"Jack! This way! The tracker says we have to go in this direction to find that ghost!"
Maddie looked at the tracking device in her hand. They had seen Phantom earlier but he had disappeared before they could start shooting at him. Now they were trying to track him down. This was one of their only devices that still registered his ectosignature. All of their other trackers must have been tampered with. It was as if he was invisible to them.
"We'll get him this time!" Jack walked up to her to match her jogging pace. "He didn't even see us! We'll take him by surprise!"
"We sure will!" She grinned at him. Phantom had always been so elusive. He was different from the other ghosts and it made him appealing to most of Amity Park. He was able to blend in much easier, as much as a ghost can blend in with humans that is.
She looked up at the street, seeing the corner they had to turn onto. As they made it onto the next road, the little dot on their radar disappeared.
"Drat." She said, hitting the device lightly. "He disappeared somehow."
"Could the device be on the fritz?" Jack asked her. He scratched his chin.
"That could be possible. Let's go take a look."
They moved much slower down the street now. They studied their surroundings with their weapons ready. Everything seemed to be normal. Nothing was out of place. No weird sounds. It wasn't until Maddie passed a dark alley that something seemed strange.
There was a trail of ectoplasm leading into the alley. She couldn't see into the end of it. It was too dark.
She waved Jack over and pointed at the ground.
"Do you think this is Phantom?" She whispered. "Could you tell if he was injured when we saw him before?"
Jack shrugged. "I'm not sure. He flew away too fast for me to see. Let's see what's in the alley."
Maddie nodded. She took slow steps into the alley. It was filled with garbage cans and as they walked closer she could see a dumpster at the end. She walked up to it and pointed her weapon ahead of her. She jumped around the corner and lifted her blaster up but was stunned when she saw what was tucked behind the dumpster.
A Casper High football player was sitting on the ground stitching up a wound in her son's abdomen.
She threw her weapon to the ground and ran to kneel in front of Danny.
"Why didn't you call an ambulance?!"
"Because he-"
Maddie ripped the needle and thread out of his hands right as Jack walked up behind her. She could hear his sharp inhale.
"Jack! Call an ambulance!" She looked at the other boy. "Where's the ghost that did this?!" She snapped.
"No, you don't understand-"
"I'll destroy the ghost that did this to him!" She snarled. She saw the boy recoil away from her out of her periphery. Mindlessly she continued stitching the wound up. "I'll tear it apart!"
"No, no!" He waved his hands in front of him. "There were no ghosts involved!"
Her head shot up at him. His hands had ectoplasm on them. "There was a trail of ectoplasm leading into this alley. Did you fight the ghost off?"
He looked down at his hands and his eyes widened. He put them behind his back.
"Yes! I fought them. But they're gone now."
"It must've been that Phantom." She spat. "We were tracking him and then he disappeared from our radar. It must've been that spook."
"No, it wasn't. It-"
"Maddie, ambulance is on its way." Jack called to her. "I'm going to wait on the street for them."
"Alright!" Maddie shouted over her shoulder as he walked away.
She continued stitching up the wound. She had to do something while she waited. She had no idea how long Danny had been laying here with another kid stitching him up. All things considered his stitches weren't that bad. That didn't explain why he didn't call an ambulance instead.
"Why didn't you call an ambulance?"
He looked away from her and fiddled with his hands. "You have to ask Danny."
"Excuse me?"
She could feel herself seething. Why wouldn't this kid tell her what was going on?
"It's not my secret to share." He looked back up at her with a steeled expression now. "You have to ask him when he wakes up."
She clenched her teeth together. "If he wakes up, you mean."
He shook his head. "He'll wake up. Trust me."
He didn't know that. How could he possibly know that? She opened her mouth to say something else when she heard the sirens coming closer.
"They're almost here, Maddie!" Jack yelled down the alley.
"Okay!" She shouted back to him. "Let them know the wound is closed for now! But it was sewn shut with a sewing needle." She glared at the jock and focused back on Danny.
He groaned and he opened his eyes. She looked at him in shock. With how much blood it seemed he'd lost, she didn't think he would wake up any time soon.
He squinted up at her, confused.
"Mom?"
"Danny?" She placed a hand on his cheek. The other boy also leaned down towards Danny.
"Dash?" Danny's eyes slid over to the other boy, Dash, his gaze was searching for a few moments before his eyes widened.
"Danny, sweetie, what happened?" She tried getting him to look back at her but he was too focused on Dash. They looked like they were having a silent conversation between each other before his gaze slowly slid back to her.
His eyes were filled with fear.
"Incoming!"
Jack's voice reverberated down the alley along with the sound of quickly moving footsteps. Two paramedics walked up to them. One of them placed a board on the ground.
"Once laceration in the abdomen, already stitched up. Any other injuries?" The paramedic asked. Maddie looked at Dash.
