"Rise and shine!" Jack Fenton's booming voice broke through Danny's sleep, prompting him to shoot up in bed at the sudden loud noise. The sun poured through the window, Jack standing to the side, tying the curtain back. Danny groaned and dropped his legs off the side of the bed. Jazz had already left the room, leaving her bed neat behind her. "It's lovely day today, up and at 'em," encouraged Jack, prompting Danny to slink down the stairs and into the kitchen.

He automatically located the cereal and quickly began eating breakfast. Dipper and Mabel were seated at the table, Dipper excitedly conversing with Ford, who was stood next to him by the counter. Jazz was absorbed in a book, doing a good job of blanking out the rest of the world while she ate - particularly the ghost-related conversation that Dipper and Ford were having. "Hey, Danny, we've worked out a way to contain the Basan, you can give it to me now," Dipper called out to Danny, who wanted nothing more than to have the earth swallow him whole at this moment. After a painful few seconds of silence, Danny shrunk back into his chair and slowly shook his head.

"What?" exclaimed Dipper. "You do have it don't you?"

"I, um, let it go," Danny said reluctantly. "Away from the shack, and the town."

Unfortunately for Danny, his mother had been listening in on this conversation, and she was livid. "You went out in the forest, alone, at night!?"

Danny wished he could just turn invisible there and then. "Um, yes?" Danny said nervously. "But, I wasn't alone, Stan was there too, so it wasn't dangerous or anything." Danny added, trying to shift his mom's focus off of him. Stan began to choke on his corn flakes, which apparently seemed to be all the proof Maddie needed to give him a death glare as well.

"I have no idea what you're talking about kid," he said, dismissing the claim.

Thankfully, Jazz chose that moment to interject. "Danny was with Stan, don't worry Mom, I spoke to Danny afterwards, he's fine, I checked." Danny gave Jazz a sideways glance, praying that their mom would buy her lie.

"Well, if you say so..." Maddie conceded. "But I don't want to hear of any more late night escapades, and you have to be back here by eight in the evening, latest. Danny let out a breath in an almost comically exaggerated sigh.

Dipper gave Danny a suspicious glare. "Why would you let it go?"

This time, Danny could actually tell the truth, more or less. "Because it doesn't seem right to let you experiment on it. It belongs in the wild, not in captivity as a lab rat."

Dipper opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. "I wouldn't experiment on it!" he shouted.

Danny pushed his chair back and carried his bowl to the sink. "Maybe you wouldn't, but Ford would, and so would my parents," he said bluntly.

"That's not true, right Ford?" Dipper protested, but Ford merely shook his head.

"Well, I was intending on doing some experiments," he began. Danny stood smugly, then tried to get his face back into a neutral expression, and strolled back to his room to get dressed and ready.

He returned downstairs just in time to see that the other children (Jazz included) were either leaving the kitchen or had already gone. His parents had decided to go on a ghost hunt early, to 'get a head start on the spooks', leaving while telling Danny to behave. He walked into the living room, only to come face to face with Stan and Ford, who were bickering, standing confrontationally. Danny stood in the doorway, watching the events unfold, practically holding his breath.

"For the last time, I didn't go into the forest with him," said Stan, annoyance lathered onto every word.

Ford folded his arms. "Then why were your footprints on the ground when I came down this morning, and why was there dirt in your room?"

"I don't know," yelled Stan. "Maybe because I went outside until late yesterday, and I didn't shower? Did you ever think that there might be a normal explanation for stuff, instead of the cooky craziness that you study?"

"I don't study 'cooky craziness'! You know what? I need to check on the statue, you could be possessed by him for all I know," Ford gestured angrily, pointing at Stan's chest at the end of his short speech.

Stan scowled and stormed out the room. "He's gone, and you know that, I'm not freaking possessed! Enjoy your check up, tell me how interesting a hunk of stone is."

Danny flattened himself against the wall as Stan stomped past, his breathing shallow.

Ford was staring at him, dumbstruck. "How much of that did you hear?" he asked.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Um, most of it?"

"Did he really go to into the forest with you last night?" Ford questioned.

Danny shuffled his feet and stared at the ground. "Um, uh, no. That was kinda just to get my mom off my back. Sorry. Please don't tell her."

