Author's Note: Well, here we are. Sorry for the wait. Man, I was going to write so much this summer, but then, bam, the time just slips away. But I did do a lot of other good things this summer. Like get a job, and go to field camp. Ah, so much fun. And who knows, I might keep writing through fall semester. We'll see, it's kind of a large lode this time around.

Sweet Relief

Skulker strode heavily to the stairs where Danny had crashed. The hunter ghost was panting heavily, still worn from the earlier battle, but he was still in better shape than the halfa, who'd just taken a full-powered ghost-ray to the chest while in his human form. The impact with the stairs had only compounded the damage.

"I'm growing tired of this hunt, especially with all the interference." Skulker glanced angrily over his shoulder at Jenny. He made a move to pick up Danny by the neck, but before he even touched the ghost boy, a gold star stuck itself into his arm and detonated.

"You want him?" Timmy asked confidently, "You're gonna have to go through us first!"

"I have had ENOUGH of this nonsense!" Skulker exploded. It'd been a long day, some robot had left a considerable dent in his head, and now this kid was trying to keep him from his prey when he was this close to the final blow. The hunter ghost was at the end of his rope. "You want me to go through you?"

Wanda poofed Timmy out of the way just a split second before Skulker rocketed through the spot where the buck-toothed boy had just been standing. The ghost whipped around to find the boy standing in the street. He locked several missiles on the kid and fired them all at once, but again, he poofed away before a single explosion.

"Well, if I can't hit you…" the hunter caught Jimmy in his sights. "This one with the big head will do nicely."

Jimmy didn't notice the ecto blast coming at him until it was too late to react, but luckily Jenny was standing close enough to catch it in an energy scoop and launch it back at the ghost. Skulker was knocked out the open door and onto the lawn, where Jenny tried to follow up with a spiked fist. He phased through it and blasted the robot girl away. He stood and aimed another blast at Jimmy, but the boy genius had whipped out a device by now. The gadget fired two pulses; the first consuming the ecto blast and the second sending a shockwave through Skulker's armor, despite the ghost's intangibility.

"Wow Jimmy, you actually landed a hit on him!" Jenny said, impressed.

"Oh, it's just a little something I whipped up after looking at the Fentons' equipment." He replied with false modesty.

As tired as Skulker was getting, he was twice as mad, and his rage gave him the energy to get up and blast at those infernal children again. The robot girl caught the blasts again, but this time the ghost was expecting her to fling them back at him, and he shielded against them.

Suddenly, the buck-toothed one appeared again, making faces and beckoning mockingly to the ghost. Skulker knew the boy was just trying to lead him away, but both his rage and his pride over-rid his common sense. He'd chase that annoyance across the earth if it meant he could squash the boy. The hunter sped after the retreating child.

Back in the Wakeman house

Danny woke up groggily when someone placed an ice pack on his back. He was lying on his stomach on a couch. He tried to stretch, but there was something sticking his arms together. That's when it all flooded back. The trap, the fight with Skulker in Jimmy's lab, then in the school parking lot, and finally at Jenny's house. He rolled slowly onto his side and looked at the goop encasing his arms. It was even bigger now, up to his shoulders, sticking his arms firmly to his sides.

"Oh great." Danny muttered.

"Yes, apparently it grew when it absorbed most of the ecto-blast from that hunter." Mz. Wakeman said as she came into the living room with another ice pack and a cup. "It's a good thing it did too. I'm no expert on ghosts, but I daresay if you'd taken the full blow… well, it wouldn't have been good."

She then pushed him back onto him stomach. "Lie down, you're lucky you didn't break your back when you fell into the stairs. Spit into this." She held the cup in front of his mouth.

Danny ignored her commands and actually sat up. "Where's Skulker? What happened to everyone else?"

The elderly robotics doctor frowned and forcefully pushed the teenager back into a laying position before sticking a swab into his mouth.

"XJ-9 and your friends led the hunter off so I could treat you and hopefully get rid of that substance trapping your arms. You're recovering fairly quickly, and if you'll do as I tell you, I should have a solvent ready in a few minutes."

Danny spit the swab out, which Mz. Wakeman barely caught. "I've gotta go. It's my fault Skulker—"

"You stay right where you are young man." Mz. Wakeman said with the force that only someone who had raised a teenager could possess, "Your friends are all perfectly capable of holding the ghost at bay, you need rest, and I need you here to isolate an ectoplasmic enzyme." She shook her head, "Honestly, you don't give them enough credit. The way you act, you'd think they couldn't stop a break-in without your help."

The ghost boy thought on her words. Maybe he didn't have enough faith in his friends. But it wasn't like that! He knew his friends were capable, but it wasn't right, it wasn't fair for them to fight his battles. But then again, he'd do the same for them if one of them was in his position.

"Alright." Danny finally said grudgingly, "I'll wait. But as soon as you figure out a solvent, I've got to get back to Amity Park to grab a Fenton Thermos and finally end this."

"Whatever you feel you need to do, dear." Mz. Wakeman said simply as she brushed the swab on a Petri-dish.

