NOTE: This is not my story. It is Cordria's story, and she graciously let me continue it. I came up with two different endings, but the first chapter is hers. Danny belongs to Butch Hartman.
Danny looked up from the blinking television, a strange look crossing his face and a shiver running down his back. His head turned slightly, studying the doorway that lead to the kitchen (and thus to his parents' basement laboratory), but nothing could be seen. Then, with a shrug, he turned back to his show and settled deeper into the cushions.
It happened again. He couldn't put his finger on what it was – it wasn't a sound or a sight or anything simple – but it was definitely distracting. He glared over at the kitchen door but didn't bother to get up from his warm, comfortable spot on the couch. For the first time in a long while he had total control of the television on a Saturday and he was going to watch-
There it was again. Like a strange pulsing against his consciousness, it was starting to come every minute or so, completely throwing off his ability to focus on his fourth-favorite television show of all time.
Finally, with a scowl, Danny pushed himself off the couch and stalked towards his parents' lab. He was going to figure out what this thing was, then he was going to be able to go back to his life of ignoring what his parents were doing. Tramping down the stairs with a bit more noise than normal, Danny hesitated at the bottom of the stairs and did his normal sweep of the lab for anything dangerous before edging his way over to where his mother was standing.
"Good morning, Sweetie," his mother greeted softly, staring down at a sheet of numbers and graphs. "Nice to see you up before lunch for once." A smile flickered across her face and she glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes.
Danny returned the smile with a vague grin of his own, looking over his parents' latest experiment. "What are you doing?"
"Why don't you stay and watch for a few minutes and you'll see?"
With a quirk of his eyebrow, Danny stepped forward and studied the… was that a mouse? Yes, it really was a mouse. What were his ghost-obsessed parents doing with a living animal? He squatted down and stared at the poor creature.
It was standing in a pool of ectoplasm, tail raised high to keep it clean, its front paws scrambling goo-ily at the glass of its cage in a bid for escape. Frantic eyes met his, the mouse's whiskers moving back and forth, and it seemed to plead with him for a way out.
Danny glanced at his parents, then back at the mouse. It would only take a brush of his hand against the glass – the smallest smear of energy to turn a patch of the glass intangible, and oops the mouse would be free. They'd never know it was him-
"Don't touch that," his mother chided.
Pulling his hand back, Danny shot her a look. "I wasn't going to-"
"The cage has got an electric field around it," she continued, almost as if he hadn't spoken. "You would have gotten quite a shock."
About halfway through her last sentence, it happened. Danny's head jerked from his mother to the machine poised behind her, ignoring whatever else she was saying. Large and imposing, the thing was a cascade of blinking lights and whirring electronics. Whatever it was, it had come from that machine.
What was it?
Danny got to his feet and walked up to the large thing, nearly tripping over the cables that were running from the machine to the table the mouse and cage were perched on. His hand gently touched the side of the machine, but he had to jerk his hand away from it after only a moment. The thing was buzzing against his nerves in a way that was actually painful. "What is this?" he said, not entirely aware he'd said it aloud.
"It's what we've been working on for months!" The booming voice came from beneath the contraption. Jack pocked his head out and grinned up at his son. "And we're finally done with it!"
"If this works," Maddie said softly, "this will revolutionize paranormal science forever."
Suddenly Danny felt his stomach drop. This was almost the exact same speech he'd been given before the last 'revolution in paranormal science' was turned on. That revolutionary machine had half killed him and nearly succeeded in ruining his entire existence. "Excellent," he said softly.
"You've got to watch this," Jack said excitedly as he crawled out from under the machine and brushed his oil-slicked hands on his pants. "History in the making."
It washed out of the machine again, causing Danny to jump slightly and make his eyes focus on the large invention. He finally made the decision he didn't like it – this last... whatever it was... had almost felt like burning against his mind. And if he didn't like it, then this machine turning on wasn't going to be any better. "I'm gonna go-"
"Nonsense!" Jack bellowed, grabbing his son around the shoulders and holding him in place. "This will just take a second."
"Are you sure everything is right this time?" Maddie asked, flipping through her pile of papers one last time.
"It's perfect," Jack proclaimed, grinning when his wife gave in with a nod and set down her papers. "Watch, Danny," he said.
Danny couldn't help but watch, trapped as he was. He watched as his mother turned a few dials on the machine, set a few knobs in the right place, and then held her finger over the button. A smile was on her face – one of happy contentment.
The mouse squeaked pitifully and scrabbled at the glass, almost like it had a clue what was coming.
