Sibling Secrets

Fudge-ful Thinking

Jack and Maddie were sitting on the floor of the lab, welding the last few parts of the Fenton Catcher together: a large, metal hoop at the moment, but once activated it would form a green ectoplasmic web in the middle, which would separate ghosts from anything that they possessed.

At least, Maddie was working. Jack was on his fudge break, the latest of seven since they started work two hours ago. Suffice to say, it was getting on his wife's nerves.

"Jack, dear," Maddie caught her husband's attention with a strained smile as he shoved yet another fudge in his mouth, chewing messily. "Don't you think fifteen minutes is enough for a fudge break? You know," She impatiently waved a welding mask at him. "These inventions don't make themselves."

"That's right, Maddie!" Jack jumped up with one last square in his hand. "You keep welding. I'll fix up the circuitry."

That sounded like a bad idea, but before Maddie could object, her husband was sticking wires and various other important-looking components into the side, both hands free. She sighed, and continued welding. It was so close...

Not long later, Maddie fixed up the final parts on the Fenton Ghost Catcher, and Jack stuck the illustrious neon green Fenton logo across the top. He rubbed his hands together, grinning broadly.

"I can't wait to show the kids what a great invention I made!"

"Actually-"

"Me, Jack Fenton!" Jack spread his arms wide, and as he did so, knocked over an entire shelf, which crashed into the next, which crashed into the next, which slammed into the far wall, cracked in half, and began oozing ectoplasm, smoking on the floor. "The GREATEST GHOST HUNTER IN AMITY PARK!"

"Jack..." Maddie warned, pointing at the mess. Jack waved her off.

"Yes, Maddie, that's right. I blabber on too much! Let's get this thing working." Jack stabbed his finger at a button on the base of the machine, which caused a significant amout of noise.

"Jack," Maddie frowned. "That noise is coming from the circuitry. Are you sure you-"

"I'm sure this thing will work. Just look at the Fenton Portal!" Jack and Maddie waited, and waited, and waited...

Until a single drop of faintly glowing brown sludge oozed its way from the top of the frame, down the right side, and dropped onto the floor. Jack stuck his finger in it, and licked it, smacking his lips a few times for suspense.

"Tastes like fudge."

Maddie opened her mouth, but before she could utter a word, a sloppy, drippy, neon green net began forming around the edges, and accompanying it was the strange glowing brown substance, flowing thickly down the net, until it was completely obscured. The Fenton Ghost Catcher now had a decent puddle of the stuff around it.

Jack tasted it again. "Mmm, this stuff is good!"

"Did you do something with the circuits?" Maddie asked as she pulled open the bit Jack was working on, and turned on the flashlights in her goggles. At the back, nestled in with the Ecto-Net liquid, was a large piece of fudge, wedged in such a way that it was impossible to extract completely without irreparably damaging most of the expensive components surrounding it. "Jack!"

"Hey, that's my sensitive ear!" Jack was sticking his hand through the malfunctioning Ghost Catcher, observing his hand from the other side. "No change to normal matter, but..." Jack scooped up a handful of ectoplasm from the pool to the right of him, tracking the fudge liquid on his feet all over the lab, and tossed it through the net. The liquid hit one side the shade of the brightest green, but when it came out of the other side - splatting messily in front of the Ghost Portal for good measure – it was chocolate-brown.

Jack cheered. "Look! Maddie! We can now turn ghosts... into fudge! Danny will love to hear about my amazing new invention, the Fenton... EctotoFudginator! Brilliant name, eh?"

Maddie glared at him for a second longer, and then pushed the messy Ghost Catcher – Fenton EctotoFudginator, whatever – to the ground. "You know what, Jack?" She pulled her hood off, revealing angry violet eyes. "You know what? That was my invention, the one I spent months and months on, that you just messed up. It's designed to stop an overshadowing ghost in it's tracks, not turn them into fudge!" She switched on the news, where Danny Phantom and a green-skinned, dark-haired, red-eyed woman were battling it out. Below it read: DANNYPHANT, THE SAVIOUR OF AMITY PARK. RATED MOST COMPETENT GHOST CATCHER IN THE TOWN! As they watched, he pulled the ghost into a Thermos, waved a little to the camera, and dashed off. Maddie, her point made, turned to her husband again. "Don't you see? We can't be messing around when our home town trusts a ghost to protect us more than anybody else!" With that, Jack's wife stormed out, leaving Jack to start after her.

"Maddie! Wait!" Jack called out, but he was already gone. "Ah, what have you done, you clumsy goof!" Jack turned around and switched off the GhosttoFudginator, which had already made a massive puddle around it. To the right, the smashed and ruined shelves and inventions had dissolved into one massive lake of ectoplasm, slowly burning it's way through the floor. What a mess.

"Hey, Da- whoa, what's happened to the lab? And why is there so much fudge on the ground?" Jack turned to see his son, Danny, Thermos in hands, carefully making his way towards the Fenton Portal; towards the fudge splat right in the middle.

Jack put a hand out. "Danny! Watch out for the-"

"Uh-whoaah!" Danny slipped and landed on his behind, covered in the thick brown semi-liquid. The Fenton Thermos had separated with the cap, skidding across the floor into the smoking ectoplasm pond.

"-fudge..." Jack watched as Danny stood up, trying to dust himself down but to no avail. "Look, son, I'm really sorry-"

"Don't want to hear it, Dad." Danny stomped past his father, thouroughly annoyed. Neither of them noticed two small red eys peeping out from inside the Thermos.

Jack kicked the GhosttoFudginator, his bad day just getting worse and worse. "Can't I do anything right?"

The invention responded by squirting him lightly with some glowing fudge, right on his face. Jack wiped it off angrily. "Ugh! I wish I was a better ghost hunter!"

"And so you have wished it, so it shall be!" A mysterious voice echoed within the Thermos, and a blue mist came from inside, snaking around Jack's ankles before materialising in front of him; the ghost from the news!

"Who are you, spook!" Jack aimed a Bazooka at the ghost, but she merely swatted it away.

"My name is Desiree, the wishing ghost!" Desiree raised her hands, and from her palms dropped golden coins, clinking as they hit the ground. "Whatever one's heart desires, I shall grant!"

"I don't want your help!" The bazooka fires up, but Desiree ignores it.

"But I know you aren't after riches, Jack Fenton." The gold seems to evaporate into thin air, and Desiree circles around Jack, talking in a soft tone. "You want to be the pride of your family, no? To finally stop being the one in the wrong, the one who puts his family in danger every time he picks up a butter knife?"

"Stop it!" Jack backs off, still aiming the fully activated bazooka, but not shooting. Hesitating.

"But do you really want me to? Desiree pops up behind Jack. "That Danny Phantom. The best ghost hunter in Amity Park." She pauses, teasing him. "Isn't that what you want, Jack? Isn't that what your heart desires?"

"No!"Jack trips up on the fudge stain as he scrambles back, and Desiree stands tall above him, laughing.

"You're just a goof now, Jack. You could be so much more!"

"What... what do you want?" The big man struggles to get up.

"Oh, you really don't get it, do you, fool?" Desiree barks bitterly. "It's not about what I want. No, no, it was never about what I want, even when I was alive. it's about what you want." Her hands begin to glow purple. "You wished you were a better ghost hunter. And so you have wished it, so it shall be!" With a flourish, she zaps Jack with a huge wave of her ghostly energy, making him gasp and fall unconscious.

She then proceeds to rub her back. "Ugh, that Phantom. I wonder how he will like being in a Thermos."