"What do we do?" Jazz demanded. "We can't just leave them to the Guys in White! They'll gut them like fish and not give a crap that they're still human!"
"Well, it's not like we can storm a government facility!" her father reasoned. "They have hundreds of unknown defenses-if that!"
"Not to mention that we have no idea what the layout of the building is or where Danny and Vlad are inside of it," Maddie added. "We'd be going in blind and be of no help to them at all."
Jazz groaned in defeat, dropping onto the living room sofa. She put her head in her hands, feeling so helpless that she wished she could disappear.
"We need to figure out some way to get the schematics of their building," Maddie pointed out.
"And it might be a good idea to have them escape on their own while we're deactivating the defenses from the front," Jack added. "That way we can meet in the middle and reduce the chance of getting captured because their forces will be spread thinner fighting on two fronts."
"Yes, but that means we'll have to construct some way to communicate with them while they're inside," Maddie countered.
Jazz's head shot up. "Tucker," she breathed.
"Danny's friend?" Jack clarified.
Jazz got to her feet, sudden hope strengthening her legs again. "Danny never thought I paid attention, but I did. His friend Tucker is good with computers. I've been keeping in contact with him, and remember what Vlad said he was working on at Axiom Labs four years ago?"
"Those tiny robots?" Maddie wondered.
"Yeah." Jazz nodded. "He's testing them at his school. They're tiny cameras. They can't really communicate, but they have a light on them that he's been using to communicate with Morse code. We can send one of those into the facility and use it to talk to them. Does Vlad know Morse code?"
Jack nodded. "Yeah, he does, but I don't think I want to get Tucker involved."
"Well, do you have a better idea? The GiW could be killing them for all we know! We need to talk to Tucker," Jazz said insistently.
Jack and Maddie shared a glance, but eventually they both nodded. Jazz immediately pulled out her phone, dialing Tucker. He picked up after more dial tones than Jazz was comfortable with. "Yeah, Jazz?" he asked, laughter fading from his voice.
"Tucker, I need you to come to Fenton Works now," she informed, her voice taut.
"Uh, sure," Tucker agreed, his lingering laughter instantly leaving his tone. "Is everything okay?"
"It's about Dan and my Uncle Vlad. And bring one of those robots you've been working with."
After a few hours of anxious waiting, the doorbell rang. Maddie was at the door in a second and yanked it open. "Come on in," she instructed, opening the door wider.
Tucker and Sam walked through the door, much to Jack's shock. "I don't want Sam involved in this. I don't want to get her in trouble, too," he protested as Maddie closed the door behind them, locking it shut.
"Hey!" Sam shouted. "Tucker and I are a package deal. Especially if this is about Dan."
Jazz sighed away her stress. "Then both of you sit down. We have something to tell you."
After a few minutes of explaining, Tucker sat there in shock, staring at the wall. Sam, on the other hand, breathed, "I knew it."
"You did?" Maddie wondered.
"Well, immediately after the accident in the lab, he came out with white hair and green eyes," she explained. "He was glowing and the colors on his jumpsuit flipped. I tried to touch him, but my hand slipped straight through him. After a while, I convinced myself that I was just freaked out, and I didn't see what I thought I saw. But there was always this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I wasn't wrong. Especially after his sudden change in behavior."
"So you want this," Tucker held up the black case he brought, "to slip into a base that we have no schematics for and somehow navigate it to Dan and Vlad's cells that are on an unknown floor and somehow communicate to them a break-out plan that we don't have through a blinking light. Do I have that right?"
"Well, when you word it like that…" Jazz said, massaging the back of her neck in her nervousness. She dropped her hand, looking back at Sam and Tucker. "Look, they could be shredding both of their internal organs as we speak, so are you in or not?"
Sam and Tucker shared a look before turning back to the parents and daughter. Sam got to her feet. "If only so that I can give Dan a slap in the face for abandoning us," she sighed.
"I'll get to work on getting those schematics," Tucker announced, pulling out his PDA.