"The electrical current around the mouse is set to just the right amperage and voltage," Jack narrated, his eyes almost glowing. "It took us forever to find the right settings. But, when in combination with the ectoplasm, the right kind of charge, and enough ectoplasmic energy…"
His mother's finger pressed down on the button and the machine screamed to life. It flowed out of the device in constant waves, slamming into Danny's head and causing him to flinch and push against his father's arms. Glowing green energy coiled down wires, sped through the cables on the ground, and slammed into the cage sitting on the table. The entire glass cage lit up like a small sun, the painful scream of the lab mouse almost unheard over the sound of his parents' invention.
Danny stared at the cage in horror, his mind full of images of when almost the exact same thing had happened to him. He could vividly remember the pain of it all, the way the world changed in that second, the terror of the next few weeks as he tried to deal with what had happened.
The light vanished after only a moment, leaving a glowing mouse-like ghost lying on the floor of the cage, a small puddle of ectoplasm still lingering here and there. The ghost mouse wasn't moving.
"You killed it," Danny managed to get out, his mouth dry and flares of memory still coursing through his mind. He blinked away an image of seeing himself in the mirror for the first time and straightened a little.
"That's the best part," Jack said, his eyes focused intently on the mouse. Danny shot him a wide-eyed look, but just as neither parent had noticed his reaction earlier, neither noticed now. Jack smiled and continued staring into the cage. "We didn't."
Danny's forehead wrinkled. He was about to ask what that meant, but the ghost mouse stirred. All three sets of eyes fixed on the glowing creature as it opened twin glowing emeralds and clumsily got to its feet. The mouse made a pained sound, stumbled a few inches forwards, and phased through the bottom of its cage to land on the ground with an agonized squeak.
Both of his parents crouched down, his mother reaching out to poke the small mouse. "Come on," she said softly.
The mouse pushed itself to its feet and took a few steps away from Maddie's hands before collapsing, panting desperately, its eyes closed and its muscles shaking. Then, to Danny's disbelieving eyes and his parents growing smiles, a glowing light appeared to flash over the ghost mouse, leaving it unconscious.
And back to normal.
Danny's legs felt like jelly as he slowly sank to the ground, staring at the mouse. The ghost mouse. The half-ghost mouse. "What?" he managed to say.
"It's not dead, Sweetie," his mother said, carefully scooping up the mouse. "I'm sorry, I should have explained that better beforehand." She carried the half-ghost mouse over to him and held it out for his inspection. "See? He's just fine."
"But… but…" Danny switched his gaze from the mouse to his parents and back, not entirely sure what he was trying to say but knowing he wanted to say something.
"We figured out that it would theoretically possible to combine living genetic material with the ectoplasm of the ghost world," she said softly, settling down next to him after handing the mouse to Jack. "Think about all the applications that could have," she said with a smile. "Could you imagine a whole world full of people that could fly? Turn invisible? Walk through walls?"
Danny had – numerous times in his dreams and during exceptionally boring English lessons. And, as usual, his parents were seeing the world through their science goggles, not through reality. "People that could steal anything anytime. Walk right into homes without knocking. Possess other people to get what they want," Danny said, a little dully.
It was one of the many reasons why he'd never told his parents about what had happened to him. They would, in their way, see all the positive things. They could see all the good things that good people could do with it… and completely overlook all the bad things that not-perfect people would do with it. It was one of the first lessons Vlad had ever taught him: ghost powers were not for everyone and needed to remain a secret. Even from the good people in the world.
His mother chuckled a little. "Stop being so gloomy," she said. "There's still some steps to take, a lot more tests… but imagine the day when we can perform this on human beings. Human ghosts. People will all that power, but with human principles and morals."
The mouse was carefully tucked away in a special cage – one that it wouldn't be able to get out of either living or as a ghost. The top was snicked in place just as his parents' new invention let out another wave of it.
Danny shivered, knowing exactly what it was now. It was the energy that had created him. It was the thing that would change the entire universe.
"It's a good thing, Danny," she said, squeezing his shoulder and getting to her feet. "Trust me."
Armies of half-ghosts. Cities of people that had too much power for their minds to handle. A world full of half-ghosts that saw themselves as more than they were – better than normal humans, just like Vlad did.
Nobody could withstand the draw of power. He wouldn't have, not without Clockwork's intervention and recurring nightmares of what had(n't) happened.
This wasn't going to turn out well.
Inside the cage, the half-ghost mouse shifted a little, tucking its tail closer, unaware of how monumentally different the world suddenly was. When the machine let out another wave of that supernatural energy, both Danny and the mouse (and two other half-ghosts miles away) shivered.