Maddie paced in the destroyed laboratory, quietly cursing all things ethereal and ectoplasmic. The damage done to the basement was something Maddie hadn't even thought to be possible; the walls were made to stand a nuclear attack, and a single ghost, although it was a powerful elemental one, had managed to destroy it almost to the point of it being beyond repairable. The wall paneling of two walls and half the ceiling had to be changed, the portal's blast doors renewed and Maddie didn't even dare think what replacing the equipment would cost. The files on the computer were probably lost forever, but luckily whatever physical documents they had were in a shelf against the wall furthest from the portal and intact.

The portal's genetic lock and locking mechanisms in general were functional, as was the miniature portal Maddie had been performing experiments with earlier in the day. The big portal's alarm was damaged, but they had decided to let it be as it sounded a lot more urgent as it was. At least for now, since it wasn't a priority.

Maddie also felt a little bad for leaving the scene so quickly and leaving the cleanup to her husband and whoever were behind the masks of Phantom's ground squad. Jack had assured her that they were fine and that he got a whole lot of good dissectable samples and that going out to study an unknown type of ghost was completely reasonable excuse to run off for science, which had lifted a small weight off her chest but the little relieved weight had crashed back down with new vigor when she had seen the lab again.

She had called her son to inform both him and Jazz that she and Jack would be either doing experiments or repairing the lab, and encouraging especially Danny to stay the night at a friend's house. She was pretty sure that Phantom's presence made him extremely uncomfortable, and since the ghost was coming to be studied later that day, she didn't think it would be wise to have her son home. Or daughter, because while Jazz was not sensitive to ectoplasm in any way Maddie wanted to be on the safe side and not have either of her children near so powerful ghost if she could avoid it.

Phantom was another thing making Maddie's mood sour; while it would be enlightening to learn more about and from the organic ghost, she had forgotten to tell him when he should show up.

Maddie sighed and quit her pacing. She took her coffee mug which had been left undamaged by the monster of a ghost, and took it upstairs. Considering the covering of ash, soot, and now probably irremovable coffee stains for a moment, she put it in the kitchen sink and took a fresh glass from the cupboard for some water.

After her second glass, her phone rang. She dug it out and checked the caller id, expecting either one of her children or a concerned citizen asking about the mysterious hexagon burned right through the asphalt currently bothering traffic coming to the downtown area. Instead, the place where the number or name of the caller would show was glitching between & and . Maddie stared at the completely unidentified id for three seconds before answering "Maddie Fenton."

The voice coming through was filled with static but still unnervingly recognizable. "Hi Maddie!"

"Phantom?" She couldn't believe it. She was on the phone with a ghost. "I didn't know you had a phone."

A dry laugh came from the other side. "Maddie, I'm a teen. Of course I have a phone on me at all times. I wouldn't be caught dead without it." The scientist facepalmed. "In fact, I wasn't."

So, ghosts keep their phones in the afterlife if they are present when they died. "Right. How do you have my number and why is yours static?"

Phantom snorted. "In case you have forgotten, there are fliers stapled to like, every other streetlight pole all over town with information on how to contact you. I think I've seen your number and address in the paper a few times as well. As for my number, no clue. All I know's that if you want to call me back, you gotta save it. Technus might know how ghost phones work but I can't just go and ask him because he hates me."

Maddie sighed. She would of course save the ghost's number for science. "Why did you call me?"

Phantom somehow managed to convey the concept of shrugging through the phone without any kind of sound. "I thought that since we forgot to agree on a time, I'd call instead of just barging in unexpectedly. Wouldn't want to spook you, eh?" The scientist rolled her eyes at the snickering coming from the other end. "Anyways, I was thinking around eight? You'll have enough time to clean the most critical mess and it's not too late if this'll take more time than expected."

Maddie found herself agreeing with the ghost's logic. Huh, a time for everything. "Eight is good. Watch out for the security system." With that, she hung up.

Maddie sighed and ran a hand through her hair. With a few taps on her phone she saved Phantom's nonexistent number, moved her glass into the sink next to the filthy coffee cup and returned to the lab to clean up with her husband.

Three hours, four minor explosions and one plate of fudge later Maddie returned upstairs to wait for the specter soon arriving. She was anxious; following the ghost around or even dragging him to the lab were one thing, but inviting him over at a later time was another thing altogether. She sat on the living room couch, crossed her arms and legs and waited.

Thirteen minutes later her ghost detector beeped and before she could pull it out Phantom's head popped through the carpet. "I thought you'd be in the lab," he grinned.

