The next morning Danny stiffly got up before his alarm- and luckily before any guards came to take him for tests. Danny moaned as his muscles complained as he got to his feet. He wobbled over to his small en-suite bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. The bandage Sam had put on last night had deep red splotches in it.

Danny decided he had better change it, and gingerly untied the knot Sam had put in it to keep it in place. He unwrapped it from his neck, wincing as the dried blood tore away with the bandage. He looked at the burn wounds, several of which still seeped lazily. He sighed. What would they be putting him through today?

Carefully, he wrapped a clean layer of bandages around his neck, trying not to tie it too tight. He examined himself in the mirror before shaking his head. It wasn't fair. What had he done to deserve this? Along with a large bruise on his chest from that ghost- what was his name? Oh, yeah. Skulker.- his sever burn wounds from that electrical collar, and not to mention the bruises and scrapes he had from being virtually dragged through the halls, his spirit had been weakened.

Despite Tucker and Sam's assurance that they had a way out, Danny was unconvinced. He felt like he wasn't ever getting out of here. He hadn't minded living here up until they started those tests. Now it was like hell. And where were his parents?

A soft knock sounded on his main bedroom door and Danny sighed, stiffly pulling a clean shirt over his head. "Coming, coming." He answered the knock hoarsely. His voice still had not come back.

Slowly he opened the door and looked out. Standing outside was Sam. She looked tired and guilty. "Danny…" she said quietly, "I… I don't have a lot of time. I'm sorry, Danny."

Danny was confused as he looked at Sam. "W-what are you talking about, Sam?"

Sam looked up and locked eyes with him. "I tried to stop them." She whispered.

"Danny… My mom began asking questions, and I think she figured out what I've been doing." Danny looked at her, confused. It wasn't like Sam was really doing anything wrong. "She told dad and- " Sam paused, then looked to the floor "Tucker and I will be back" She promised "Not tonight, maybe not even tomorrow night, but we will be back okay? Don't give up on us, and practice your invisibility!" Sam said.

She looked back at him and hesitated, as if wanting to say more, but settled with an apologetic look. "I have to go." And she ran down the hall, turning the corner before he could fully process what she had said.

"Daniel." Danny turned around and looked at Mr. Manson. His expression was dark and he had his arms folded over his chest. "Come along. It's time."

Danny swallowed hard, and then followed the man to what he believed was his doom. The walk to the large room seemed endless. The white was monotonous, and each step brought him pain. Danny was panting by the time they reached the doors to the testing room.

Danny swallowed again, and then looked up at Mr. Manson, who held the door open for him and beckoned him inside.

Once inside, Danny stood in the center of the room, waiting for whatever torture the adults had in store for him. The eighteen year old rubbed the back of his neck nervously as his blue eyes scanned the crowd.

"Daniel." That superior voice from the last two days echoed through the room. "Welcome."

Welcome? Danny snorted. This was just the place he wanted to be welcomed to. He almost lost his balance as the floor began to shake and everywhere around him started to move. As the whole floor moved away, he was left on a single circular patch. "Today you're going to learn to fly."

Danny gulped and looked down at the floor- or what used to be the floor, before looking up at the mirrors. "Y-you're kidding right?" he squeaked, the floor, or lack thereof, had transformed into a pit of spikes.

"This is a research facility, Daniel." The sly voice drawled out. "We do not kid here." There was a pause, almost as if the voice was letting that sink into Danny's mind before he continued. "Either you learn to fly, Daniel, or learn to go intangible, either way; you'll be demonstrating a new technique to your ghost powers."

Danny gulped again and looked down. The spikes were at least a foot thick and three feet high. If he failed to go intangible, and failed to fly, he would be impaled and killed instantly. Danny now knew why Sam apologized as she had. If her parents had found out about her late night visits they would have for sure set up this trap to kill him to keep him away from their daughter.

But Sam had promised that she would come back. She had confidence that Danny would pass this test. Danny looked up at the mirrors around the room, knowing most if not all of the institute was behind them watching him do whatever he had to do to learn these ghost powers.

The screech of the microphone turning back on made Danny pop out of his thoughts and he looked up at the center mirror, feeling like that's where his speaker sat. "Oh, and Daniel?" the voice said, almost in amusement. "Don't forget to look up."


Danny did as the voice instructed, and looked up. The ceiling was littered with hanging bombs. Danny gulped. They really were trying to kill him.

"Oh, come on." Danny croaked, looking in dismay at the several bombs that littered the ceiling.

Just as Danny finished his thought, the small bit of sanctuary under his feet groaned and started to shrink. Danny looked down in horror, his heart beginning to beat furiously in his chest as the floor under him got smaller and smaller.

"Okay, Danny…" Danny whispered to himself, trying to assess the situation, "You… you can do this." He ran a hand through his hair, trying to concentrate as the edge of the floor came closer and closer to his feet.

"Just… go… ghost." He said; closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on that feeling of cold he got every time those rings passed over his body. He was ecstatic when he actually felt the cold start at his waist and seep through as the rings passed over him. He breathed a sigh of relief as the soothing cold rushed over his sore, burning neck. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands, smiling as he saw the now-familiar white gloves on his hands. "Thank you…" he breathed, just as the floor vanished from under him.

Danny felt himself plummet to the floor, the spikes coming closer and closer as he fell to his impending doom. Danny swallowed, but now that he was clad in his jumpsuit and surrounded in the cool sensation of ghost powers, Danny felt that maybe he'd be okay.

He took a deep breath and held it, closing his eyes and thinking as hard as he could about going intangible and invisible. When he didn't feel any pain, and his feet gently hit the floor, Danny opened his eyes.

