Danny Phantom - The Next Chapter

Missing

Maddie hadn't known that Danny didn't return that night, assuming he had just phased through the wall and gone to bed at some early hour of the morning. She trusted his skills enough to feel secure in his being out at all hours of the night on a weekend.

She made her way down to the kitchen on Saturday morning, finding Jazz already eating a bowl of cereal, and Jack working on their latest ghost-catching tech.

'Morning,' she greeted them cheerily, peering over Jack's arm to make sure he wasn't ruining the device.

'Hey, Mom,' Jazz replied distractedly, deep in one of the books she was reading for a psychology paper she was writing.

'Look, Maddie,' Jack replied, lifting the device which was steadily taking on the form of a gun. 'A few more test runs and this baby will be ready!'

'What does this one do now?' Jazz asked, both concern and exasperation toning her voice.

'It pushes out a ghost who is overshadowing someone and stuns them long enough to be caught,' Maddie explained, 'Don't worry, it doesn't actually hurt the ghost, we made sure of that.'

'Unless we ramped up the power,' Jack added, 'But don't worry, Danny isn't a test subject for this one. Which reminds me. I need to untangle the Fenton Fisher.'

'Has Danny not come down yet?' Jazz asked, annoyed, 'He promised to let me interview him for my biology paper.'

'He was out late last night,' Maddie explained, 'He told me before he left that he was doing the rounds alone. Sam's parents still haven't come around, and Tucker and Valerie apparently needed to catch up with a group project they were working on.'

'You can't reason with people like that,' Jazz explained, 'They're too set in their ways. They're going to need a very sharp shock if they're ever going to trust us.'

'Well, Danny should be getting up soon anyway,' Maddie said, 'I'll go remind him that he promised to help you.'

Jazz nodded and returned to her cereal and book as Maddie climbed the stairs and made her way to Danny's closed door. She quietly knocked and called, 'Danny? I know you were out late but you promised to help Jazz with her paper, remember?'

There was no reply from beyond and she frowned and knocked a little louder.

'Danny?' she called, but again, there was no sound from the other side.

She cautiously opened the door and peered into the dark room. There was no sign of Danny; his bed was empty, his desk was in the same state it had been the night before, and there were no clothes strewn on the ground like when he usually got home late.

Unease settled in her stomach and she quickly made her way back downstairs, pausing at the bathroom door in case he was in the shower, but there was nothing.

'Did anyone see Danny come home last night?' she asked and both Jazz and Jack stopped what they were doing to look up at her.

'No,' Jazz replied, 'I was in bed by eleven.'

'And I was in the lab,' Jack added.

Maddie's unease was becoming more prominent and she quickly picked up the phone to call Sam's cell.

She picked up on the fourth ring.

'Speak,' she mumbled groggily, clearly having just been woken up.

'Sam, it's Maddie,' she said, 'Did Danny spend the night?'

Now Sam sounded more alert as she replied, 'No, why? Is he not at home?'

'No. And none of us have seen him.'