"Danny! Could you come down here for a second?"

"Coming!"

Danny was not in the mood to deal with whatever nonsense his parents were talking about with their new scientist friends. He didn't care that they'd built a ghost portal, or that they'd travelled across the country; he just really needed to study for this test.

"Danny!"

He groaned and slid out of his chair, not even bothering to open the door on his way downstairs; it wasn't like anyone would see him anyways.

He found them in the living room; Mr. and Mrs. Greene were sitting on the couch, facing the stairs, with what looked like their plans for their ghost portal sprawled next to the designs that belonged to his parents.

"I've kinda got a test tomorrow, so what is it?"

To his surprise it was Mrs. Greene who answered, sounding like she was talking to five-year-old.

"Could you… tell us what happened when the portal turned on?"

"… I mean, there was a loose wire, and we plugged it in… why?"

"Did anything happen besides that?"

Geeze, what did she expect, a lab report?

"Well, there was a flash of light, and then, I don't know, it looked exactly the way it does now." At least, he hoped that was what it looked like from the outside; it certainly looked that way from the inside, and he'd never bothered to talk to Sam or Tucker about comparing notes…

"So, there wasn't any kind of… blast? There wasn't anything that came out of the portal?"

If there had been wouldn't he have mentioned it? God, she was annoying!

Although… now that he thought about it, he had gotten hit with a massive ball of energy… and so had Vlad, if he remembered correctly…

"Not that I remember, but it was pretty bright… I might have closed my eyes for a couple seconds?"

Why did they care all of a sudden? It wasn't like it mattered now anyways… But for some reason this was enough to spur the adults into an argument, and Danny decided to take the opportunity to try sneaking back into his room…

"Maybe it missed all of them and rebounded up the stairs?"

"Maybe, but our portal wasn't that bright, and it was pretty hard to miss…"

"Our portal is bigger than yours, and besides, are you sure your calculations aren't wrong?"

"I'm telling you, we've gone over every possibility; it's not possible to open a portal without creating a halfa!"

Danny's world stopped.

Had she just said? No, it wasn't possible, they couldn't know about that…

"A human with ghost powers?"

"We told you; ectoplasm is a sophophiliac; it needs something sentient to latch onto. With a portal that size it would have to jump to the first person within a 5 yard radius."

His mom turned to look at him, already starting her question,

"Danny, who-" But she stopped before she could finish, looking at him, surprised. They all turned towards him then; before he was ready, and he was still frozen, staring open-mouthed at them.

"Danny?"

They knew about halfas.

He blinked and shut his mouth, too stunned to even think about his secret identity.

"Wait, so you have to create a halfa to open a portal?"

Unfortunately, it was the patronizing scientist who thought she knew everything that answered.

"…Danny, did one of your friends get hit?" There was that patronizing tone again; she was trying to be comforting, like he'd wet the bed and hadn't told anyone… But what was he supposed to say?

"If weird stuff is happening to you, or one of your friends, I can help"

She sounded like a public service announcement about calling the police on abusers.

"I've learned how to control invisibility, intangibility… I even managed to form an ectoblast the other day!"

She sounded so proud of herself, as if she'd reached the pinnacle of her potential.

And Danny couldn't help it; he laughed.

"Ghost rays? That is so year one…"