"I don't want you there right now," Maddie explained and got up as Phantom wholly emerged from the floor and made her way to the kitchen with the ghost in tow.

The ghost nodded. "It is pretty wrecked. Have you considered putting a ghost shield over the portal so this kind of thing didn't happen again?"

Maddie lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. "You purposefully would limit your own access to the Ghost Zone?"

Phantom shrugged. "It would reduce the number of ghosts that accidentally come through by a lot and give the ones that want to wreak havoc hard time getting through. Besides, I probably could still get through."

Yes, of course. Phantom's infamous disappearing act that got him past ghost shields. "How does that work exactly?"

"My molecules rearrange themselves with the transformation halo in a way that allows me to go through ghost shields. I haven't had the time nor desire to look into it any further, although Plasmius might know. He's into gross stuff like that." The ghost made gestures vaguely resembling the double helix structure of DNA. "He probably wouldn't tell that kind of things to a ghost hunter, no offense."

Ah, the enigmatic Plasmius. Maddie really has to make a chart of everything she knows about him. But not now. "Can't you ask him and then tell me?"

The ghost lifted an eyebrow. "No. I know we have a deal, but considering that you've hunted me for almost five years and only had a change of heart less than two months ago, I think it's reasonable that we hold some information to ourselves. It's nothing personal, but the details you're asking could seriously hurt me, him, and others."

Maddie frowned, disappointed, but again could see no flaws in Phantom's logic.

"Besides, when Plasmius gets into the funk of explaining something, he drones on for at least two hours. The more scientific the subject, the longer the speech. You're not asking me to sit through one of those are you?"

Maddie sighed and threw her hand up in resignation. "Alright. I won't."

Dealing with Phantom was frustrating, as wheedling some bits of information from the ghost was harder than getting her son to talk about his black eyes and bruises when he was still being bullied at school. The worst part was that any and every reason the ghost gave her for withholding a piece of information made sense in some way or other, something ghosts were not supposed to do. Sure, Phantom was unique and seemed more human in both appearance and personality than a ghost had any business being, but he was still a ghost.

Speaking of humane appearance...

"Can I take a look at your wounds now?" It was still strange to her to be polite with a ghost even though Phantom might've passed as a human if he stopped glowing and started following the laws of physics. Maddie had to constantly remind herself that the lippy teenager she was dealing with was in fact dead, which frustrated her even more.

Phantom tilted his head a bit at her, as if looking at her thoughts. If he could, he made no comment as he nodded and made the white ring of energy appear around himself again and divide, ridding him of his top. The ghost settled sitting cross-legged on an average chair height so Maddie could easily inspect what was left of the wounds he received earlier in the day.

True to his word, scars were littering his torso and Maddie easily recognized the long line on his shoulder and the one on his stomach he had opened laughing. Most of the burns on his right side had faded away but some parts still had the texture of burn scars. The scars were a pale green color, and as Maddie slowly circled the ghost to look at his back she could see clearly fresher marks on his back that, she was sure of this, weren't there before.

Returning to the specter's front, she wrote down quick and simple notes. "Fascinating, you do scar like a human would but faster."

The ghost grinned his annoying trademark grin. "I told you. Besides, I don't like lying."

Maddie only rolled her eyes and refocused on the green scratches on the ghost's back. "These are new."

Phantom turned his head and stretched his neck to see the damage himself. Maddie mentally cringed at the angle the ghost's neck was at but decided not to comment.

"Oh yeah, those," Phantom said with a hint of chuckle in his voice. "I got tossed around a bit on my way here and landed pretty hard on something sharp."

"You landed hard?" Maddie questioned. "Shouldn't you be bruising?"

Phantom tuned his head back to the direction it was supposed to face and rubbed his neck a bit. "Probably, if I didn't have the suit," he patted his thigh covered with the black material, "It's really not meant to protect against physical harm and doesn't do crap against anything sharp, but it sure can soften a blunt blow. It's kinda like ooblek, but the ectoplasm makes it a lot ooblekier than actual ooblek is."

"Fascinating," Maddie said.

She laid a hand on the ghost's back just below the damage. It was solid as expected, but her protective glove made it impossible to feel the ghost's temperature. Considering the ectoplasm and thus the radiation it emitted was contained within the ghost, it would be possible to actually tough the ghost without protective gloves, but was it a risk she was willing to take?

Absolutely. Maddie slowly took off her right hand glove and laid the hand back to its earlier position.

The ghost felt even more solid like this, but Maddie wasn't focusing on that right now because Phantom was cold. Boy howdy was he cold. She quickly removed her hand.

