Ben 10 vs Danny Phantom: Ghost Hour - chapter 3

"What the heck was that thing?" Sam asked.
"I'd say it was a really bad ghost, if it didn't feel so wrong," Danny replied.
"Ghostfreak," Ben muttered.
"That couldn't have been him!” Gwen objected. “For starters, Ghostfreak is smart.”
"When I was Wildmutt, I could smell him! I smelt Ghostfreak's scent all over the thing, but it also smelt kinda rotten. Like the stuff that gets stuck at the bottom of the kitchen sink and stays there for months. Also slightly burned."
"What freak?" Tucker asked.
"Ghostfreak, or Zs'Skayr, is an interplanetary criminal. He’s an Ectonurite from the Anur Phaetos dimension." Grandpa Max tried to explain.
"What?" Danny asked.
"An alien," Ben answered.
"So we’re dealing with a ghost-alien here?" Tucker wondered.
"A ghost-like alien," Gwen corrected him. "There's obviously no such thing as ghosts."
"Hello! Half-Ghost standing right next to you!" Danny protested.
"Half ghost? How does that even work? Did you half-die?" Gwen teased, unconvinced.
"Well, now that you put it that way..." Danny wondered.
"No time for chit-chat," Max strode forward, getting the attention of the minors. "We need to find Ghostfreak, and fast."
"Didn't you just blast him to the other end of the universe?" asked Sam.
"That wasn’t Ghostfreak!" Ben snapped.
"But you just said it was him!" Sam shouted back.
"I said it smelled like him, you cow! I know Ghostfreak, and this wasn’t him!"
"Why you little..." Sam growled as she tried to do some horrible thing to Ben that was probably illegal, only to be held back by Tucker.
"So let me get this straight," said Tucker as he struggled with Sam. "We’re dealing with an alien here?"
"Yes," Gwen replied, annoyed.
"OK, first of all: AWESOME! Second: we might be a bit out of our league here." He looked at Danny.
"Actually, I think we'd be more than qualified. I've met old Ziskel yesterday, and he felt like a ghost. There might’ve been something off about him, but my ghost-sense is never wrong. You said he was made of Ectoplasm, right?" Danny asked.
"Yes I did," Grandpa Max answered.
"If it's made out of ectoplasm, we can kick its tail!" Danny boasted with confidence.
"We can use any help we can get," said Grandpa Max as he shook Danny's hand.
"Danny Fenton."
"Max Tennyson, nice to meet you. This is my granddaughter, Gwen."
"Nice to meet you," said Gwen
"Nice to meet you, too," Danny replied. "These are my friends, Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley."
"My pleasure," mumbled Sam, doing her best to contain her rage.
"Glad to meet you," said Tucker.
"And this young man, whom you probably already met, is my grandson, Ben."
"The pleasure is all yours," Ben said snidely.
Once again, Tucker grabbed Sam back to prevent her from attempting something wicked on the young hero.
"So, are you some sort of half-alien?" Danny asked.
"Kind of," Ben smirked. "I can transform into a total of nineteen different aliens. I have ten thousand aliens in the omnitrix in total, but I can't access them, yet. Maybe even more if I manage to exploit the glitches to their fullest."
"Man, I wanna smack this kid," Danny thought to himself.
"What do you mean by glitches?" asked Tucker.
Ben showed him the Omnitrix "This device, that was by the way entrusted to me, makes it possible for me to transform."
Tucker leaned closer to get a better look at the device. "Cool!"
"At one point, the thing glitches-out, and started turning me into various alien hybrids. I've been trying to use this glitch to my advantage since."
"Which, as we agreed, was a bad idea" Grandpa Max reminded him.
"Still pretty nifty" Tucker said, while looking at the Omnitrix with fascination.
"Yeah, it's pretty awesome alright," Ben boasted. “The only problem is that it sometimes has a mind of it's own, and it goes into re-charge mode if I use it too often."
"Well, at least I have full control over my powers," Danny added.
"And what about you?" Sam asked Gwen, eager to turn attention away from the self-centered brat of an omnitrix wielder. "Are you some kind of alien as well?"
"No,” Gwen said, offended. “I'm a magic user!"
"Oh, that's awesome!" replied Sam. "How did you become one?"
“Well,” she began, “I started out lucky.”
“So it just... happened?
“No, I came across a charm one day that made me super lucky. I went by ‘Lucky Girl’ for a while. When that got destroyed, I got my hands on a spell book, and the rest is history."
"So you genuinely had to put effort into getting your powers?"
"Yes, but to be fair, I'm a fast learner."
"Yeah, Danny here just happened to stand inside the Ghost Portal when it got activated. He didn't even have to move a finger for his powers."
"I could have died there!" Danny objected.
“Technically,” Tucker interjected, “You did die. Or rather, half of you did.”
"Didn't move a finger!" Sam repeated.
"Hey,” Gwen objected. “I'm sure he had to work hard to learn to use his powers this well. I haven't seen anyone give Ben such a hard time in quite a while."
"Oh please!" Sam went on "He'd be lost without me!"
"Is this how Ben feels when I'm around?" Gwen thought to herself.
"Well, it's getting late," Grandpa Max interjected. "Hard to believe you spent the entire day fighting. I'm actually kinda surprised nobody called the police, or military."
"They have learned to stay out of these things a long time ago," Danny said, smiling.
"What if I give you kids a ride home?" the elderly man offered.
"What?" Said Tucker "You tell a bunch of kids to get into your van, and don't offer then candy?"
Grandpa Max chuckled.
"Hey, you can go to my place," Danny offered. "My parents are ghost hunters. Our house is full of equipment that can help us with capturing your ghost alien."
"That does sound good," replied Grandpa Max. "The Null Void Projector has to re-charge before we can use it again, and some specialized equipment would be very helpful."
"Then it's decided," said Tucker.
The group boarded the Rust Bucket, and went on their way.