Looming right in front of him was one of the spikes; he gulped before he noticed that he was standing in a spike. Danny cried out in fright as he jumped away from the spike he was standing in. He lost control of his intangibility, but kept a hold of his invisibility. He felt his back brush up against a spike, standing in the small space between the two large death traps.

He let out a deep sigh, and then looked up. He knew that they couldn't see him; he was invisible. Panting in fear, he tried to understand what was going on. "They… can't really want to kill me, right?" he whispered, keeping his hands planted on the spike behind him. "They need me. They basically said so themselves…"

He looked up, anger starting to bubble in his veins as he looked at the bombs on the ceiling. "Scratch that." He muttered, "They do want to kill me." Unbeknownst to him, his eyes had started to glow green, adding to that eerie ghost vibe he gave off.

"Daniel?" the voice on the speakers sounded out. Danny knew that they could see into the pit, but they still couldn't see him. "Daniel, take off your invisibility. How are we supposed to make sure you're okay if you're invisible?"

Make sure he was okay? Danny clenched his fists, how dare he say that. They were trying to kill him! Danny used the spike as leverage as he leapt off of it, cloaking himself with intangibility again, and flew up to the main level. Floating in place, his anger gripped his heart as he let both his cloaks drop, allowing him to become visible to the mirrors around the room.

Danny's fists began to glow green as he spun in a slow circle, looking at each of the mirrors in turn. "You're trying to kill me!" Danny screamed. The glow around his fists intensified to look like he was holding onto green fire. He didn't know if they could hear him or not- but he didn't care. He was too angry to care about what they thought. The jerks were trying to kill him over his ghost powers. How could they?

Danny shot his hand out, the green transferring from them into a ray that exploded against a mirror. To his surprise, the mirror began to crack. Weird, Danny thought, looking at his hand then up at the crack. I thought this room was ghost-proof.

Danny looked up, a plan formulating in his mind as the voice echoed through the room again. "Daniel." The sound of that voice was beginning to irritate him. Danny decided he hated it, and that if he ever met its owner face to face, he'd give him something to be smug about. "Daniel, control yourself. You've passed the test."

Danny let himself sink down, hovering just above the points of the spikes. He looked up; frowning at the bombs, then shot his arms up. Nothing happened. Danny looked at his hands. The glow was gone. "What!" He exclaimed, and then floated up. The floor closed under him and he landed on it. The doors opened, and Danny turned towards them. Anger flared inside of him again as he saw that the man standing there was holding a gun. It wasn't aimed at him, but it was ready and Danny knew that guy knew how to use it.

"Daniel." The man said, motioning Danny to come over to him. "Come along, it's time to leave."

Danny let out his breath in a furious sigh. He pointed at the man and this time he did shoot out a beam. The man yelped and jumped out of the way, rolling into the room and coming up in a defensive crouching position, aiming his gun at Danny.

Suddenly Danny's anger faded, to be replaced by fear. That gun he knew, would hurt him severely. Danny lost his hold on his ghost form and gulped as he watched the man aim at him.

The man pulled the trigger and the green ectoplasm shot raced towards him, Danny threw his arms up over his face so that he was protected as he felt the blast slam into his gut. Danny was thrown back against the wall. The healing his ghost form had done on his throat was reversed as he screamed in pain.

The blast held him against the wall, and a few more shots were fired at him, pinning his arms and feet to the wall. Danny yelled in pain and struggled. "Let me out!" he cried out, trying to get out.

"Daniel, Daniel, Daniel." The reproachful voice triggered something in Danny's memory. But through his haze of anger, fear and pain Danny couldn't put his finger on it.

A man walked into the room, his arms behind his back and his long white hair pulled back into a pony tail. He wore a snappy suit, and his eyes seemed to pierce into Danny's. He had a smug grin on his face. "You lost your temper, and you caused damage to this room."

Danny swallowed, knowing that he was in trouble. He'd never met this guy before, but the authority radiating off of him was immense. He leaned closer to Danny who was pushing himself against the wall as far as he could, trying to stay away from him.

"You have just become a security threat."

Danny swallowed, not understanding. A threat? They were trying to kill him. Not the other way around!

"Y-you tried to kill me!"

The man leaned away, he looked taken aback. "Danny-boy," Danny's heart sank when the man called him that. His father always called him that. Where were his parents, anyway? "Kill you?" he asked, placing a hand over his chest. "We're trying to train you!"

Danny looked at him, his brow falling over his eyes as he stared at the man. "Train me, with spikes and bombs?" he asked his voice squeaking.

"Daniel, we've been analyzing you, and it's become apparent that your powers are linked to your emotions. Anger and fear appear to be your strongest points." The man said, allowing his hands to come out from behind his back and clasped them in front of him. "We were just using those to the upmost of their capabilities."

Danny's fear was sweeping over him in waves, causing him to pant and his blood to rush to his face. "Unfortunately," the man continued, "we are now going to have to put you under lockdown. You have proven that you are not in control of your powers to the extent that we would like, and there for need to be contained until your powers, and your anger, simmer down."

Danny's face went from flushed to stark white. "C-contained?" he asked meekly, the pain from his throat resurfacing and causing it to come out quieter than normal. Sam would never find him if they changed his room, he would never get out of here, he would never find out what had happened to his parents.

The man turned to the guy with the gun. "Put the collar on." Collar? Danny's fear over powered every other emotion the ghost-boy had in him and he struggled once more against the bonds. If that collar was anything like the other one, he was going to be dead before the end of the day.

The man stood up and clasped the collar around Danny's neck. The healing scabs on his neck rubbed painfully against the metal collar. "Bring him down to his room, now." The man said, giving Danny one last disdainful look, before turning and walking to the door.

"Yes, Mr. Masters Sir."