Danny cracked open the fridge, his other hand prepared to fend off whatever came out. Hearing nothing growl, he carefully opened the fridge more. Brownish shapes sprang at the teen, and he slammed the door. Too late. "Mom, Dad, the ecto-wieners chewed out of their container again!" Danny hollered, trying to trap the hot dogs under the strainer left from last night's spaghetti. "Quit biting me!" The wieners, surprisingly fast for pieces of meat, squirmed away, because nothing in Danny's life could be easy. "I just wanted to make a sandwich."
He chased them all down eventually, but not before the kitchen got a few new burns from where the halfa shot at the hot dogs pistol style. Here's hoping those'll blend in with the other ones. Angry leftovers and exploding tech were commonplace at Fentonworks. "I swear there were less wieners last week," Danny muttered, rubbing his smarting fingers. "Either Dad used the wrong microwave again, or there's a case of meat mitosis in the fridge." He brightened. "Hey, I remembered something from biology!" A puff of blue curled from his lips. "So much for catching up on homework over the weekend," Danny sighed.
His ghost sense led him to a street a couple blocks away. If this is the Box Ghost stealing someone's package again, he thought, rounding the corner, I'm leaving him in the thermos overnight.
"Freeze, Phantom!" Operatives K and O perched on ATVs, a small ectopuss thrashing in a net on the ground between them. Both GiW agents wielded ecto-weapons aimed in Danny's direction.
"You guys, really? Shouldn't you be at a shoe polish sale?"
"I see you remember us from our last little stay," K replied smugly. "During our last visit, we scanned your ectosignature because we were curious of why, out of all the ghosts tramping around this backwater town, you were worth a million-dollar bounty." He plucked an invisible speck off his tie. "Imagine our surprise, when the results came back reporting abnormal quantities of organic material."
"Maybe your scanners are broken," Danny said conversationally, hoping they didn't see his gulp.
The two smirked, as if flawed machinery was beneath them. "Prepare to initiate maneuver Ivory Sword, variation four." O barked. The weapons whined. "Fire!"
Danny ducked around blasts of green. "I think you guys spend more time at the dry cleaner's than at target practice," he ribbed, absorbing a shot with an ecto-shield. The halfa twisted between shots, planning to faze the men's guns from their hands; he didn't trust them to care about property damage. Turning intangible, he dipped under the pavement. Danny flew forward then up, ready to grab the firearms. He didn't expect the agents were ready for him. There was a ray of lime. Danny yelled and clutched his torso. Another light, pale and spiraling, pulled him into black.
Darkness cased in metal. He didn't know where his arms and legs were; he could only tell they were still there because they were pressed uncomfortably. Up and down were jumbled. The minutes blurred together, but he thought he had been trapped for a while. Suddenly - or perhaps it was after countless hours - he sensed himself being stretched and spun, pushed towards a light that hadn't been there before. Out, out, out!
Danny thumped against green-tinged metal, chest burning. His breath came in hitched gasps. Through limp bangs and glassy green eyes, he could make out concrete walls painted a hospital white.
"Subject appears to exhibit a proclivity for respiratory mannerisms." a man's voice said. "Is there a breathalyzer anywhere in here? Thanks." K shoved a piece of plastic over Danny's mouth.
"Wh- Hey!" Danny jerked, pushing at the agent's arm. O grabbed Danny's wrists. He went intangible, but O still held him down. "Let me go!"
"Quit your squirming." K elbowed Danny in the ribs, who yelped. "All the equipment here is ghost proof." He removed the mask. "It's breathing, alright. The exchange seems to be very similar to living movements."
"Could you get the ecto-cuffs? My grip's slipping." K secured Danny's wrists and ankles. O rubbed at his gloves as if Danny were made of slime. "Shall we proceed with the experiments?"
"The long and really painful ones?" K grinned wolfishly. "Of course."
"What are you going to do, kill me?" Danny jeered with false bravado. "In case you hadn't noticed, you're a little late to the party."
O picked up a rod. To Danny, it reminded him of one of the metal sticks you used to roast marshmallows during a camping trip, if marshmallows were green and had fangs. "Go ahead and laugh now, ghost boy," O said. Sparks danced between the prongs. "While you're still in one piece."
Operative R eyed the hissing mass Operatives O and K had brought in from Amity Park. The blond had heard of the town's haunted reputation, but he hadn't known how strange its ghosts were. "Are we sure this isn't an alien?" he asked his partner.