"Too cool for you, huh?" the ghost grinned, turning in midair to face her.

Maddie checked her hand over; while the ghost really might've just been that cold, there was a chance of radiation burn. Finding nothing, she regloved her hand while making a mental note to monitor the hand later. "Our study on ectoplasm and ectoplasmic entities suggests that ghosts are cold, but this is taking it to the extreme."

"Extreme is my middle name," Phantom said, still wearing that ridiculous grin of his. "Without the hazmat my temperature is below freezing because of my ice core."

Maddie raised an eyebrow. "You're an elemental?"

Phantom rolled his eyes, his body highlighting the motion. "Duh. Haven't you seen me throw ice and snow at my enemies for what, over four years now?"

Maddie almost could've smacked herself in the face. "Of course I have, but or study on elemental ectoplasmic entities suggests elementals only use their element. As you probably know, some non-elemental ghosts can use smaller amounts of elemental power, such as fire or electricity. We thought you were like that, since you use cryokinesis only occasionally."

The ghost nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that makes sense." The white halo passed over him again, making his ethereal hazmat whole once more. "Cryokinesis doesn't work that way as far as I know though, fire and electricity are a lot easier to make. Here, look;" Phantom lifted his hand from his lap, electricity arcing and sparking between his fingers, "I can make electricity too. I can't make real fire obviously, but only ghosts with ice cores can make ice. It's pretty rare, outside of Far Frozen that is."

"What is Far Frozen?" Maddie asked.

"It's a remote corner in the Zone, freezing cold and populated by yetis. It's a lovely and welcoming place, if you don't mind the temperature, that is." Phantom took a small pause. "The yetis taught me most of what I know of using cryokinesis."

With the same hand that he had demonstrated electricity, Phantom created a small figure of ice with a flick of his wrist and a blue flash of his eyes. It was small and translucent, but Maddie could see it was a miniature yeti. She had to hold back a gasp of astonishment.

With another flick of his hand Phantom made the figure vanish and it dissipated back into the icy nothingness it had come from. Before the scientist could ask anything more about the yetis or the place they afterlived in, the ghost in front of her backed off a few feet, grinning once more.

"And now, time for the main attraction," the ghost grinned. He spread his arms wide, and with the same disfigured flash of light Maddie had witnessed earlier during the battle, two arms flashed? sprouted? from just below Phantom's armpits. The ghost did jazz hands with his newfound second set of hands. "Partial duplication for party tricks."

Maddie stepped closer to the ghost to observe the new set of arms. It was utterly fascinating; the seamlessness of the hazmat Phantom wore made the areas where the arms connected look natural, as if the ghost had had three pairs of limbs all along. She circled over, only somewhat aware of the amused neon green eyes following her.

She hadn't expected to find anything of interest on the ghost's backside other than maybe the small scratches on the ethereal not-quite fabric knitting themselves shut, but she was met with a second and lower pair of shoulder blades. It made sense, for functional arms vertebrates, or in this case vertebrate-mimicking ectoplasmic entities, needed scapulae. She just hadn't been expecting it, Phantom just kept surprising her time and time again. She nearly ghosted a hand over the ghost's upper back, but successfully fought the temptation down.

Maddie circled back to face Phantom again. "Impressive," she managed to say while keeping a serious face that (hopefully) didn't show how much awe and curiosity she had for what he had just done. "Can you do other things with that than add more arms and reshape the ones you have?"

Phantom pouted at her. "Here I am showing you something I worked hard and long to achieve and you're just Spocking it," he grumbled. "And reshaping limbs is different than duplication, it's... spectral body modification, I think that's the term Plasmius used."

"Alright, two different things," Maddie acknowledged and leaned back on her stance. "So how does duplication work? You said it's hard."

Phantom nodded, and the second pair of arms disappeared in a flash identical to the one that created them. "It's really hard to get the hang of at first," he explained with an undertone that suggested he was going to recount a longer story, "and like everything else it gets easier with practice. For a long while I didn't even know duplication was possible, but then I met Plasmius and he was hell-bent with either teaching me or kicking my butt. He more or less purposefully ended up doing both at the same time, and after a while of him beating me up and taunting me I decided to learn to duplicate myself. It took a really long time to get right, and I couldn't really work around some problems with it until Plasmius and I made a truce and he gave me some pointers."

Phantom paused his tale for a moment to demonstrate complete duplication. Another identical ghost appeared next to the original in a blinding flash of light that was so short Maddie had no time to close her eyes to protect from it, and so bright it left discolored spots floating in her vision. She was glad for the often unpleasant aftermath of looking at too bright things though, because otherwise she would have completely missed the arc of energy connecting the two Phantoms at the chests for the fraction of a second.