He shook his head. "I think it was just the wound on his stomach. I didn't check for anything else."
The other paramedic took a flashlight and shined it in each of Danny's eyes. He squinted at that.
"Do you have any back pain? Head pain?"
Danny shook his head. "No. Just- just the scratch."
Maddie wasn't quite sure she believed him.
"That's quite the scratch. How'd you get it?" The first paramedic asked.
Danny looked back at his mom, the fear was back in his eyes.
"A- a ghost. A ghost got me."
The paramedic tsked. "Okay, on three. One, two, three."
They lifted Danny onto the board and bent to pick him up. Maddie followed them to the ambulance with Dash right behind her.
"Can you fit all three of us in here?" Maddie asked. "He says he fought the ghost. He should probably get checked out too."
She turned to look at Dash and his eyes were wide. He tried to wave her off. "No, no! I'm fine! I don't-"
"Better safe than sorry, kid." The paramedic said. "Why don't you go sit up front? You two can sit back here."
Dash looked like he wanted to argue but he bit his bottom lip and moved to the front of the ambulance.
Jack and Maddie clambered into the ambulance and the paramedics shut the door behind them.
Maddie was going to find the ghost that did this to Danny. She would destroy it. Molecule by molecule.
Phantom would pay for this.
It had been a couple weeks since they'd found Danny in that alleyway. It had nearly scared Maddie to death but when they got him to the hospital the doctor had said he was probably the luckiest kid alive. With how big the wound had been, Danny was already recovering remarkably well. Most people wouldn't have woken up so fast.
And that wasn't saying anything about his recovery time out of the hospital either.
He wasn't supposed to be doing anything too strenuous but he seemed to be back to his normal self just a couple days later. Maddie made sure he wasn't doing anything too crazy, no matter how much he wanted his life to go back to normal. When she went to help him clean the wound and saw it was all but healed she conceded to him.
She didn't know how he healed so fast but she just had to thank the stars for his luck.
Phantom hadn't been spotted since that night either. Probably trying to lay low to avoid being hunted by her and Jack. But as soon as she saw him, he would be hers. She'd get justice for Danny, no matter what.
One day her tracking device finally went off as it picked up Phantom's ectosignature.
He'd finally come out of hiding. This was her chance.
She ran up the stairs of the lab, grabbing a blaster on her way out of the room. She'd been working on new darts that would pierce a ghost's skin. She hoped it would be enough to slow a ghost down so they could capture it.
Maddie looked down at the device. It looked like Phantom was near the park.
She took off. This was it. She could feel it. Tonight she would get him. Phantom would be theirs.
She neared the park and slowed down, studying the area for the ghost. She couldn't let him see her and lose the element of surprise.
She was at the bottom of the hill when she saw Phantom float up above it. He was gesturing with his hands as if he was talking to someone.
She pulled her blaster out and steadied her aim. Pulling the trigger, a dart shot through the air. He turned slightly at the sound and it pierced him in the stomach.
Phantom fell out of the sky. She could see someone was in the park with him when they ran up to him after he hit the ground. Was that..?
Dash?
Why would he be hanging out with that horrible ghost after what he'd done to Danny? They seemed like they were friends if Dash was willing to sew him up like that. Why would Danny's friend betray him like that?
"Get away from Phantom!" She shouted. Dash's head snapped up to look at her. He took a step towards the ghost.
"No!" She started running towards them. What was he doing?
He helped Phantom stand back up. He held the ghost by his forearms and he looked like he was whispering something to him. The blast had torn a gash into his stomach.
"Are you helping him escape?" Maddie asked as she came up behind Dash. He turned to look at her, his gaze darting between her and Phantom. "Why would you do that after he hurt Danny?!"
"It's not what you think! Phantom isn't evil!"
She scoffed. "All ghosts are evil. Phantom is no exception. He's just better at manipulating people into thinking he isn't."
"No, you don't understand!" Dash shouted, blocking her view of Phantom. "He's Danny!"
"What are you talking about?" She hissed at him. "That's a ghost. My son is not a ghost. Especially not that ghost."
She looked at Phantom and he dragged his gaze up to meet her eyes. They looked haunted. Like he'd been struck more than just physically. And there was fear there. The same fear that was in Danny's eyes the night he woke up in that alley.
"I-"
Phantom fell back to the ground and hit it hard. A white ring appeared around his waist and traveled across his body leaving her son behind in his place.
She took a step back and stared at him.
How was this possible? How could her son be a ghost?
Her hand tightened on her hold around her blaster. Dash must've seen it because the next thing she knew he was picking Danny up and running across the park with him.
It knocked her out of her stupor. Panic set in as she watched him run away.
"Wait!" She ran after him. "He's hurt! You could make his injury worse!"
"Yeah, no thanks to you!" Dash spit over his shoulder. "How do I know you're not gonna take him and tear him apart molecule by molecule!"
"Because he's my son!"