Meanwhile, a few streets away, Dash swayed gently in the wind as he hung from the Nasty Burger sign by his underwear.
"Hello?” he called. “Is there anybody out there?"

As the group went on their way to Fenton Works, Danny began to hand out instructions.
"OK,” he began, “so when we arrive, you introduce yourselves as ghost hunters who want to compare notes."
"Why don't we just tell them the truth?" Ben interrupted.
"I can't; my secret identity would be blown."
"You keep a secret identity from your parents?"
“Dude, they’re ghost hunters. How do you think they’d react if they found out that their kid was the ghost kid?”
"If they found out, they'd be able to handle the news better than other parents. Not to mention, they'd be able to help you with your ghost related problems, like how Grandpa Max helps me with my alien stuff. He used to hunt aliens when he was younger, and he didn't try to dissect me."
“Your grandpa obviously isn’t like my parents. They’ll do anything to catch a ghost.”
“Even go after their own kid?”
Danny sighed. “Look, let’s not talk about this now. We’ve got a mission to do.”
"Wait, Danny,” Max leaned forward. “I know we only met a few minutes ago, but I still feel like I should tell you this: Your parents obviously care about you, and will love you no matter what. I won't force you to do anything, but if you can’t trust your own family, then who can you trust?"
Meanwhile Sam, ignoring what was going on, tried to start a conversation with Gwen.
"Man, boys can be so thickheaded some time, am I right?"
"Well, Ben can be a doofus at times, but I think that..."
"Yeah, what would they ever do without us. Hey, what if the two of us got together some day, and you'd teach me some of your magic? We'd be unstoppable!"
"I'd sooner make-out with Kevin Levin..." Gwen thought to herself.

When they got to the house, Danny introduced the guests to his parents. The Tennysons were surprised to see the adults already in their ghost hunting outfits, and more surprised still when they learned that they always wore it. Nonetheless, they seemed like a nice couple, and the only Fenton who wasn’t overjoyed at the sight of Danny making new friends was Jazz, who looked extremely nervous.
"What's wrong, Jazz?" Danny asked.
"Oh, nothing,” She waved her hand, as if to emphasize just how non-existent her anxiety was. “I just had plans for the evening, but I guess they can wait."
Danny looked closer at his sister, suspicious. "What's wrong with your voice?"
"Oh--I just have a light cold, nothing serious."
"And what's with your…?"
"Oh my god, where did you get that awesome eyeliner from?" Sam interrupted him.
"Eh…” ‘Jazz’ looked around, then saw the logo embroidered on the Goth girl’s socks. “Hot Topic?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Really? I thought you hated those kinds of stores.”
“Yes, well… I… wanted to try something new. Broaden my horizon.”
“Oh! I’m glad to hear that. Maybe we can finally be sisters of darkness.” She wiggled her fingers in a spooky fashion. “By the way, I'd like to introduce you to Gwen!"
"Hi..." Gwen trailed off, not sure what to say.
"She may be just a kid,” Sam said excitedly, “but she's a full blown superhero!"
"Oh, really?” Jazz was suddenly interested. “Nice to meet you!”
"Nice to meet you, too," Gwen said aloud. What she didn’t say was, "Why are you looking at me like you want to rip my head off? And why do you look so familiar?"

