Danny decided to join in on the fun. There was no shortage of stuff to chuck at targets, and it was nice to be able to aim at targets outside of training.

The cans and boxes were repeatedly pelted with pellets of metal and plastic by the gang of cheering teens, then propped back up to endure another round of shots.

Danny was surprised by how good Dipper's aim was, as a small nerd, Danny had expected him to be about as good as he was before he got practice fighting ghosts, but Dipper was yet to miss a shot; he had a look of concentration before throwing, when you could practically see the cogs turning in his head as he calculated the ideal way to throw the object, considering the weight of the object, the distance, and the wind speed.

Mabel on the other hand was more erratic, and seemed to be throwing automatically, hitting the targets most times, and missing horribly other times. At some point she had started using a grappling hook to hit the targets, which only seemed to be noticed by Danny, the others not batting an eye at a young teenager firing a potentially dangerous hook all over the place.

Wendy had a killer aim, and was cheered on by her friends more enthusiastically than any of the others when she took a shot at the makeshift targets. Danny made a mental note not to get into a fight with her, she would undoubtedly wipe the floor with him under normal circumstances.

Danny was accustomed to target practice with ectoblasts, but had not had as much practice with throwing objects, thankfully he had inherited his mother's aim, hitting the cans on the dead centre nine out of ten times.

"C'mon Jazz, you're missing out on the fun over here," said Danny, looking over to see his older sister on her phone, trying to keep out of the chaotic target practice.

Reluctantly, she pocketed her phone, and shuffled over towards Danny, grabbing a stone on the way. "Fine, I'll play with you," she conceded.

Jazz spent a good minute doing mental calculations and adjusting her arm position before actually throwing, missing all the targets by at least a metre. There was no doubt in Danny's mind that she had inherited her father's aim.

The fun continued for at least an hour, with the sun dipping lower in the sky, casting stretched shadows that emphasised the scrapes and chips in the ground from rogue shots. The sweaty, laughing teens all seemed to come to the mutual agreement that it was time to go home, which was heavily supported by a few growling stomachs.

• • •

The trip to the Shack was mostly uneventful, the walking pace slowed significantly by excited chatter from Mabel and Dipper about what they wanted to do over the holiday. The smell of food wafted through the air, making the quartet of Mabel, Dipper, Danny and Jazz pick up their pace, galloping towards the promise of delicious food.

Stan was hunched over the stove, frying sausages in a pan of grease, with a bowl full of mashed potato on the surface next to the oven, which had a thorough coating of burnt fat and oil. A salad, which was unsurprisingly tiny portion compared to the other food items, sat on the middle of the table, in the centre of the kitchen/ dining room. Jack was blathering on about ghosts to an obviously bored Stan, who humoured him with grunts of 'okay' and 'm'.

"Hey kids, lay the table and we'll eat very soon," said Stan, cutting off Jack's happy drone. At those words Jack ran off to the living room, like an excited puppy going to fetch a stick.

Dipper grabbed the plates, while Mabel danced over to the cutlery drawer. Dipper neatly placed the plates, roughly equally from each other, seeming to make a point of shuffling away from the cutlery drawer on his way to the table. Mabel, on the other hand, practically hurled the cutlery across the room (Danny was now grateful for the fact that she had had target practice earlier, or else he might have been impaled). Jack returned with Maddie and Ford in tow, discussing improvements for their ghost hunting weapons, as the children dragged out chairs in anticipation of Stan's cooking.

"As researchers, I feel that it is our duty to understand the beings we study, not just destroy them," said Ford. "If there were a better way of capturing ghosts without harming them, it'd make my research much easier."

"While I respect that, do you really care about the well-being of post-human consciousness?" replied Maddie. "It's not like they can feel or anything."

"Isn't hurting ghosts a moral grey area?" asked Stan. "Do you really have proof that they can't feel?"

This, it seems, was a bad question, sparking the wrath of Maddie Fenton. "Well, no, but there's no proof that they can feel. Besides, they're already dead, they don't have nerves like humans do, just ectoplasm." Her voice rose in volume after every slight pause.

Stan glanced to the children for help, but they were already half-way into their meals. He lent over to Mabel and Dipper and said quietly: "Can I do stuff with you guys tomorrow? I don't know how much of this sciencey ghost stuff I can take." His voice was tinged with desperation, and he was staring his great niece and nephew right in eye.

Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other wordlessly and gave a firm nod in unison. Muffled snorts came from Danny, who was trying hard not to spit out the contents of his mouth at the display in front of him.

"I'm impressed that you lasted this long," commented Jazz. "Normally people don't make it for more than an hour with our parents."