Ford shook his head, and ran a hand down his face. "Ugh, I should probably go and apologise to him now." He began to walk past Danny, then stopped. "You didn't happen to see anything, unusual in the woods last night, did you?"

Danny bit his tongue. "There was someone, a figure, on my way back from releasing the Basan. I think they had a flashlight."

Stan eyed him curiously, processing the half truth, and proceeded to walk away with a brief "thanks".

Dipper came down soon after, accompanied by Ford, and gave Danny the cold shoulder every moment they were in the same room. The duo set off into the forest, leaving Danny flicking through TV channels, skipping past all the infomercials and dramas before settling on a cheesy horror movie. Jazz settled down next to him, but preferred to keep reading her book. "Where did Ford and Dipper go?" she asked.

"To see the statue, Ford's worried," Danny explained. The protagonists in the movie were hiding under a bed from a cheap monster costume, which was currently banging on the door half heartedly.

"The statue you destroyed last night?" she said. "How will you explain that?"

The monster burst through the door and began looking around the room, the mask flopping comically.

Danny grinned slyly. "Easy, I won't. Ford asked me if I saw anything unusual last night, and I told him that I saw a figure and I thought they had a flashlight, so I'm safe." The monster found the people under the bed, who all gave obvious fake screams.

"That's really smart, little brother," said Jazz. "Do you think they'll work out about Stan?"

The monster on the TV began to attack the people with a plastic knife.

"I think so, Ford already thought that Stan might be possessed - why did you think Ford wanted to check on the statue?" Danny said, then his face fell. "Bill tried to threaten me when I saw him, said not to tell anyone. He seemed dangerous, but I don't think he'll act yet."

He hopped up from the armchair. "I'm going to ask how they beat him last time. Want to join me?"

The Fenton siblings found Mabel in her room with a couple of young teenage girls, who were soon introduced as Candy and Grenda. Danny and Jazz politely declined the offer to have a makeup party, especially upon seeing the clown-like makeup on the pig's face - apparently Mabel didn't seem to realise that lipstick was only meant to be put on lips and not the entire face.

"So I guess we'll have to ask Stan," Danny said as they walked down the stairs.

Stan as it turns out was easy to find, being in the gift shop. Seeing them approaching and already anticipating a request he quickly spoke. "You're not getting any free stuff."

Jazz was taken aback by this outburst. "What? No, we just wanted to ask about something."

Stan raised an eyebrow. "We were wondering, erm, how did you beat Bill last time?" Danny continued.

"This is about what Ford said earlier, isn't it? Because you don't have to worry about him, Bill's long gone," Stan said dismissively, then he sighed at the expectant faces of Danny and Jazz. "If you have to know, Ford and I switched clothes to trick him, I made a deal to let him in my head, then Ford used a memory-wipe-gun-thingy to erase my memories and Bill along with them."

"How do you still have your memories then?" quizzed Jazz.

Stan waved them away. "Beats me, I looked at photos and remembered everything again."

"That makes sense, you forgot stuff because of retrieval failure, then remembered it again because of cues that triggered the memories," said Jazz. "But wouldn't that mean that the same thing would have happened to Bill - that he's not properly gone."

Danny picked up the speculation. "Then, Bill might have just become inactive, but when you were reminded of him he was able to come back?"

Stan was now sheet white, wrinkled fingers gripping the worn edge of the table.

"Kid, tell me the truth, was I in the forest last night?" Stan pleaded.

Danny focused on a creepy bobblehead of Stan to avoid looking directly at him. "Yeah, you were," he said quietly.

Stan sat down, gripping at the chair all the way. "Sixer was right," he uttered.

Jazz and Danny, and later Mabel when she came down and they explained the situation to her, did their best to try and comfort Stan. "If that evil triangle jerkface does come back, we can always beat him again," Mabel punched the air enthusiastically, making Stan chuckle.

"Thanks Mabel," he said. The colour had returned to his face, but he was perched on the edge of his seat, his knuckles white from how hard he was gripping the bottom of the chair.

Dipper and Ford entered the shack, just as tense as Stan. "The statue's destroyed," said Ford, he held chunks of rough rock in his arms.

"What's going on here?" asked Dipper, observing the scene that he'd just walked in on.

Stan looked up at them, on the verge of tears. "Ford was right. I was in the forest last night."

