As Phantom hastily dodged the rhino, he backed right into the claws of what Maddie vaguely recognized as a smilodon, a saber-toothed lion. It took a hold of him with its claws and attempted to sink them into his shoulder, but the smaller ghost seemingly evaporated into a cloud of teal fog and flew through the feline's hold, only for it to clack its jaws together with a painful crunch and Phantom to rematerialize behind it.

Maddie turned page.

Phantom charged his foot with ecto-energy and kicked the smilodon hard in the general area of its butt, sending it flying sky high. The lion momentarily out of commission, two other animals charged at him. The human identified them as a cave bear and an aurochs, and noted that while all the animals had had a clearly humanoid shape when they arrived, they had 'reverted' into clearly more animalistic shapes.

As the duo of beasts that would never have worked together in nature drew near enough, Phantom simply dodged the bear, taking a hold of the aurochs' horns instead and spinning the animal over four times his size around him once before launching the angrily mooing creature after the bear, who had skidded to a halt and was ready to attack again. The two collided in a mass of black furry limbs and deadly sharp points, barely missing the woolly mammoth coming back from behind.

As the two untangled themselves, the smilodon had returned from its impromptu visit to the slight cover of clouds above Amity Park. The five members of Pleistocene megafauna (including a stocky wild horse that had yet to attack) regrouped. The mammoth, who clearly was the leader and like the four others had adopted a shape one would expect to see in ice age documentaries, shouted something at Phantom with its hoarse voice. Maddie rushed to dig the ghost gabber from her backpack, and almost missed Phantom's reply.

"You lot still after that? No way." Another shout, this time more demanding in its tone. "In your dreams. You'll never kick my ass with a team that small. And even if you did, I wouldn't do it."

Maddie lifted her eyebrows in surprise. The gang of ghosts wanted something from Phantom? Interesting.

As the megafauna glared at the self-proclaimed hero, another puff of fog came out of his mouth, this time unaccompanied by a fit of coughs. He ghost groaned, and Maddie barely caught his comment about 'jinxing it'. And, as if on cue, another group of animals flew to the scene, led by a majestic kind of green Irish elk and consisting of a wisent, a huge one-horned rhino and an animal that looked like a giant mutated armadillo. (Maddie was sure the last animal was mutated into its current shape during its time in the Ghost Zone, but when she later would look up prehistoric animals she would discover that indeed, it was a real animal called glyptodon and that the one-horned rhino was in fact called elasmotherium.)

The two groups joined, and the elk shrieked something at Phantom (who clearly rolled his eyes) with surprisingly high voice, almost like the whine of a charging ectogun. Maddie was very disappointed to find that while the ghost gabber cleared the elk's words into more understandable form, it didn't translate them into anything she would understand. She would have to tweak it a bit.

The cervid screeched again, and this time Phantom clearly flinched at the pitch before straightening his posture again and putting on an absolutely stubborn expression. "You want ice? Come and get it!" The teenage ghost made a daring motion with his hand, towarding it to the Irish elk with antlers so huge and wide Maddie was sure it had had to come through the portal sideways. The spectral beast let out a hollow call more fitting to its form, like someone groaning loudly into a tube of some kind, and rushed forwards.

Phantom dodged the charging elk with a twist that would have broken the spine of anything alive. As it sped past him, he grabbed a hold of its short tail stopping it dead on its tracks and covered it in ice. Now frozen solid, the elk fell from the sky towards Maddie. Phantom clearly noticed this as he yelled a quick "Watch out" to her. A soft green glow, softer than a charging ectoblast, covered his hand and he made an 'away' motion with it. To Maddie's surprise, she felt herself being lifted from the ground and whooshed a few feet back. The frozen elk crashed into the exact spot Maddie had been half a second earlier with a sickening crunch. One of its giant antlers broke off on the impact and the ghost animal was left helplessly lying on the ground, unable to move in or escape from its icy encasing.

Maddie looked down at herself just in time to see the faint green glow of ghostly possession fade away from around her. Phantom had saved her from getting crushed under an unidentifiable weight of the enormous ghost elk, even though she wouldn't have even been in danger if it wasn't for him. The ghost seemed to be very serious about looking after the humans of his haunt.

In the human-like ghost's moment of saving the scientist from getting crushed, the elasmotherium had circled around him and gained speed. Now was Maddie's turn to yell a warning, and Phantom spun around just in time for the megafauna to smash right into him horn first, proverbially sweeping him off his feet, as he was in the air and his legs were currently replaced by a spectral tail. The crude unicorn threw Phantom towards the glyptodon who in turn was preparing to bat the smaller ghost forward with its heavy tail in an unorthodox game of ping-pong, but he righted himself and halted his flight in time, and the unholy armadillo's tail swept only air.

