Vlad looked around the blank cell. The floor was white, and the ceiling was nothing more than a bright white light. The walls looked like they were made of some sort of frosted glass, but Vlad knew they weren't what they seemed. He could just barely see the silhouettes of the ghosts that were beyond the left and right walls. The door took up the entire fourth wall of the cell, and was perfectly clear. The only indication that there was anything there was the faint shining of the overhead light glinting on it.

Dan groaned from the floor, and Vlad instantly dropped to the floor, grabbing the net. He tore the lines of it, freeing the boy. Vlad put a hand on his shoulder and gently shook him like he was waking up a small child. "Wake up, Dan. Please."

Dan lifted a hand and put it to his head, his lips forming a tired grimace. "What happened after those agents came?" he sighed.

Vlad internally cried with relief. "They threw us in the back of their van and took us to their main facility. They threw us in a cell." Dan unsuccessfully began trying to sit up. "Let me help you," Vlad offered. He reached forward to brace him, but Dan slapped the older half ghost's hand away.

Eventually, Dan managed to sit up and carefully lean himself against the left wall of the cell. Vlad nodded and sat on the floor. "Anything else I should know?" Dan asked. There was an obvious attempt at venom in his voice, but he was too tired to put any real effort into it.

"They think that you're overshadowed," Vlad explained. "They took DNA samples from each of us. Blood, hair, and saliva. They're going to find out that our DNA is both human and ghost. We need to come up with some kind of escape plan. You're powerful enough to get us out of here, aren't you?"

Dan didn't answer. He knew he was powerful enough to get them out of here-to tear the whole place down if he wanted-but he didn't know if he could do it. He was so weak. His core felt as bone dry as the Sahara desert in the middle of summer. He needed to drain a ghost. It was the only way he would be able to get out of here. All of the ghosts surrounding him were making his ghost sense go off like crazy, and that was making his core twist and writhe with a sort of primal desire that Dan had never felt before.

"Dan," Vlad called, concerned by his contemplative silence.

Dan quickly looked up at Vlad. Dan knew he shouldn't. It would make his mother terribly sad if he drained Vlad out of existence. But who knew what would happen if he did. He was only half ghost. It could take away his ghost powers and still leave him alive.

Vlad didn't like the look in Dan's eyes. He was staring at him hard, almost studying him like a lion studies its prey before it pounces. "Dan," he cautiously began, his voice low, "what exactly was that secret to our powers you discovered? Is that what made you gain power so quickly?"

"What are you?" the deep, gravelly voice of K and O's commander demanded. Dan slowly picked his head up to look at the mustached man. "Your DNA is a mixture of both human and ghost. You're both swamped with ecto energy, but you're still, undeniably, human."

Both Vlad and Dan stayed silent.

The man squared his already broad shoulders. "Fine. Have it your way. We'll just extract the information we need from you the hard way." He put a finger to the curled wire that was sticking out of his ear. "Take the older one."

A team of four agents poured into the cell block. Two of them had what looked to be spears that sparked with green electricity like shock prods, and the other two each had green-glowing collars. The two with the spears approached the clear door, their weapons out in front of them. Neither Dan nor Vlad moved. Vlad was being cautious. He didn't want to give these already dangerous people any more reason to hurt either him or Dan. Dan on the other hand, hardly cared what the agents were doing. He didn't care if that collar was meant to torture him or if they were going to cut him open. He just wanted a ghost he could drain. It didn't matter how powerful it was at this point. Just that it had a core brimming with ghost energy.

The two agents with the collars each approached Vlad and Dan. Vlad nearly panicked. If they got that collar on him, they would take whatever small form of control that he had left. He got to his feet and braced himself against the wall, trying to turn intangible. The agent with the spear thrust it forward. The second the sharp tip made contact with Vlad, he screamed in pain, dropping back to the ground.

The commander chuckled. "Your powers don't work here," he said. "You're completely trapped." The collar was latched around Vlad's neck. "You're both completely trapped."

The commander turned around and gestured for the team to follow him. The two now-empty-handed agents took Vlad by the arms and marched him forward. The two agents held their shock prods towards Dan, who continued to do nothing. They backed out of the cell, and one of them hit a button on his prod, making the clear door slide down from the ceiling to the ground, locking Dan inside.