At the dinner table, the conversation was in full swing.
"So,” Maddie began eagerly, “Mr. Tennyson. How long have you been hunting ghosts?"
"Well, I'm retired now. But I've been on the job for good 30 years before that, and still do some on the side from time to time. The good news is, my grandson seems interested in the business.”
"You must be really proud of him," said Jack. "Just like I'm proud of my daughter wanting to get into the business too!"
"What?" Danny exclaimed, shocked. "But you hate ghost hunting! You made that clear every day I’ve had you as a sister."
"Well, I changed my mind," Jazz replied. "In fact, I think it’s a very interesting subject. Tell me, Mr. Tennyson, how did you solve the issue with the Ecto-Purifier Fluid?"
"Um... I don't really use it," Grandpa replied.
"But then what do you use for filtration? How do you prevent the portal from going out of control? Or even blowing up?" Jack asked, suspicious.
Gwen got an idea. "We... have a different kind of ghost portal. It works… differently," she choked. “I mean, it doesn’t have the exact same equipment, but it still works.”
“Really?” Both Fenton parents said at once. Unfortunately, she caught Jack and Maddie’s attention a little too much. They took turns bantering them with questions.
“What are the schematics? How does it work? Is it in your RV? Does it really not need a filter?”
“Uh… let’s just finish our dinner. It’s been a long day, and I’m pretty tired.”
“Did you have a long day hunting ghosts?” Jack asked. When Max didn’t reply immediately, Jack looked dreamily into the distance and said, “Cross-country ghost hunting. Doesn’t that sound like fun, Maddie?”
“It sure does!” She agreed. “Maybe we can take the kids to do that one day.”
“Reminds me of our time just after college,” Jack reminisced. “We didn’t know exactly what to do with our lives. Did we want to make ghost-hunting equipment, or go into the business ourselves? Did we want to charge people for getting rid of their ghosts? Of course, we found out that ghost hunting was our true calling, and to do something so noble is payment in itself. Also, no one would pay us. Kept saying we were ‘destroying valuable property’. But anyway, one thing we considered was living as nomads, hunting ghosts cross-country, maybe even around the world. And we tried that, for a little bit. One day, late in November of 1987--”
“It was 1988, dear,” Maddie interrupted him.
“Oh, right. 1988. We were in Minnesota when we got a call from an old woman who lived in a haunted mansion she had inherited from her great-uncle a few decades back. Typical story, you know. We drove there on my mom’s old Plymouth Sapporo, which it was old, beat up, and broke down three times on the way there. But she mostly stayed in one piece. We had a lot of good memories with her…” he took a moment to wipe a tear from his eye. “When we got there, the place was infested with ghosts. We tried looking for the old lady, but she had already left to a hotel way back at the nearest town. So we got all our equipment out, and started scanning the area…”
Glad that Jack had unintentionally changed the subject, Gwen focused on Danny’s sister. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about Jazz. She tried to get Danny’s attention, but she didn’t know how to without getting Jazz’s.
"Hey, isn't this vegetarian meal awesome?" Sam asked her.
"Well, it is pretty good," Gwen replied, slightly startled.
"Yeah, those meat-eaters don't know what they are missing out on!"
"Actually, I think Tucker had his meal served half and half."
"Yeah, why can't everyone be a vegetarian like us?"
"Actually, I'm eating this mostly because you..."
"If you value your life, just play along!" Tucker whispered into Gwen's ear "You gotta trust me on this one!"
Gwen swallowed nervously, and remained silent for the rest of the evening.