The animals regrouped again, and with the mammoth in the lead, charged all at once. Phantom easily dodged the singular attack, but as each ghost started chasing him on their own, the cave bear got a few scratches in and the horse managed to bite his tail, which luckily wasn't nearly as solid as the rest of his body.

Maddie was confused. Why was Phantom, who according to their research, several videos, reports, and a countless amount of witnesses was capable of leveling skyscrapers with a single attack, merely toying with the ghosts who despite their probable age were below the average power of the town's most attackers?

The mammoth made a desperate grab at Phantom with its trunk but missed. In frustration, it sneezed an ectoblast at the smaller ghost, nailing him in the back. The shot specter whipped around at whiplash speeds, reformed his legs and slammed a boot into the creature's furry forehead, sending it crashing to a sandy road below. The mammoth was soon almost back up, but Phantom froze it to a block of ethereal ice before it could fling another blast at him.

The other ghost animals halted for a second, both their leaders encased in a translucent prison for the time being. Phantom turned to them with his usual smirk. "Who else wants a piece of me?" He shouted at them with a challenging shrug.

The two rhinoceri responded to his dare with hollow trashcan-like calls and charged. They were fast compared to their size, but able to move to every possible direction, Phantom easily dodged the two. It was fascinating to watch as the two horn heads ran in the air as if they were running on the ground an skidded in tight turns. The ghost teen used their slower turns to his advantage, and threw a ball of cryikinetic energy at the duo, freezing them together. The frozen rhinoceri fell down almost on top of the mammoth and cracked apart in the middle, creating two smaller one rhino sized clumps.

If Maddie had to guess, she'd say the mammoth was the only one able to use weaponized ecto-energy in fights.

The animals still left shifted uncomfortably. Phantom whipped his gaze from the fallen ghosts and to the floating ones. Maddie could see even from the ground that his eyes were blazing an angry swimming pool blue, and the color was quickly flowing into his aura. Still glaring at the other ghosts, he let it flash around him once in a blinding and chilling explosion. The scientist could feel not only the chill of the cryogenic aura digging into her very being, but the emotion within it as well that Maddie could only identify as 'go away'.

The mismatched herd scattered, all of its members clearly trying to get away from the situation yet somewhat unwilling to leave, probably either because of whatever reason they had come or the fallen members they were unwilling to leave behind.

Finally, the smilodon got a hold of itself and reverted back to a more humanoid shape and flew down towards the fallen elk, its flight panicked and anxious. Maddie backed away as it came close, but it paid her no heed and proceeded to haul the frozen elk up on its shoulders, taking the off-broken antler with it. The rest followed its example and flew down to the mammoth and rhinoceri.

The fight was over, and Maddie let herself relax her shoulders which had been tensed during the clash of ghosts.

"Why didn't you fight them?" The human questioned as Phantom floated back down while the still unfrozen members of the Pleistocene gang dragged the not-so-lucky ones back into the general direction of Fentonworks, a fact that greatly troubled Maddie but which she had learned quickly to tolerate.

"What do you mean?" The ghost was confused. "I most certainly kicked their asses and you were standing right there watching the whole thing."

"Yes, but our studies and most footage of you show you'd have the power to disintegrate them. Why didn't you?" This question could open a door to the ghost's mind, and Maddie was waiting like a famished wolf to get a piece of it. Jazz clearly was onto something with her ghost psychology.

Phantom was openly gaping at her. "Maddie, that's horrible. I'd never do something like that."

"They were attacking your haunt."

"No, they were attacking me. And they only were in my haunt because I very rarely leave Amity Park."

"That still doesn't explain why you were only playing around with them."

Phantom's eyes were glowing with clear frustration as he glared at Maddie. "I know I'm somewhat territorial and nobody likes to be attacked, but ending someone's afterlife isn't worth it." Maddie tightened her grip of the notepad on her hands; the ghost was about to rant. "Killing someone you find inconvenient is just wrong. It's no different just 'cause I'm a ghost. Like, I know I have more skill to, but so do you since you're a really good martial artist but you don't kill people that annoy you. True, my thought process is closer to a human's that most ghosts, but that doesn't make it any different! I just-"

Phantom was fuming, and Maddie was regretting bringing up the topic. His eyes were blazing and his hair was beginning to stand up like it was electrified. Just as Maddie was about to either take out the weapon at her side or make a run for it, Phantom closed his eyes and took several calming breaths. His hair came down and when he opened his eyes they were back to their normal levels of luminescence.

"Sorry about that," the ghost muttered. "Won't happen again. That's just a touchy subject, you know, morality and all."

He floated even lower adopting a cross-legged sitting position, until he was so low the human couldn't tell whether he was sitting on the grass below or floating an inch above it. He made a gesture with his hand urging Maddie to sit down as well, which she did, albeit hesitantly.