Stan, Dipper and Mabel gave her a concerned look, and Stan spoke: "How do you put up with this every day?"

"I just ignore it," said Jazz, while Danny made an effort to straighten his face and swallow his food.

"I hang out with my friends most of the time," Danny said, still grinning.

Dipper piped up, "I think ghosts are interesting." This prompted the Fenton children and Stan to give him an alarmed look and make shushing noises, Jazz even went as far as slapping a hand across his mouth to silence him. Stan glanced over at the other adults and let out a sigh of relief.

"Good, they didn't hear you. Trust me kid, you might be a special case 'n' all, but I don't think even you could handle them," Stan warned with a hushed voice. "Just don't say the word around them, you might set them off; I have some nice, new scorch marks on the ceiling because of them."

This seemed to shut Dipper up, though he still had a glint of curiosity in his eyes, he wasn't in any immediate danger.

"Right, who wants to watch reruns of Ducktective, like old times!" announced Stan. He was met with a couple of shouts of "me!" from Mabel and Dipper, and some unsure 'okay's from Danny and Jazz.

Depositing their plates and cutlery in the sink, the group crept past the scientists, who were still in a heated discussion, and settled down in front of the TV, Stan claiming the armchair and flicking on the screen, which began showing an infomercial about a nonsensical item before the channel changed.

The Pines cheered and clapped at the episode, which Danny had to admit was pretty good. The duck had begun to investigate a case about a disappearance and treasure when Jazz decided to interrupt. "But-"

"Can we just watch this without you analysing it, Jazz?" Danny cut her off.

Jazz huffed and brought out a large book, burying her nose in it. "It's obvious what's going to happen, little brother."

"Good for you," he sulked. "Not all of us are geniuses here."

The tone for the rest of the show was soured by that interaction, leaving a foul mist of anger to slowly dissipate. It wasn't that Danny was jealous of Jazz, but he wished she could let him enjoy his 'mindless entertainment'.

When the conclusion came, accompanied by a long explanation from the murderer, Danny couldn't help but hide his smug expression when he asked Jazz whether she got it right.

"I wasn't one hundred percent," she said, scowling at Danny's shit eating grin.

Dipper and Mabel made their way to their room after the episode ended, prompting Danny and Jazz to also climb the rickety stairs to their own room. This had the added bonus of avoiding their parents, who entered the living room before Stan could escape.

Danny flopped out on his bed, arm draped over the side. An orange glow cascaded through the open window, as the net curtain drifted in the lazy breeze. A symphony of crickets echoed around the room and the trees outside. The lack of sleep from the night before, and the day's activities caught up to him, and he was out before he could even think about getting changed into his pyjamas or putting on the duvet.

• • •

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Danny awoke slowly, vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps outside, moving further away from the window, towards the forest. As the footsteps became almost inaudible, Danny began to take in his surroundings. His duvet had been neatly placed over him, and he was still wearing his day clothes. Jazz was sound asleep, hugging her teddy bear and facing the wall. Moonlight illuminated his surroundings, and he looked to the sky, mentally tracing the constellations in the sky: Leo; Virgo; Ursa Major, with the Big Dipper. He turned his attention to the forest, where a dull, yellow light shone from the depths, striking the surrounding evergreens.

Since he was awake anyway, he decided to take his pyjamas and go to the bathroom. It was better to get ready for bed at...Danny turned on his phone, being blinded for a moment by the flash of the screen, and focused his strained eyes on the time: 12:06 AM.

He returned to his room, now wearing his star themed pyjamas and with clean teeth, he dumped his day clothes on the floor by the foot of the bed and once again drifted off to sleep, this time under the cover of his thin duvet.

• • •

The harsh sunlight shone on his closed eyelids, making it so that all he could see was red. His eyes fluttered open and he used his arm to shield his eyes from the attacking rays. The room has exactly the same as it had been last night, right down to Jazz's bed, which still contained her sleeping form, curled away from the outside world.

Danny had an idea, a cruel idea, a funny idea. He gently lifted the biggest, heaviest book he could find, a large hard back book with over 300 pages, manoeuvring it to right next to her head and opening it to the middle, with one hand on either side, and SLAM! Jazz shot up, hair frizzled and eyes wide, ready to fight any potential threats. It was then that she saw her little brother doubled over with laughter. She gave a sarcastic "hilarious", drawing out the word an annoying amount.

"C'mon Jazz, it was funny," he wheezed in-between snorts of laughter. "How often do I wake up earlier than you in the morning? I never get to do that."