"It reads like a ghost," Operative H replied. She pushed back a dark strand of hair that had escaped her bun. "Still, a green octopus does sound like something out of Space Wars."
"What really weirds me out is that it's practically putty," he said, poking the ectopuss between the fibers of the net. It snapped at his hand, and he jumped back. "I've never seen a ghost this tangible, have you?"
"Nope," H picked up the net, holding it at arm's length. "C'mon, let's go get the keys to the lab so we can run some swabs."
They went to the main office, shiny shoes clicking against clean tiles. "Morning, guys." Operative G greeted cheerfully, setting her mug on her desk. "How can I help ya?"
"A couple of the new agents brought back a souvenir from Amity Park yesterday," H said, returning the grin. "Mind if we use the lab for a bit?"
"Amity?" G's brow furrowed slightly. "K and O already brought the ghost from there to the lab. They told me they had gotten clearance from upstairs to run some tests."
"What? But they're field agents," R frowned, "and there was only one report from them in the containment area."
"Typical rookies," H said with an eye roll. "We probably better go to the lab before they break something important."
"I'll come too." G said, grabbing the spare key. "Those two probably managed to rile up whatever they've got in there."
It was a good thing G had brought the key, because the door was locked when the three got there, and the "occupied" light was off. The pane of ecto-glass in the door was covered, which was only supposed to be done during light-related experiments.
"I don't like the looks of this," R muttered, pulling out his ecto-taser. H did the same, putting down the ectopuss's cage.
G opened the door, and the agents were met with the sight of K and O bent over a table splattered with green and red. "What have you done?" H cried, aghast. She had expected a bit of a mess, but this was far from a scratched microscope.
The two men moved in front of the table, as if the other agents wouldn't do anything if the scene was concealed. "That's our business," K said authoritatively, hiding something sharp and wet behind his back. "This is a classified study."
"Oh yeah?" G demanded, pointing. "Then how do you explain the steak knives and cattle prod? The GiW is supposed to observe ghosts, not tear them apart!"
O blanched. "I assure you, we've done nothing more than what would be done in a high school biology experiment."
"Experiment!" R spat, flicking his taser to the standard setting. "This is a slaughter! There's blood in that ectoplasm!" With a shared nod, he and H stunned the two men.
H and R stopped to restrain K and O, so it was G who saw the table's occupant first. "Get the first-aid kit, quick! They've got a kid on here!" Swallowing the bile in his throat, the brunette ripped off handfuls of paper towels, pressing against the boy's wounds. "Hang on sweetie, everything's going to be okay."
"Mom?" the teen murmured, eyelids fluttering. He twitched a bloody arm as if to touch her. "Whad're you doin' here?"
"Don't move. Help is on the way," G soothed, tearing off more paper towels. "Stay with me. Can you tell me your name?"
"I think I broke m'curfew. I'm not grounded, am I?" the teen mumbled loopily. Without waiting for an answer, he asked, "Mom, did y'know that I died once?"
"No, no," G said, pressing harder, "You're not dead. Don't say that. You're not dead."
"Well, I didn'd die all the way," he amended hazily. "Only part. I'll show you, if you promise not t' be mad."
"Nobody's mad at you, baby. Just stay with us," G pleaded as R rushed back into the room.
"H is getting the medics and someone to deal with those two," he panted, throwing open the first-aid kit. "Are you good with stitches? I'd be too shaky right now."
"Trade me." R planted his hands on the paper towels, and G began stitching the ugly lines marring the teens form. "We're going to fix you up. It's gonna hurt, because there we don't have anything for the pain, but you just have to be strong, alright? Keep talking to me."
"'m strong. I lifted a car once." the teen slurred. "Do you need me t' do that?" A glowing ring appeared around the teen's lacerated waist. R jerked back, and G nearly dropped her needle. The ring split in two, briefly turning the teen's blood neon green before fizzing out. The boy stared.
"I don't know what O and K did to this kid, but I'm going to kill them." R growled, placing his hands back. Then he paled, the gears turning in his head. "You don't think all this ectoplasm is his too, do you?"
G stared at the green-red puddle on the table. "I hope not," She tied off a stitch, feeling like she hadn't helped at all. "Do you think you're steady enough to start sewing?"