Dr. Madeline Fenton was a lot of things, scientist being one of those, but she, like many people, did have momentary lapses of judgement. The situation she currently found herself in was proof of that as she found herself silently cursing her lack of preparation and contemplating her next move.

She had been so busy worrying about a ghost, namely Phantom, attacking her while she slept and trying to figure out where her son was at that it didn't occur to her that non-ghostly beings could still attack her at any given moment. A large black grizzly bear towered over her destroyed tent as the beast raised its deadly paw, the razor sharp claws barely glinting in the pre-dawn light. At the current moment she was all but completely screwed. She was facing a living opponent, cocooned in her sleeping bag, with the nearest weapon laying just beyond reach unfortunately was an ectogun, which would have little effect on a bear.

The large fur covered arm swung down at the defenseless ghost hunter, Maddie closed her eyes and prepared for the worst.

It never came. A rock ricocheted off of the bears head and plopped next to her on the ground.

"Over here you brute!" The otherworldly voice echoed. The bear turned and focused in on its new target, placing its large paws down on the earth, just inches from Maddie's face, and leapt towards the ghost boy.

"Uh-oh, someone isn't bear-y happy!" He flashed a childish grin at the scientist before placing his palm outwards to shoot an ectoray at the beast.

Nothing happened. Phantom flipped the gloved hand over, as if inspecting a device that had malfunctioned before slapping said hand to his forehead. Maddie barely made out his voice whispering something along the lines of, "That's right, no powers" and "At least it's away from her."

Shock resonated in Maddie's mind and across her facial features. Phantom is powerless, and yet he still was risking his afterlife to save her. Don't let your guard down Maddie, he is a manipulative ghost. This is all an act to get you to trust him, then he'll attack.

The bear launched itself at the ghost, who didn't move fast enough, and the boy-like creature ended up getting knocked back down onto the ground. Resuming its previous position, the bear towered over its prey and went to attack. Phantom used his legs to kick upwards and was able to knock the animal back a little bit.

A relieved smirk rested on the boys features as he mumbled "nice to know I still have a bit of strength left". He pushed himself up off the ground with one arm Maddie noticed. His other arm hanging limp to his side, a large swollen area in the middle of his forearm. If the scientist wasn't mistaken, it almost looked broken, Phantom even winced whenever he would move it as he jumped around dodging the attacks. That isn't possible. Ghosts don't have a calcified bone structure like humans! But its swollen and bent at an odd angle…why is Phantom always going against our knowledge and data on ghosts?!

She realized the only way she was going to get her answers is if Phantom stayed alive—well, as alive as a ghost could get. She sprang into action, suddenly remembering she had packed away a Fenton Fishing Spear in her backpack. Relief spread through her mind as she dug into her bag and found the item almost immediately. Maddie pressed the button, causing the dagger sized item to quickly expand into its full 6 foot length.

A thump and a strangled cry sounded from behind her, Phantom found himself on the ground once more as the bear pounced on him again. She ran towards them, spear at the ready, as the bear used its claws to swipe at the boy, who instinctively put his arms up to defend himself.

Maddie wished to never hear that sound again. Despite his ghostly status, Phantom's cry out as the razor sharp claws scraped past his arm and across his abdomen was too human sounding, and the mother of two couldn't stand to hear the sounds of the pained child gasping and screaming out in pain as the bear prepared for another blow to the ghost.

Unbeknownst to the bear, Maddie was directly behind the beast of an animal and plunged the spear deep into its back. In a final act of defiance, the bear swung around, knocking the ghost hunter over, her ankle twisting painfully under her as she fell backwards. The bear tried to move again, but was quickly losing consciousness and toppled over onto the earth below.

Heavy breathing mixed with muffled whimpers met her ears, she glanced over to the Phantom laying on the ground several feet from her. His chest was rapidly rising and falling as he took in air, good arm putting pressure on the steady bleeding of his chest and stomach. The whole situation perplexed her, ghosts weren't supposed to breathe, yet here one was less than a stone's throw away and she could clearly here the inhale and exhale of air through his mouth.

Another thing bothering the seasoned ghost hunter about this was the idea that ghosts couldn't feel pain, but once again, she gaped wide eyed at the being before her, his body shaking and twitching in pain from his injuries. There was no way he was faking it, could their research on ghosts be wrong? Over 20 years of knowledge was currently being chucked out the window due to the odd behavior of this one spectral being.