The ghost in front of her leaned his head on his hand and sighed. "Sorry again about that. I just... I don't want to hurt them." He nodded his head towards the portal and sighed again like a parent trying to calm down to explain to their child why pushing others into water puddles is wrong. "I protect. That's what I do. Mostly the beings living in my haunt, human and other, but ghosts as well." Maddie was about to say how stupid that sounded given the ghost's track record with others of his kind, but he raised his finger before she could interrupt. "No, hear me out. I know it sounds strange, but I do protect other ghosts as well as humans. It's not as obvious since most of the ghosts that come through the portal are following an obsession or instinct harmful to the town and/or me, but I'm not going out on my way to harm them. I try to match my power during fights to the opponent's, even though a display of power might discourage them from coming to hurt me again, 'cause it's fair. It might get my ass kicked on a weekly basis, but I really don't want to hurt my opponents any more than necessary."

He changed the hand his head was leaning on. "In the case of that Pleistocene band of animals I could, as you said, 'disintegrate them' if I wanted to. Which I don't, obviously. Beating them down to near goo would make sure they never set a hoof on the human world again, but that would break them on the inside." Phantom straightened himself in his sitting position and placed his hand firmly over where his heart had been.

"Those ghosts have a story. They're just as old as their appearance would suggest even if their power, or rather lack of it, says otherwise. They were stronger once, when they had been dead less than a millennium and the Ice Age was at its prime. They took pride in looking at their living kind, seeing them in the vast plains and forests and mountains, and struggling through harsh weather. It was awful for them to see their 'kingdom' fall and for humans to claim the land of their kind after the weather got warmer.

"Most animal ghosts don't have a clear obsession. Animals are simpler in life and similarly simpler in death, with an exception every now and then. Those guys aren't exactly one, but the era of megafauna like them was an important thing to them, and when the climate changed they were devastated. Ice Age was their thing and with it gone, they lost the majority of their power and never got it back. They're old and bitter, like those really old people who sit around in their wheelchairs and reminisce together 'how the 30's were good and how nowadays youngsters are hooligans'.

"And that's kind of why they come after me. It's common knowledge that I have strong cryokinesis, stronger than any other ghost conveniently available in the Zone since I stay in one place, and every ghost knows of Amity Park." Phantom paused for a little while and rubbed the back of his neck. "They want me to freeze the world and bring about a new Ice Age. I'm pretty sure I'd have the power to do it even though I won't. If I don't kick their asses too bad when they come to fight me, they'll just come back to haunt me later, but it won't discourage them. The possibility of a new Ice Age, even in the form of a stubborn cryogenic ghost who likes the world as it is, keeps them going. If I don't overpower them too badly, they can afterlive in hope to corner me and get me to do it. So in a way I'm protecting them, even if it is from the reality."

Whatever story Maddie had expected to hear, it wasn't this. She would take it gladly, of course; it gave even more insight to the boy's personality than she'd hoped. And who would have expected so complex logic from a ghost? The scientist was running out of page to write on and was forced to turn it mid-sentence. To her disappointment, she found the notepad had only one page left, as it was not a big one and Maddie had been writing in such a hurry her handwriting was big and messy. She sighed and wrote down her last thoughts calmly and as tiny as she could manage, but soon the last page was filled as well.

The scientist picked herself up from the grass and dusted off any loose bits of dirt and blades of grass that had clung to her jumpsuit. Phantom looked at her with curiosity in his eyes and gently floated up to be eye level with her.

"My notepad's full," she told the expectant ghost. "I guess this is it for the night. I'll have to hunt you down again someday."

Phantom abandoned his legs and formed a spectral tail, grinning. "That's fine. You know how to find me." Maddie decided to not mention the ghost's apparent ability to completely disappear from their grid if he wanted to. The ghost offered her his elbow in a gentlemanly manner. "Going my way?" he asked, tilting his head to the direction of Fentonworks.

Maddie accepted his offer of being carried with less hesitancy than last time; after all, it hadn't been bad at all. She almost smiled when the ghost lifted her off the ground and carried gently back the same route he brought her.

"I'll be looking forwards to our next conversation then," Phantom said as he set Maddie down in front of her house's door and returned her visibility and tangibility. Before she could reply in any way, the ghost saluted her and sunk down through the ground, all the while grinning from ear to ear.

Maddie stood there at the front door for a while before going in, surprised by the ghost's sudden departure.

As she closed the door behind her, she glanced at the clock on the wall; she had been away for two hours. Somehow it had felt longer than that, but Maddie wasn't complaining. She'd have more time to sleep before having to make breakfast for her family, since tomorrow -or rather, today- would be her turn to make sure everyone got a good start on the day.

She could make pancakes, her son loved those.

AN: Sorry for the wait, I had no motivation. But hey, It's finished! I have one more continuation story planned (sort of) and I will try my best to do it, but no promises of when it'll be done.