"I don't know the science behind this," the freshly created duplicate confessed, "and I don't really care to know. Plasmius probably does because he's a lonely nerd who needs to become a cat lady- honestly, he just needs a few more cats for that- but asking him would be dumb." The original continued: "It's also tricky because the mental effort needed to duplicate is shaped differently for different ghosts."

"Shaped differently?" Maddie repeated in hopes for a clarification.

"Yeah," the original Phantom said. "Different minds, different obsessions, different ways to think. Ghosts are all about the mind, that kind of things affect us a lot." The copy picked up the train of thought: "Trying to do something as hard as duplication by someone else's method is kinda like installing Windows 95 on the latest iPhone."

The original scratched his cheek and formed a spectral tail to flick around like a cat. "I mean... I tried to duplicate myself using Plasmius' method some time ago and it just felt plain wrong. It worked because I'm a pro at it, but it left a bad aftertaste. So yeah, tricky stuff."

Maddie frowned, eyes darting from one Phantom to the other. "But you said Plasmius gave you tips with it."

Both ghosts nodded. "My technique was really rough around the edges and took a lot more effort and energy than necessary," the copy told. "I was honestly fine with it at the time, all my powers were a pain in the butt at first and I figured duplication was just being a little shit. So when Plasmius and I struck a truce he immediately started bugging me about it, like he could see I was doing it the extra hard way. He's a perfectionist of sorts with the power stuff so of course he," the duplicate rolled his eyes dramatically, "could do it like a boss. Anyway, after some trial and error I got it right, and now I can do this."

The duplicate Phantom arranged his legs into a lotus position and with an already familiar disfigured flash of light six more arms appeared. Now with a total of eight he held them in positions that gave off a feeling of immense zen. He closed his eyes and said 'ommmmm' in comically stretched voice.

"And this," the original Phantom said, and with a flash that encompassed his entire head and torso grew a second head next to the one already on his shoulders. Maddie had time to close her eyes for the duration of the flash with Phantom's warning, but she missed which one of the heads was the original and which one the duplicate. It probably doesn't matter, she thought as she watched the two heads grin at each other and high five.

"How does that work?" Maddie asked and gestured at the two-headed ghost's arms. "Does each head control one arm or does the original control both?"

Both of the heads turned to her. If Phantom's stare had been unnerving before, twice the eyes in one body sent shivers down Maddie's spine. "The two heads aren't really separate," the right head told. "I still have one mind, it just happens to be in two heads."

"It's a closer version of the bond all duplicates share," the left head continued. "Having duplicates is like having more arms and legs and everything, but you also have more brains to move it all. There's a lot more stuff on your mind all the time but it's never too much."

"That's why partial duplication is harder than whole duplication once you get the hang of it," the eight-armed duplicate said. "In complete duplication, everything is in balance and you have enough mind for the body. But right now, I have way too much body for my mind and that guy-" he jabbed three thumbs at the two-headed Phantom "-has way too much mind for his body."

"But since I'm all connected to myself, I'm using some of this body's mental capacity to control that body's body," the original's right head finished. Maddie wasn't too sure she followed, but she nodded nonetheless. If that was as clear as Phantom was going to get, she'd have better luck thinking what she'd heard over in peace than asking to hear it again.

The two disfigured Phantoms merged together in the brightest flash of light so far that left behind one sole Phantom with the correct number of limbs and heads. The ghost immediately molded is legs into a flickering tail, though.

"Can you change the size of your duplicates or extra limbs?" Maddie asked.

Phantom scrunched up his face in thought. "I don't think so," he said after a beat. "I haven't tried it, yet at least. I'm probably too solid for that." Another thinking pause. "I might be able to do it with practice, but not right now. Not a week from now. Maybe a month, if I really got into it, but that's a pretty big if."

"Could a less solid ghost do it in less time?" Maddie asked.

"Depends."

"On what?"

"Everything. A ghost with suitable motivations, needs, and pre-existing skills probably both could and would, and I've seen something like that happen a lot. Walker does it all the time to intimidate everyone else, but that could also be just an-"

Phantom's speech stopped dead and for a second Maddie thought the ghost had again crossed one of the immaterial boundaries he had set for himself to guard his privacy, but the ghost was clearly listening intently to something she couldn't hear and raised his hand as a signal to be quiet. He turned his head to a few directions on short intervals like he was trying to pinpoint the source of a faint repetitive sound. Then his eyes trained on the floor. For some reason that sent chills through Maddie's body.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something's wrong in the lab," Phantom said.