Mother's intuition kicking in, she slowly crawled over to the young ghost. His face was scrunched up in pain and his eyes were closed. She looked over him, visually assessing his injuries. The ghost was bleeding out at a decent rate, but the gashes didn't seem to be too deep. Painfully, she got to her feet and hobbled back to what was left of their camp a short distance away. After several minutes of hopping and barely placing weight on her foot, she reached into one of the bags and produced a first aid kit, she turned to leave, but realized quickly that regular sutures probably wouldn't work on a ghost. She grabbed a Fenton Ghost Fisher, hoping that the phase-proof line would help stem the bleeding.

Hobbling back to Phantom, she set the kit down and apprehensively reached for his arm that was still draped over across his body. She gently grabbed his wrist and pulled it away from the wound. Phantom's neon green eyes shot open in fear and locked onto Maddie's own orbs.

"P-please…don't hurt me…" he barely rasped out. Maddie was once again astounded, here is a being that inflicts fear onto others, yet looked at her with such anxiety and fear in his unearthly eyes. That's when it dawned on her, Phantom had likely been a child when he had died, and in fact he didn't look much older than her Danny. Were his parents dead as well? Or were they still alive? Did that mean she had been shooting at somebody's child?

Fearing that Phantom would attack her if threatened, she spoke softly to him, as if speaking to a young child. "I'm trying to help you. This is going to hurt, but please stay still okay?"

Confusion etched its way past the pained features of the boy, "You are helping me? Why? I'm just a ghost…"

"True, you are a ghost, but you are also in pain and bleeding out at an alarming rate. I can't just leave you like that." In all honesty she didn't know exactly why she was helping her enemy, but some little voice in the back of her head told her to do it or she would never forgive herself for not assisting.

The sun had already lifted itself above the trees by the time she had finished stitching him up. She made a mental chart of his injuries as she worked. He had a crusted over gash running the length of his leg, as well as some swelling in the same leg and foot, the arm was definitely broken and she tried to help set it the best she could with what she had. An ectoplasm burn on his side made Maddie cringe, she had done that to the specter last night while trying to get information about her missing son and both of his arms had claw marks from the bear, but the worst of it were the gashes that raked across his body.

Her scientist mind had gone into overdrive at several points; his skin and muscle had layer to it, ectoplasm leaked out of wounds much like human blood would. This ghost had a bone structure and a more dense form than most other ghosts, but what stuck out to Maddie the most was the little copper red flecks among the toxic green of his 'blood'. At first she thought maybe some blood from the bear had mixed in with his ectoplasm, but after several stitches she could tell it was coming from him. She also realized that a number of scars littered his small frame. Normal ghosts couldn't scar from injuries sustained after death, but Phantom kept breaking every boundary of that 'normal' mold of a ghost and it wouldn't surprise her the least if the injuries had come from the 'heroic' deeds he tried to do around Amity Park.

She finished wrapping the gauze around his chest and stomach, he had been lucky, the attack hadn't pierced anything major. She sat back, completely exhausted at this point, her hands covered in that strange mix of what seemed to be ectoplasm and blood. He has such humanistic traits, could it be that he recently died and maybe new ghosts still retain some attributes of human life until they start becoming more obsessive? Or could he be a new species of ghost that her nor Jack had ever studied.

Phantom slowly sat up and tried to get a gauge on his mobility. He started chuckling slightly, "I look like a mummy with all this gauze on me". Maddie glanced at her handiwork on the young creature, her face broke out in a smile, she had to admit, with the amount of gauze on his abdomen, leg, and both arms; he looked like a sort of mummy-in-training. She went to get up, accidently placing her weight onto her injured foot and cried out in pain. The ghost was at her side in a flash, a feat that seemed near impossible with the amount of injuries he had sustained. A cool hand rested on her shoulder, "Are you okay?" The amount of sincere concern in his eyes was overwhelming to the veteran ghost hunter, how is he doing this?!

"I-I'm fine, just twisted my ankle is all", she reached for the first aid kit, but a firm grasp to her arm kept her from reaching it.

"Maddie" Phantom frowned, "please, let me" he took the kit and began to gingerly wrap her injured ankle. "That should do it" he smiled at her as he tied off the end, shuffling back slightly to give her some room.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but thanks"

"No problem" a shy smile crept onto his face and his hand rubbed the back of his neck. It reminded Maddie of her son, gosh I miss him so much. I really need to find him. She stood up and limped back over to her destroyed tent, she reached into the cooler and pulled out a sandwich and a bottle of water. Her stomach had begun to growl earlier and there was no way she could search for Danny without eating something to build up her strength. Glancing back, she realized that Phantom was still sitting on the ground where she had left him, a pang of guilt rushed through her.

