents, too focused on her school work and making sure she could get her psychology degree when she should have been focusing on her brother.

But she would turn eighteen in a few months, and when that finally comes around, if anything happens, she can take Danny and run. And if they fight back legally she has dozens upon dozens of records and pieces of evidence of neglect, child endangerment and so much more. She will have custody within an hour of the judge taking up the case. But she needs to hold out until Danny finishes high school — she doesn't want him to have a botched education just 'cause she wants him to be away from the people who killed him (even if it was unintentional). He can graduate at seventeen like she did and they can leave to somewhere safe. She always wanted to study psychology at Gotham University… Maybe she can convince Danny to come. She will keep him safe. And he can probably fulfill his obsession with all of the crime here. It is worth a shot.

Jazz zoned back in as she glanced at the other hunters and random civilians who were walking in and out of the building around her. Some gave her a passing glance as she just stood in the middle of the sidewalk while daydreaming, just staring at the door. Another annoyed glance was thrown her way by someone who almost bumped into her. Her hand gripped tighter as she pushed herself forward, nodding in apology to the man before entering.

Inside, there was an electric/metallic tinge in the air. One that she knew well from not only living with a ghost, but also being in her parents' lab. The acidic tang on her tongue from the amount of ectoplasm being used made a shiver go down her spine. Many of these ghost hunters would buy their ectoplasm from her parents' synthetic supply or DALV Corp, Vlad's not-so-secret evil company, where he can sell off ectoplasm from his own portal and ecto filter for personal gain.

…But, there were still those who didn't have access to the lesser types of ectoplasm and had to go for the source. Ectoplasm taken directly from a ghost was much stronger and more effective, and it could also last much longer than the synthetic stuff. But in order to get that… You would have to kill or drain the ghost to get their ectoplasm. The main hunters that used this method were the Guys in White…

She glanced over at their booth which spread across three rented spots. It was littered with weapons and tools that anyone here could buy. Lots of the designs were just her parents' inventions but changed to match their own non-colour scheme. She rolled her eyes. She wished her parents didn't just post all of their blueprints to their website for the world to see and hunters to steal. The only good thing about it was the fact that Danny and herself know how to disable and work around her parents' tech, so that whenever Danny gets stuck in something, nine times out of ten, he can escape it.

She took one last scan over the GiW weapons. Her stomach swirled in unease as she spotted the ones on the top shelf, the most expensive ones, the ones powered by ghost cores. She felt the bile in her mouth as she had to turn away. Those were people! Souls! And were being used as a trinket of feeble power source to help take down more of their species. It was sick and horrible, and Jazz wished she could stomp over there, destroy the display and chew out every last person in this center.

But she can't. She knows she can't, 'cause if she does, she will be arrested for destroying private property or interrogated, maybe even experimented on, for aiding ghosts. If they take her in and scan her they will likely see the ectoplasm flowing through her veins. No, she is not a ghost, nor will she likely be one when she dies, but she lives in Amity Park, with her dead brother who is around her all the time, and her parents are ecto-biologists that fed her and her brother food injected with ectoplasm as children. Though, they claimed that it was to build their immune system against overshadowing…

But either way, even if she did grab the cores and run off, the ghosts would be long since gone. She can sense that their souls have faded away to almost nothing with the use of the weapons. Even if she did manage to steal all of the cores without someone noticing and bring them to the graveyard in the zone (the place where they take faded ghost's cores to try and resurrect them with pure ectoplasm) they would come back broken. They would never be the same after all of the months of experimentation and torture they had to go through before finally fading to find peace. She couldn't do that to them.

She started walking away, her arms wrapped around herself. She needed to find her parents' booth and check in with them, then go out again to try and continue looking for Danny. She ignored the people who were oohing and ah-ing over the corpses of people who could have been their friends. Right now, she is just glad that Danny isn't here with her.