Dash barked out a laugh.
"You've never met my dad. That's not a good enough excuse for anything."
She frowned at that. They were nearing the road now. She heard when his feet started slapping against the sidewalk. She was gaining on him.
He looked over his shoulder another time and shoved over a garbage can behind her. She was too close to avoid it and she tripped over it, tumbling forward. She hit the ground hard and when she looked up the two of them were already gone.
She groaned. She should've been expecting something like that.
Maddie sat up onto her knees. The streets were quiet now.
Maddie pulled out her tracker and activated the one ectosignature they had blocked on their devices.
Now it made sense why Danny had an ectosignature to begin with.
They had never known why he had one. She didn't know how any of this had even happened. But she was going to find out and she was going to make it right.
The tracking device led her down a street and she turned the corner onto another. At the next turn she looked up from her device.
This was the same alley that she had found Danny in the first time.
She walked down the alley slowly, tucking her blaster onto her suit's utility belt. She came to the dumpster, making sure to step lightly. When she stepped around the corner she saw Dash pulling a baggie with a needle and thread in it out of a plastic container that he pulled from under the dumpster. Her next step crunched a wrapper under her foot.
Dash looked up at her, panic in his eyes. "How did you find us?"
She waved the tracker in her hand. "Danny's got an ectosignature. I don't know why it's different from Phantom's though."
He looked like he wanted to bolt again, but there wasn't any way to get past her. He was studying the space between her, the dumpster, and the wall.
"I'm not here to hurt him."
Dash scowled. "You already hurt him."
Her heart panged. That was true. How many times had she hurt him chasing after him? Or even just talking about hunting him? Danny heard all of it.
She watched as Dash tried to thread the needle but his hands were shaking too much. Whether it was from adrenaline or anger, she wasn't sure.
"Here." She reached out and grabbed it from him. She put the thread through the head of the needle and handed it back to him. He looked at it for a moment before taking it back.
"How did you find yourself doing this for him?" Maddie asked quietly. Dash started on his first stitch.
"I stumbled across him and his friends once. They were trying to sew him up but they were doing a lousy job." Dash looked at Danny. "I became their medic, I guess. I didn't know Phantom was Danny though."
Maddie's eyes widened. "When did you find out?"
Dash looked back at her. "The night you found us in that alley."
She stared at him with her mouth open. "That must've been a hell of a way to find out who he was."
"Yeah it was." Dash's brows furrowed and he bit his bottom lip, as if he was thinking about something. "He'd never been hurt badly enough to detransform before. He really lucked out that time because we didn't even know you were following him."
"What do you mean?"
Dash looked back at her. She was still occupying the same space as she was when she walked into the alley.
"If he'd still been Phantom there would've been no way to get him away from you here. Especially not around his dad." Dash looked back down at Danny. "And if he'd transformed in front of you? You could've thought he was tricking you or that a ghost took his place."
Maddie looked down at Danny. The look of fear he had when he woke up that night made sense now. It wasn't about a ghost that had attacked him. It was about the ghost hunters staring him down.
"Oh, Danny." She whispered. She brought a hand up to his cheek and caressed it.
"You don't think that, do you?"
"What?"
Dash finished the last stitch off. "You don't think he's just a ghost trying to trick you?"
She studied Danny's face. His skin shone in the moonlight and his freckles dotted his nose. He looked just the same as her son always had.
She shook her head. "No. I don't think he's trying to trick me."
Maddie heard Dash let out a sigh.
She stood up and gestured to him. "Come on. Let's get him home."
Dash nodded and scooped Danny up before standing.
The walk home was quiet, but more comfortable than when she'd found him in the alley. It didn't take long to get back home. When they did, Maddie guided Dash to Danny's room.
"This is Danny's room." She opened the door for him.
Dash walked across the room and placed Danny on his bed. Dash pulled over Danny's desk chair and parked it in front of the bed. He sat down.
Maddie smiled and pulled the door closed. She'd come up and check on them in a bit.
She headed down to the lab. Now that she knew Danny was Phantom, she would double check every weapon and make sure Phantom's ectosignature was filtered out of every single one of them. She didn't want to risk hurting him. Again.
She worked for a couple hours, the time slipping by her.
"Hey."
Maddie jumped at the sheepish voice behind her. She turned around to see Phantom- Danny- floating behind her.
"Danny?" She looked towards the stairs. "Dash-"
"He's asleep in my room upstairs."
"Oh." She chuckled.
He landed on the ground, shuffling on his feet. He fiddled with his fingers before he looked back up at her.
"Are you okay with this?"
The way he asked her broke her heart. She stood up and walked over to him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and knelt down in front of him.
"Of course. It'll take some getting used to, but you're my son. Nothing could ever come before that."
Tears sprung into Danny's eyes and he threw his arms around her.
She'd do her best to make sure he never felt like she wouldn't love him again.