"I don't know if you are hungry, but I figured that you go against everything I know about ghosts, that maybe you eat as well. I will be leaving to get help within the next hour, I still need to find my son". She plopped an extra sandwich and water in front of him and sat down to rest her ankle. Phantom looked at her in shock.

"I'm sorry" Maddie looked up at him, her eyes narrowing at his words while fear bubbled in the back of her mind. "I wish I knew where your son was. I wish I could help, but I'm useless. I'm supposed to be the hero but I can't help save you or your son."

Ghost or not, she wasn't going to allow anyone to put themselves down, especially a teenager. "That isn't true Phantom" the ghosts head snapped up at her words. "You risked your afterlife to save me earlier with that bear. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you. I may not agree with all of your 'heroic' acts, but you did save me, and that counts as something in my book."

Her words seemed to do the trick as Phantom's face began to beam with pride and happiness. "T-thank you Maddie, really. You don't know how much it means for me to hear that, especially from you".

"Don't get to sappy on me ghost boy, I still don't trust you, but I'm willing to call a truce when all of this is done and over with but only if you answer a few questions first" His smile immediately dropped and what little color on his pale face drained just as quick. Man what I would do to have Jazz's ability to psychoanalyze people right now! He was definitely hiding something from her. Something huge. She just had to wear him down and try to figure that something out.

"Let's get moving and then I'll start off with the basics ok? The ranger station is still a nice hike from here and we are both sporting injuries that will take us longer to get there." A curt nod was all the response she received as she gathered a few essential items before heading out.

The first several minutes were dead silent between the two, Maddie figuring out which questions to ask, and Danny worrying about which questions she would ask him. All it takes is one question or one goof up on an answer and she could figure out my secret. There is NO WAY I want her finding out in the middle of the woods, without my powers to back me up if things go haywire. I don't want her shooting at me while I can't throw up a shield or go intangible.

Maddie sighed, it was now or never. "So, I guess I'll start with the obvious ones first. How did you die?"

Danny's brow furrowed, he hadn't really thought of himself being half-dead, just half-ghost. Well duh Fenton, ghosts are dead, which would make you HALF dead. If I wasn't a C student… Realizing that Maddie wanted an answer, preferably soon, he spoke up. "Um, well it was an accident" he started, "I was goofing off with some equipment that I wasn't supposed to be around and I guess it electrocuted me, it hurt, but not for very long. When I woke up, I looked like this." Despite his explanation he was still smiling, this intrigued Maddie even more.

"You don't seem to be sad that you died. I mean, you must have left behind family and friends. How do you think they feel knowing that you are gone?" She glanced at the boy, but was met with downcast eyes.

"My family…they uh, they don't even know I'm gone. In fact not a lot of people do."

Maddie scoffed "As a parent, I highly doubt that. I would notice right away if one of my children were missing, and besides, you've been haunting Amity Park for about a year now, you don't think they haven't noticed by now?"

"My parents are often caught up in work and can be quite oblivious to many things. I've checked on them countless times since I've um, died, and they haven't seemed to miss me much". His voice gradually got quieter, until the last part was barely a whisper. "I guess in a way to them it's like I'm still alive and that nothing is wrong".

"How old were you when you died?" Maddie barely got the question out of her mouth before the boy had responded.

"Fourteen" the quiet voice mustered out. "I was fourteen when I got thrown into all off this, just a kid. I was average, nothing special about me, but when this happened…I had a chance to change my life, a chance to be somebody." So that is why he acts like a superhero! He was just a kid when he died. That also explains some of his less than 'heroic' actions. He is still at a critical age to be persuaded one way or another. She wanted to ask him more questions, but with the strange mixture of sorrow and pride alternating across the ghost's features, she decided to give it a break for now. They still had plenty of time before they reached their destination.

Alright, so now begins Maddie's fun game of 20 questions with Phantom! Some MAJOR things take place next chapter that begin the journey to the final chapters. Thank you all for the continued support of this story, please continue to review and give me pointers on what you like/dislike! Side note of some crazy irony, shortly after I wrote the scene with the bear attack and Maddie hurting her ankle, I was in a minor incident where I had a several hundred pound piece of equipment land on my foot while on vacation this week. Thankfully I somehow didn't break any bones just some swelling and bruising, but at least now I get an excuse to do nothing all day until Monday when work and classes resume. Anyways, until next time my lovely readers!