4/19/24-Rewrite for quality and continuity.

PS: Danny Phantom isn't mine, the OCs are. Annoying disclaimer out of the way, now story time.

Chapter 4: Discoveries

The two were at the computer browsing for an even better book, more focused on ghosts themselves than ghostly phenomena. This library location was a smaller one than the other locations in town, but it wasn't totally devoid of ghost books. There weren't too many, but there were enough to get by. But one particular book caught Alex's eye.

"Uhh, Heather, this book's authors are Jack and Maddie Fenton. Aren't they your grandparents?"

"Yes, yes they are," Heather replied. "Dad never told me they were this big in the ghost hunting world. But why would he? And they never told me themselves either. I can't believe they have a published book!"

Alex noted the book's location. "Well, it looks professional, so it's got to have at least some useful information."

Heather breathed another burst of cold air, but was used to it by now. A ghostly side effect, she presumed. "It's from a trusted source, I can account for that. Let's check that book out and head home. Just the one, it'll be easier to keep hidden. A side note, do you have a library card?"

The two had to get library cards, which did take a few minutes, but finally checked out the book and were at Alex's house studying it. They browsed through the chapters, amazed at how much info there was.

"'Ghost energy is inherently difficult to measure. It does not seem to act the same as electricity, and therefore cannot be measured as such. We have devised a system of measurement called Rays to measure this energy,'" Heather read out loud. "'Ecto-blasts are specifically measured in levels from one to ten, an older system of measurement. Every standard ecto-blast perfectly fits in a level, and with each blast having a perfect output every time, we were able do devise the ray system from this. However, it is not clear what determines the odd progression of the ray output per level, which is why we still use levels to measure ecto-blasts.' Okay, this is some incredible stuff here. But not what we're looking for."

She skipped ahead a few passages. "'A ghost portal can take as little energy as the equivalent of fifty level two ecto-blasts (or 50 rays/R) to open, or as much as five level ten ecto-blasts (5 kilorays/kR) to form at the highest recorded, however they usually stabilize to about 10R, a level 5 ecto-blast equivalent.' Wow, I never knew my grandparents did this stuff. This is crazy."

Alex silently read a few more sentences. "Woah, Heather, look at this. 'It is possible to become a half ghost, or Halfa as ghosts say, from these portals. Since it takes an extreme level of energy and an infusion of ectoplasm in the bloodstream, it is incredibly rare. It can occur when an artificial portal turns on when the human is inside, because the initial forming of the portal is powered by ray-charged ectoplasm. This has been recorded twice with artificial portals, but has never been recorded from a natural portal, as there has been no known event of an ectoplasm-contaminated individual in contact with a high-energy portal. This phenomenon also has a high chance of killing the person fully if the conditions are not perfect, as even 500R (a level nine ecto-blast) can severely harm a human.' Crazy, isn't it?"

"Yeah, very. But everyone knows ghost portals can't form under the Anti-Portal field, and even if they do, they are so weak they only last seconds."

"There must be something to explain that." Alex went to the table of contents. "Here, lets go to the section on half ghosts." Alex flipped through the book until he found half ghosts. He read through silently until he found a few paragraphs on how they are formed. They both looked at the scarce information on the page:

Half ghosts are formed when a human experiences one kiloray of ecto-energy while being infused with ectoplasm. There is only one way this has been confirmed to happen: Being struck by the ray-infused ectoplasm blast of a forming artificial ghost portal. However, it is implied that anyone with ectoplasm in their blood can have it infused in their DNA with 1kR of ghost energy, as studies show only ectoplasm being present and the proper amount of ghost energy is necessary.

It has been theorized that a human with existing ghost DNA, an inactive ghost core, or ectoplasm otherwise previously infused in their cells can become a half ghost with a much lower amount of ghost energy. This is because the ectoplasm infused in a half ghost's DNA has been turned into a sort of ghost DNA. It can be separated from the human DNA but still be present in the body, considered an inactive ghost half, and re-fusing this DNA takes far less energy than a full ectoplasm infusion. This is not confirmed outside of the lab.

Heather reread the page closely. "So that must be how it happened. I had some ghost thing wrong with me from the start. Whatever it was, there's no way that portal that zapped me had the energy to give me brand new powers. It hurt, but it didn't make any lasting damage. Besides the obvious of course."

"The question is, how did you get the ghost DNA in the first place?"

Earlier...

Yoltrun flew into the blue sky, taking in the warmth of the sun. He hadn't felt the sun in years. He wasn't worried about the girl who touched the portal. She was a Halfa now, but she would survive. He was concerned about the portal causing that transformation. The scanner logged the measured power output, and it didn't have nearly the power to create a new Halfa. Even if it had the required energy output, all of it's power went into busting through the portal blockers. The residual electric bolts zapping off of it were far lower energy.

The girl still was in school, and would be for a couple more hours. He was curious on what she would do about her powers, and had planned to follow her. But until then, he had free time.

Getting a feel for the slightly different (to him) gravity, he morphed into a bright green cat. He jumped across the rooftops, climbing up walls that were too tall. At the last tall building of the block, he jumped off the roof and morphed into a big green hawk. He flew through the city, enjoying the feel of wind on his wings (the ghost zone rarely had any wind). After a while he headed back to the school and perched on the roof to go back to his regular form to recharge his morph energy. His morph powers weren't the strongest of the morphing ghosts, but he was still glad to have them. When school got out, he found and followed his target invisibly in his normal form, following them to a branch of the city library. After a while waiting outside, he wanted to scout things out a bit. He morphed into a human, a near perfect morph. Thanks to his practice and some training from his cousin Bertrand, it was so good that no normal human would even notice the flaws. His eyes, fingernails, and hair were a bright green. Luckily, he could stop them from glowing, so he just looked like a normal guy who really liked the color green.

When he walked in, he caught sight of them immediately at the front desk, discussing library cards with the lady on the other side. On the desk was the book The Mysterious Science of Ghosts, by none other than the elder Fentons that plagued his first scout missions many years back.

So, they know about ghosts.

The morph started to tire Yoltrun out, so he did a quick walk around the library floor as to not raise any suspicions, then left and dropped the morph. The kids didn't take much longer, and he was able to follow them as they left as well.

He was able to follow them for a few minutes, but before he could see where the kids were going, the ghost's scanner beeped. The screen showed a reading of a nearby fluctuation of the natural ghost energy, an odd one just like the first portal.

He followed the arrow on the scanner's screen and in the distance, saw a glowing green light on a billboard. He could tell it was another portal, and headed towards it while considering whether he was even ready to go through and head back home. It glowed bright, and something either blasted, knocked, or shocked him at mach speed into the sky. The impact immediately knocked him unconscious. He never saw what it was.

4/19/24-I put way too much effort into make up ghost science that doesn't even matter. Do I care? Nope. Ghost science is fun.