A/N: Hello everyone! You may or may not recognize me from AO3. Given that I haven't published a fic on FFN in a long ass time (and never on this account), I figured I'd slap my DP fics here for one reason or another. That being said, this is reposted from the original on AO3. :D
Rated M for blood and gore.
Finally! Finally we caught that damnable specter. Now, we can get to work…
Nice to know that the new guns are calibrated correctly.
Danny's eyes flickered open, struggling to take in even the small amount of light in the darkened room. Around him, familiar sounds and smells filled his head, cutting through his mind like daggers of onyx. Even before his vision fully adjusted, he was well aware that he was in a laboratory. The smell was of latex and bleach, the sounds of clicks a rough dragging of a pen over a roll of paper, no doubt monitoring him. Next to his head, a few feet above, an IV dripped a bright, green liquid through a small tube. The tube wrapped around the pole of the IV machine like a venomous viper before burrowing into his bare arm, the needle taped down snuggly against his skin. The sleeve of his right arm had been cut up to make access to the needle easier, his glove sat on the table next to him.
As Danny's eyes began to adjust, he took in even more of his surroundings. It soon became obvious that he was not in FentonWorks. This lab was strange, alien and foreign. Danny lifted his head, only vaguely aware of the IV in his arm. He glanced around, observing the computer to his left, automatically logging his breathing and heartrate. Spread out on the desk across the lab was a mountain of paperwork. Scrawled across the papers in hastily, but well thought-out handwriting was a vast array of mathematical calculations and words that Danny could not quite make out. The clock on the wall read a bit past four. Danny was unsure which four it meant to convey.
The lab was completely deserted, but appeared that someone had been there recently. Beakers were sprawled all over the floors and countertops. A few lay on the floor, either shattered or having rolled upon impact with the floor, a trail of green spread like ink in a half circle, denoting how the beaker had rolled. A Bunsen burner sat underneath a test tube. While the fire had been turned off, the bottom of the tube had been greatly singed, revealing a recent experiment in which the scientist conducting it had not been meticulous enough to watch their own equipment. The inside of the tube was tinged with faint, red flakes. Past the smell of a typical laboratory, the air held a faint scent of blood and ectoplasm.
Danny peered down his body, ready to take in what exactly was happening.
He screamed.
Stand back! Something's happening.
What in the world? Rings? He's… he's changing? Oh my God. It can't be…
It's a trick. Don't be fooled by the face. This is some defense mechanism.
It's… it's…
His suit was shredded, having been cut unceremoniously with dull scissors. The few scraps which remained hung limply upon what remained of his torso. Pins were stuck into flaps of skin, piercing through the flesh below. Grayish bones and greened organs were visible in a hole the size of a basketball. Danny could see the bones of his ribcage move with his expanding and contracting lungs. His intestines twitched as he moved, like a swarm of snakes in his gut. An organ he didn't recognize was nearly sawn in half, a clean cut, as though the experimenter has taken great care in the slice. Danny felt his heartrate escalate, as the computer next to him confirmed. Danny beat his head back against the stainless steel table which held him, clenching his restrained hands as hard as he could.
What had happened? There was a fight… Skulker? Danny had defeated Skulker, sucking him into the thermos as a white van of the Guys in White screeched onto the scene. It all went fuzzy after that. Danny felt that he could vaguely remember other non-Guys in White ghost hunters being there. A scream in the distance was audible. He recognized that scream… Was it Jazz? No. It was Sam. It was definitely Sam. She had been there. Of course she had been there. It was a routine fight… It was only Skulker. He'd fought Skulker and uncountable number of times before.
Now, everything was silent, save for the whirls and clicks of machines. Danny couldn't even hear the ticks of the clock on the wall. The clicks in between the silence became deafening. As he twitched, more of his ectoplasm tricked out the gaping maw in his abdomen. His chest rose and fell as he breathed. Everything went dark again and Danny slipped from consciousness into blissful blackness. He was only slightly aware of light pouring in as a door was opened.
I don't care, I really don't. I just don't care who this is… or was. He's a ghost. He's a monster. We have to do this.
We can't possibly vivisect him. I don't understand why you think that we can. It doesn't feel right… he's… he's…
No. He isn't. This is what ghosts do. They trick you. Demean you. Manipulate you. Don't give in. This must be done for the advancement of science. For the good of the human race.
How could you possibly…?
Danny awoke to a torrential flood of light. A lamp had been placed above his head, searing a brightness into his eyes. He shut his eyes, tightening his eyelids as much as possible in an effort to drown out the blinding incandescence. A squeak was heard and the lamp was pushed away. Danny slowly opened his eyes as a scientist came into view. Even under the complete, white hazmat suit and helmet, he could make out that this scientist was female. She leaned over him, hands gripped the examination table tightly. She made eye contact with him, or at least Danny thought she did. Her goggles were as black as midnight, shadowy abysses in their own right.
The scientist began to move around the room, gathering papers and tapping her pen on various machines. She ignored the ghost boy's pleas for mercy and questions as to who she was and why she was doing this. In fact, she seemed completely indifferent to the struggling and pained child in the room with her. The blackness of her goggles made even worse to Danny. Not being able to see her eyes made its seem as though she had no soul at all- a monstrous being of pure hate and loathing.
After what seemed like days to the subject, the scientist wheeled over a small table used to hold scalpels. Stopping it a foot from the examination table. Danny began to hyperventilate in fear of what was happening. The scientist said nothing as she picked a blade and cut into his cheek, just below the eye. Red and green liquids alike flowed from the slice, staining his face and shoulder with blood and ectoplasm. The overwhelming scents of iron and chemicals filled the air. The scientist scoffed and leaned over a table behind her, jotting down a few sentences on the papers which were strewn there.
After a moment, she chose another scalpel from the tray beside her. She carefully lifted a flap of skin near the top of his gaping wound, slicing further up. She exposed a broken sternum and began to pick away the bones there as Danny shrieked in pain. All he could see was red now, a bright, blinding red of pain.
The Ecto-Dejecto should keep him from changing shape again.
Maddie, what if he's not changing shape? What if…
Don't think that way. This isn't Danny. This… thing… has never been Danny. It's all a trick. Can't you see that?
I can't Maddie. I just can't.
Fine, Jack. Leave. You're a spineless oaf anyways. I'll do this on my own.
As she chipped away at the bones protecting his heart, the scientist ignored a desperate and bleeding phantom. She stopped only occasionally to scribble on the papers behind her. Ultimately, she ceased chipping away the sternum, and began to break and yank out the rips which interfered with her work. She took six in total, examining and observing each as she pulled them out. Each landed on the surgical tray as she went. Eventually, her path to the hybrid's heart had become unobstructed.
Danny pleaded with her, promising to tell her everything if only she would stop. She did not listen, only choosing a new blade in which to use in her experiments. The scientist did not hesitate as the she placed the scalpel and dragged, slicing open his heart. Blood and ectoplasm in equal amounts gushed forward into the maw of his chest like a demented sort of floodgate. As he gasped in his final breath, Danny could make out a pair of purple eyes and a wisp of reddish-brown hair behind those goggles of inky blackness.