Then, like Phantom had summoned it by mentioning it, a distorted roar sounded from the room below them, instantly followed by the very familiar sound of ecto-weapons firing. Maddie and Phantom shared a split-second alarmed look before the ghost grabbed her by the arm and phased them down through the floor.

Down in the lab Jack was fending off what looked like a miniature version of the elemental volcanic monster Phantom had more or less destroyed earlier that day. It was hunching over a mess of broken sample containers, and big sharp glass shards were sticking out of its back like a container had broken from the inside and the pieces had been caught by and gotten embedded in rapidly expanding mass. Its mouths were dripping searing hot ectoplasm that sizzled on the floor below it, and the scorched ectoplasmic flesh around the slowly melting glass shards was bleeding the same thing, as if the wounds were weeping acidic pus.

Maddie immediately grabbed the nearest weapon (a rifle she had been carrying around town earlier) and shot at the sulfur-smelling monstrosity. To her immense satisfaction it screeched in agony as the shots hit it squarely between the foaming mouths, but the thing was otherwise unaffected and retaliated by flinging three tentacle arms towards Maddie. The arms were nothing compared to what they had been when the ghost had rampaged in town, but they were still thicker than Maddie's thighs and moved faster than she could dodge. She tried to cover her head and face from the incoming attack with her arms and Jack called her name in alarm, but instead of her the tentacles hit a transparent and glowing green shield with a sickening squelch.

Maddie looked up just in time to see Phantom fling his arms around his head in one fluid motion and trap the other ghost screaming in anger and frustration in a sealed bubble of ethereal green. With the immediate threat of dying gone, Maddie hunched over and leaned on her knees and sighed in relief. Jack rushed over to her from halfway across the trashed lab to check that she was alright.

"Thanks Phantom," he chuckled. "I would've been toast if you hadn't come when you did." The ghost nodded in acknowledgement.

"I thought you killed that thing," Maddie sharply addressed the friendlier of the two ghosts in the room. The remaining adrenaline from the volcanic ghost's sudden appearance was dwindling and coalescing into an emotion of some kind, and Maddie chose to project that emotion as anger towards Phantom for indirectly endangering not only her but her husband's lives as well by insufficiently dealing with the threat earlier. Deep down she knew it wasn't Phantom's fault, but it was easy to blame a ghost for everything when something like this happened.

"I don't kill things," Phantom defended himself against Maddie's irritated tone. "If I'd known that thing could regenerate from a core shard that quickly I would have chucked it into the far reaches of the Ghost Zone right after!"

"A core shard?" Maddie repeated. "You mean it broke into several pieces and each will regenerate into a new one?" Nothing in their research suggested that a ghost with a core that damaged could do anything other than perish.

"No, I don't think there will be more than one," Phantom said as he stared at the very angry cloud of unearthly plasma seething in the bubble of green energy with observing eyes. "Either that regenerated from a really big piece, like a half a core or more, or several smaller shards fused together."

"That goes against everything we've discovered about ghost cores."

"Maybe, but that just happened." Phantom sighed. "Now, you're not gonna like this, but this guy is way too dangerous to be held captive to be studied in a place like this. I know a few places in the Ghost Zone where it'd be harmless…"

"So you're going to take our test subject, just like that?" Maddie asked with a sharp accusing tone.

Phantom looked her directly in the eyes with a look she might have described as 'haunted' had she not been sure the ghost would've gotten a kick out of the pun of it. "Yes."

"You can't do that."

"I have to. It blew itself up once and it's already regenerating that much- it can do it again. You live upstairs."

As much as she wanted to, Maddie just couldn't find a counterargument against that. Not when Phantom's usually so cheerful expression had turned stone serious, and the haunted look was still there. Not when the ghost was so concerned for her, a ghost hunter's, safety. "Please, let me take it to the Zone."

Maddie sighed, all fight leaving her as she breathed out and all the weariness from the eventful day settled on her shoulders. "Fine," she said eventually. "Take it."

"Thank you," Phantom said and lifted the sphere containing the angry elemental ghost in front of him without touching it. He floated over to the closed portal which opened for the ghost when he approached, something the portal was definitely not supposed to do. She'd have to check the programming. Phantom was half through the portal when he paused, turned back, and gave the two Fentons a cheery salute.

"See you around," he said, and disappeared into the swirling green vortex.

Maddie sighed again. Even without a ghost to study, there was a lot to do.

AN: I'm sorry this took two years. The series ends here.

Update: The series does not end here. I got another idea