Ford's eyes widened as realisation dawned on him. "Then that means, he did this." He held out the shattered remains of the statue, then began pacing. "This is bad, really bad."

"What's happening? Can someone please explain?" said Dipper, looking around with a confused and concerned expression.

Jazz chose to be the messenger, and breached the topic with hesitance. "Stan is most likely possessed by Bill, or at least he was last night. When you beat Bill last time you didn't really get rid of him properly." She took a deep breath. "He's back."

The effect was immediate, Dipper began to panic, taking shallow breaths. "But we destroyed him, right?" Mabel put a hand on his shoulder. "Relax. We've kicked his butt before, and we can do it again," she said with an enthusiasm that could rival Jack Fenton's when he talked about ghosts.

Dipper tried to regain his composure before talking. "You're right Mabel. So what now?"

The group huddled together in the kitchen to brainstorm, along with Soos, who had finished working for then, a thick notepad on the table in front of Ford, who was fiddling with a ballpoint pen, rolling it between his fingers. "So our main questions are: What is he planning? And, how do we stop him?" he said, looking up at the rest of the team.

"We should probably explain what it was like where the statue was," suggested Dipper, and Ford nodded.

"There were burn marks around the area, and all the rocks were smashed - no human could do this, which means he had help, that makes him even more dangerous."

Danny and Jazz exchanged a look, Jazz being mostly accusatory.

"First things first, no one shake Stan's hand at any time, we don't know if he's still being possessed, but I'm going to guess that Bill got what he wanted judging by the damage to the statue - his previous vessel in our world. As I said before, no human could do that sort of damage, that means that he has an ally in the forest, so no one's allowed to go there alone, especially not at night." He glanced up at Danny, who gave him the best innocent look he could muster.

The rest of the brainstorming session was largely inconclusive, with no one being able to say what Bill was planning in detail, and no one knowing who this 'ally' was. Danny was itching to explain what was actually going on, but knew all too well that he was living under the same roof as a group of ghost hunters and paranormal researchers, so decided it best not to push his luck. Jazz did her best to try and steer the conversation in the direction of the truth, but there was only so much she could do.

"Last thing then, Stan, I want to monitor you at night." Stan scowled. "When I was a budding researcher and made a deal with Bill he took control of my body when I slept, he might be doing the same with you. Everyone stay vigilant. Dismissed."

The Fenton parents returned just in time to see the group splitting up and leaving the kitchen, with Stan sticking around to cook lunch while Ford explained everything to them. Danny, Jazz, Mabel and Dipper retreated to their rooms, with Soos doing another tour of the Mystery Shack for an unsuspecting group of tourists.

After a short conversation, in which Jazz and Danny agreed to help out in any way they could without blowing Danny's secret identity, Jazz soon had her nose stuck into a hardback book larger than her head. Danny texted Sam and Tucker, who gave minimal advise, mostly repeating what Jazz had said, and eventually decided to go and observe the tour.

The group was entranced by each and every item, taking multitudes of photos on cameras with obnoxiously bright flashes. Danny even joined in at one point, presenting a model of one of the winged eyeballs, which Danny referred to as Keese, completely ignoring the peeling name label in favour of referencing the Legend of Zelda. He explained about how the easiest way to defeat them was to poke them in the eye, which the tourists ate up.

After the tour everyone collected in the kitchen again, with Danny arriving just as his father started shouting for the others to come down for lunch, leaving him with ringing in his ears. The meal was unusually tense, with no one being able to look each other in the eye. After a while of uncomfortable silence, Jack decided to start up a conversation. "So this Bill fellow, do you think we can beat him with our ecto weapons?"

Dipper joined in enthusiastically. "I think so, they worked on the Basan didn't they?" Ford perked up at this.

"You wouldn't happen to have any containment devices with you to capture him with, would you?" he asked.

Jack banged a massive hand down on the table excitedly. "Of course we do. After the wretched ghost boy stole our original Fenton thermos, we remade it, got it to work even better than before. I still don't know how that putrid protoplasm got the thermos to work in the first place, the original was a dud, but all's well that ends well, and it will end best when we catch the ghost boy."

"It took two weeks of work to make the working version of the thermos that we use now, but now we can be sure that no spectre, big or small can escape it," Maddie continued.

"Well, I can't say for certain if it'll work against Bill, but it's a start," said Ford, grinning. "It looks like we have a plan."