Jazz punched his arm with as much strength as she could muster. "Ow!" Danny rubbed his boney arm. "Okay, I kinda deserved that." Jazz gave a murmur of confirmation and Danny backed away to sit down on his own bed.

The Fenton duo made their way to the kitchen, surprisingly the first ones up. After a short search of the cupboards they found several boxes of cereal, all cheap off-brand ones. Jazz helped herself to wheat biscuits, while Danny scoured the boxes. Fruitloops, nope, he saw Vlad more than enough at home, he'd rather not be reminded of him here; plain porridge, ew, gross. He settled on chocolate wheats, tipping a mountain of them into his bowl. He took the carton of milk from the table and began to pour it in his bowl, only to be startled by a cheerful voice, resulting in some spilling onto the table.

"Hi, good morning," chirped Mabel, skipping into the room.

She received a grunt of "morning" from Danny, who was now mopping up the spilt milk, and a friendly "good morning" from Jazz.

Mabel looked at Danny's face as he sat down and grabbed his spoon. "Did you sleep well?" she asked, and upon getting a nod and look of confusion from Danny, continued. "Your bags rival Dipper's, and that's saying something. He once stayed up for a couple of days trying to guess the password for a laptop."

"That's not good. Brain function massively diminishes when you're sleep deprived," said Jazz, giving a look of disapproval to Danny when he lowered his head to ignore her, suddenly immensely interested in his soggy wheat.

Mabel nodded happily and moved over to the blender, placing several items in it which most people would not deem safe for human consumption. "Please tell me you're not making Mabel juice," said Dipper, stepping into the room.

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," replied Mabel, flipping the blender on. An ungodly cacophony of whirring and crunching erupted from the machine.

Dipper raised his voice to be heard over the blender: "I did try it once. I had a stomach ache for the next few days, remember?"

"But it's energising," said Mabel, now switching off the blender, satisfied with the mixture of sugar and glitter.

"But I was sick!" protested Dipper, waving his arms manically.

"Pfft, details," scoffed Mabel, nonchalantly swishing the jug of 'juice'. "Who wants Mabel juice?"

A chorus of "no thanks" and "I'm good, thanks" came from the others.

"'Morning!" Jack bellowed, squeezing into the kitchen, wearing his signature orange jumpsuit.

"On second thoughts, can I have some Mabel juice?" sighed Danny, this gained him questioning looks from Jazz and Dipper. Mabel obliged, dropping a cup of fluorescent liquid by his bowl.

"You're not seriously going to drink that, right little brother?" asked Jazz.

Danny swiftly proved her wrong by downing a mouthful of Mabel juice. "It's not that bad."

Dipper looked gobsmacked. "Are your taste buds dead?!" he exclaimed, and Danny snorted into his cereal.

Jack took the moment after this as the perfect time to start a new conversation, his voice booming throughout the small room. "So, what are you kids going to be doing today?"

"We're going to be looking for a fire breathing rooster," said Mabel.

"A basan to be precise. It's a ghostly rooster-like creature that breathes cold fire," Dipper clarified.

Jack began tearing up, he gave Danny a firm pat on the back, almost making him choke on the cereal in his mouth. "My Danny and Jazzerincess are hunting ghosts, I'm so proud."

"I'm not hunting ghosts, I'm just here because I had to come on this holiday with you," argued Jazz, taking her empty cereal bowl to the sink.

Everyone got ready for the coming day, with Danny making sure to bring extra ghost hunting weapons and his thermos, just in case. It was 9 am by the time everyone in the expedition group was ready to go. Stan was the last to arrive out the front, a tough, but worn looking, bag slung over his shoulder. Mabel had her grappling hook, while Dipper brought a book with a red, hard cover. Jazz, like Danny, had a light load of ghost hunting equipment, a first aid kit and water.

The group set out into the forest, the looming branches blocking out the scorching sun, leaving a breeze to pleasantly cool the air below. Brightly coloured mushrooms and spiralling plants dotted the mulch, and the trees contorted themselves in bizarre shapes, knots watching their every move as the intrepid group traversed the untrodden trails. Stan pocketed the occasional animal skull or odd stone, throwing it into his bag. It was unnerving just how many animal skeletons there were, like a pack of ravenous beasts had passed through, devouring all in their path, leaving only bones.

Dipper and Mabel, leading the group, spotted something in the tangle of leaves, they froze, just staring at the object. Danny shuffled forward, peeking past the trees. There was a statue, a triangle with a single eye, unblinking on its face, wearing a top hat, standing with its arm outstretched for a handshake. Moss was plastered across the stone surface, slowly wearing it down with its roots.

A single word was breathed by the Pines twins and Stan. "Bill."