Vlad was marched through a maze of corridors until they came to a pair of blank, windowless doors. The commander continued through them, and the agents forced Vlad through after him. What was inside was a dark room with various tools resting on counters that Vlad recognized. They were similar to the tools that he, Jack, and Maddie would use to study ghosts. There was also a large examination table with straps where arms and legs would be and a blindingly bright light hanging above it.

The agents holding Vlad's upper arms tried to force him forward, but Vlad fought against them. He dug his heels into the floor, repeatedly attempting to summon an ectoblast or to take off into the air, but nothing happened. One of the armed guards pressed a button on his shock prod, electrifying the collar around Vlad's neck. He screamed in pain, his entire body tensing. He didn't know how long had passed, but eventually, the pain stopped. Vlad limped in relief, struggling to maintain his consciousness. The guards shoved him forward and forced him down onto the examination table. They strapped him down as Vlad finally focused again.

A woman wearing a lab coat and goggles, her eyes obscured by the light glaring on it. A scalpel was gripped in her hand, and she stalked towards the table, a hungry sneer on her lips. "I'll be honest with you. I'm really honored to meet you," she gaped. "I'm Donovon. I've never seen DNA like yours or your friend's before, and I can't wait to examine you both further. Now, let's get started."

Dan couldn't take it. He could feel the other ghosts pacing beyond the walls. He knew exactly where each of them were and the power levels of each of their cores. His own core was twisting and convulsing painfully inside of him. Ectoplasm didn't necessarily taste good. It tasted like a barely flavored lime Italian ice, but right now, he would give anything to taste it again. The cores beyond the walls was the equivalent of a starving man smelling cooking meat he couldn't get to.

He didn't know when he made the decision, but he got to his feet, the palms of his hands and his forehead pressed against the wall. At some point, he started to gently beat the palm of his hand against the translucent wall. Eventually, his light pounding turned into whole-heartedly punching the wall with all of his strength. He needed to get to the ghosts on the other side. The more he thought of them, the stronger his punches got. His hand gave a sharp cry for him to stop with each impact, but Dan ignored it, beginning to scream with each punch.

A sudden, electric pain wracked his body, making his screaming continue. He fell to the ground, and the pain abruptly stopped. He curled up, his core spasming all the more. He didn't know how long he laid there, but at some point, the door hissed open again. He didn't look up, and he didn't move while the legs of white-clad guards passed in front of him.

A body was deposited on the floor, and then the door hissed closed. Now that Dan could see Vlad, his heart jumped slightly when he found him in human form. Eventually, Vlad's eyes opened. "What did they do?" Dan wondered, his voice sounding dull even to himself.

Vlad put a hand to his chest. "What do you think?" His voice was weak and faint. If it wasn't for Dan's sensitive hearing, he probably wouldn't have heard.

What seemed to be a few hours passed before the guards came back. The same process with the shock prod-armed guards happened again, but this time, they took Dan. Two guards grabbed him by his forearms as they dragged him through the cell block. His core yearned after the power of each ghost he passed, but he couldn't get to them. These agents would only hurt him if he tried, and he was too weak to fight them.

He came to a pair of blank and dark double doors, and a lab similar to his parents' was discovered behind them. A woman with a lab coat and a pair of goggles stood by a large examination table. "Hello," she greeted, her voice pleasant. "I'm Donovon. Will you tell me your name?"

Dan didn't answer. He didn't have the energy to.

"Oh, well, that's okay," Donovon sighed. "I am going to be examining you and your friend Phantom, and may I just say, I haven't looked at the samples I just took from him yet, but from the data I got, he is very interesting. I'm curious to see how you two are different." She gestured to the examination table.

The agents holding Dan thrust him forward and held him down on the table while Donovon secured the straps. She and the agents backed off, and after a minute of metallic rustling, she returned. She stood over him with a scalpel in her hand. It gleamed dangerously in the bright light above him. "Ready?"

"What no anesthetic?" Dan quipped, his voice monotone.

Donovon laughed, her voice sounding empty. "Of course not! I want to see your full reaction with no interference."