She found her way to her parents' booth relatively quickly; it was the only one with all of the large bright lights and ghost weapons disguised as vacuum cleaners. That and the fact that she could hear her Dad's loud booming voice from across the center.

"There you are, Jazzy Pants!" Her dad yelled right in the ear of a passerby who winced and backed away. "I was wondering when your sleepy head would get up. Here, take this." Jack shoved a large rifle into her arms while he turned around to grab a power cell.

She stammered, "Uh, Dad, you know I don't know how to use this stuff, I- Uh, don't think it's a good idea for me to be holding them. I could accidentally shoot someone." This was also partially true. She remembered when she first started using her parent's tech to help Danny, she kept accidentally trapping him in the Fenton Thermos. But truly, she just wanted the weapon out of her hands so she could leave. She didn't want to be around here any longer than she had to. Danny wasn't here, she would have sensed it by now, so he had to be somewhere else… Thankfully.

Her mom walked by and patted her head while spinning a baton around in her hands. "Now, now, sweetie, you know that these weapons only hurt ghosts."

"They can still burn people." She responded, grimacing to herself as she remembered a nasty burn on her back that Sam had to help clean up.

Maddie hmmed to herself. "Only when it's at a high enough level," she said chipperly, turning back around to put something on the table behind her. Her dad reached over and attached the power cell to the rifle she was still holding, took it out of her hands, and placed it on a mount on the wall.

Her mom turned around with a look of thought on her lips. You couldn't see the rest of her face with her full cowl and goggles attached to her bright blue hazmat suit. "Gee, I haven't seen Danny in a while. I wonder where he is?" Jazz bit her lip anxiously.

"That's right!" Jack boomed, making Jazz wince, "He's supposed to be helping me clean out the Fenton Ghost Blending Machine today." He put his hands on his hips as he looked around

Jazz started trying to think quickly. "He went out to the library!" Her mom raised an eyebrow. "He wanted to just visit around Gotham but then he went into the library, he found a good book and said he would be a while."

Her mom put her hand to her chin. "I didn't think Danny liked reading…" I mean at least he's learning something." She shrugged and turned away, and Jazz let out a slight sigh of relief, while simultaneously biting back a 'There's a lot you don't know about him'.

Jack laughed. "Reading is impractical! I didn't read as a kid and I turned out fine!" Jazz could see another passerby giving her father a side glance as he turned to another booth.

Jazz nodded. "Well, you guys are right. I should really go check on him." She pointed both thumbs behind her as she started walking away from the booth. "Better make sure he is reading something PG right?" She chuckled awkwardly, taking one more step back, only to bump right into someone who had been standing behind her. She was about to spin around and apologize when she heard the man speak. A shiver went down her spine.

"Now, now, Jasmine, you shouldn't be leaving your parents all alone to fend for the booth. That's not very daughterly of you." The voice was deep, smooth, and condescending, and she could recognize it anywhere. She spun around with wide eyes, looking up at that stupid smirk.

Vlad Masters.

Authors notes

Beta Read by Arvensia

Lol a bit of a longer chapter this time! Lots of inward Jazz thoughts, This was originally a much longer chapter with a second scene back with the bats, but I split them in half and added more to each so the next chapter will be back with TimTom and the gang! And it should be out a bit sooner cause it is already mostly written so keep an eye out for it!

Thanks again so much for all of your support on this Fic, I have been swamped with life stuff and trying to get updates out for all of my fics but I can only do so much! This is one of my fav's and it's slowly coming to a close within the next 6-7 or more chapters! So excited... I kinda have a small sequel planned or at least a fic filled with just alternate scenarios and one-shots, which I am extatic about! (What if Tim wasn't the one Danny overshadowed?, What if Danny didn't get stuck?, What if the bats got Danny's ransom note before Jason found him? -maybe even some comment suggestions-) Either way so excited Love you all so much Please tell me what you thought of this chapter! and stick around for more! Have a great week and drink lots of water! (cause I know you need it)