Back with Skulker

Thanks to Cosmo and Wanda, the three friends and the hunter ghost had taken their fight all the way into the woods outside of town. Poofing everyone out of the way of Skulker's attacks was a quite useful tactic, and while the ghost was growing more and more tired, the kids barely had a scratch on them. Jenny was the only one who was even getting close to tired, as she took the job of blocking the attacks that were too fast to poof away from.

Despite his clear disadvantage, Skulker pressed on. He may have been stubborn and blinded by rage, but it couldn't be denied that he was determined, and tenacious. No matter what they threw at him, they just couldn't keep him down.

"We just have to keep this up until he's completely worn down." Jimmy reasoned as he shot another pulse from his device. "He's already been taken down once today, and he's wasting more energy than us. Logically, we'll outlast him."

"And since when have ghosts followed logic?" Timmy asked as he fired another star.

Meanwhile with Danny

"Well, this one looks promising, let's give it a try." Mz. Wakeman held up a vial filled with translucent green liquid after a few minutes of incubating and centrifuging the swab sample from Danny's mouth.

The teen held his breath as the scientist dripped a few drops experimentally on his elbow. The green goop showed no sign of change.

"Great." Danny sighed. It was starting to look like he'd be stuck like this forever.

"Wait for it…" Mz. Wakeman said, staring intently at the spot.

Slowly but surely, the goop changed from green to clear, and began to slip off as it became less of a gunk and more of a slime. After a few minutes Danny's arms were free.

The joy and freedom Danny felt at that moment really couldn't be described, so he settled for a triumphant "Yes! Yes!" He turned to Mz. Wakeman. "Thank you so much!" He changed to his ghost form and flew into the air, laughing.

Then he winced at the pain in his back.

"Now, you'll still need some rest after that injury," The scientist said sagely, picking up the ice-pack that had fallen to the floor, "But you've been re—"

"No can do." The ghost boy cut her off. "I've got a job to do, and my friends need my help." With that, he pulled out his Recaller. Can't catch Skulker without the Fenton Thermos. In another second he was gone, back to Amity Park.

Mz. Wakeman sighed. That boy was going to run himself ragged someday.

Yet again with Skulker

The hunter ghost's tenacity was beyond what any of the children had expected. Really, Skulker was probably pushing himself even more than when he fought with the ghost child. Any other day he would have called it quits about an hour ago and tried again later, but today he was mad as a hornets' nest. It was mostly because of that annoyance in the pink hat. He was like a more grating version of the whelp. And that was saying something.

The kids were wearing down, while Skulker's exhaustion seemed to have leveled out. Soon they'd be about even in terms of energy.

"It might be best to retreat and regains some strength." Jimmy suggested, the most winded of the three.

"Give up?" Timmy asked incredulously.

"That's not what I said—" the boy genius insisted, but Turner just talked over him.

"We can't give up! Danny's hurt, and we've gotta keep this creep away from him until he gets better!"

"We can keep this up long enough for my mom to get rid of that stuff, no problem." Jenny said confidently, reflecting an ecto-blast back at the ghost.

"But if we don't, it could mean we'd all be pelts on his wall." Jimmy reasoned.

"We'll be fine!" the boy in the pink hat assured him. With that Timmy poofed in close for a particularly painful shot with his star-shooter.

By coincidence, this was the time Danny returned with the Fenton Thermos. Thankfully his parents had still been out and he hadn't had to go through any lengthy explanations. After exiting the portal he saw Timmy dangerously close to Skulker. This was it. This was where Danny would finally finish this problem.

But Skulker had been hunting Danny for a long time. Almost as soon as the ghost boy arrived, the hunter sensed his presence. He whipped around and shot an ecto-blast right into where Danny had been hit before. Luckily Skulker was still winded, and this blast was much weaker than before, but it was compacting a previous wound.

Danny dropped the thermos and curled into a fetal position, but he stayed in the air. He couldn't fall now. He couldn't fail. He had to fix this!

Below, Timmy picked up the Fenton thermos and looked at the tired but furious Skulker. The boy pressed the button and… fwooosh! Skulker was unexpectedly sucked into the thermos.

"Huh?" Danny was too tired to notice his foe was gone for a second.

"Don't worry Danny, we got this." The boy in the pink hat assured him with a smile.

"We had everything under control, you know." Jenny told him as the halfa landed softly. "You didn't have to charge in and get yourself hurt like that."

"Although, I am glad you came when you did. We couldn't have gone on forever." Jimmy added.

Danny just started laughing. After all that trouble, the problem was finally fixed, and he didn't even do it! It was such a relief now that it was over.

"Hahaha! Hahahahahahaaaaaaaw yeah, it's late." Danny's last laugh turned into a yawn. "I'm going to bed." He turned his recaller back on and left for home, with his friends just staring at him. But hey, after all this, he did deserve a good rest.

The End

Author's Notes: I know it's short, but I did five chapters in less than three months! Sometimes in my longer stories I'd have three months between chapters! I'd say that's productive. Now, like Danny said. It's late, and I'm going to bed. G'night!