They practiced, they prepared, and they studied. They crossed their fingers and hoped against hope that this plan would work better than their nervous hearts were making them doubt it.
Dan rested on his back on the floor of his cell with his eyes closed. He couldn't take it anymore. Vlad would be dropped off again soon. He would likely be in human form, but his core would still be waiting. Dan wondered if it was possible for him to drain Vlad's core with him in human form, but it would be worth the try if it could even temporarily relieve the constant aching from his core.
The door hissed open, making Dan's heart jump with excitement. He opened his eyes as the guards entered. The same two pointed their shock prods at him, and the same other pair dropped off Vlad's unconscious form with a dull thud. The agents backed away, and the door hissed again as it closed.
Dan groaned with pain as he sat up. He leaned against the wall, staring at Vlad. Dan could drain him now, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying if he was awake. If Vlad was awake, his heart and core will both be pumping harder than they were now, producing more and more power, and fortunately, he didn't have to wait long.
Vlad groaned and put a hand to his scarred chest. "Dan?" he croaked as his eyes cracked open.
"Are you awake?"
Vlad groaned again. "I guess." He gave off a pained grunt as he sat up and leaned himself against the wall opposite Dan.
"What did they do this time?" Dan wondered, hoping that remembering it would make Vlad's heart and core beat faster.
Vlad's eyebrows pushed together as he tried to think of it. "They studied mostly my stomach this time, I think. Though, I did pass out after a while." He looked up at Dan, and he didn't like the look in the young man's eyes. They were the red of this ghost form, and he was staring at Vlad with a starving desire.
Dan's heart was beating so fast. His core was practically jumping out of his chest of its own accord. There was still some small part of him that was thinking of his mother, and what she would think if he drained Vlad out of existence.
But he didn't exactly care.
Dan leapt to his feet, launching himself at Vlad. He grabbed the older man by the collar of his torn clothes and pulled him to his feet. He shoved him against the wall, holding him in place with one hand on his chest and the other forcing his head back.
Vlad openly gaped at Dan in shock, his blood red eyes making Vlad more terrified than he's ever felt in his life. "What're you doing?" Vlad demanded, his voice shaking.
"Remember that secret to our powers that I found?" Dan said, his voice high with excited anticipation. "You're about to find out what that is."
Dan pulled Vlad's head to the side by the hair, exposing his neck. He didn't hesitate and latched onto his skin. It took a moment, but his fangs did extend, digging in further.
Vlad jumped when Dan bit into him. He struggled against him, but either Vlad was too exhausted from being cut open one too many times or Dan was unbelievably strong. He writhed and pushed, straining to get Dan to let go, but nothing worked. His head started to feel fuzzy like it was filled with cotton. In one last-ditch attempt to free himself, Vlad kicked out. He impacted something repeatedly, and he didn't care what it was. He kept kicking in the faint hope that it was Dan.
Eventually, Dan backed away with a cry of pain, his fangs coming out of Vlad's throat. He kicked the younger half ghost in the stomach, pushing him into the opposite wall. Vlad rushed at him and pressed him further into the wall. "What was that?" Vlad shouted.
"Why'd you kick me in the balls?" Dan yelled back.
Vlad didn't answer, only stared at the mixture of blood and ectoplasm coating Dan's elongated teeth. After a moment, Vlad glared into his dangerously red eyes. "Was that it? Was that the key to our powers? You're an energy absorber?"
"So what if I am!" Dan roared, his voice cracking. He pushed at Vlad with enough force to shove him away. He tried to jump on Vlad again, but a spasm from his core made him cry out and fall to the ground. He gasped and grabbed at his chest.
Vlad looked down at Dan as he covered the wound to his neck with his hand. He watched the gasping and writhing boy, unsure of what to do. Eventually, he got down on the floor to Dan's level. "Energy absorbers have to be careful," he said, his voice gentle. "Even Spectra admitted that she had a hard time controlling it at first. Taking power from other ghosts can be addictive-in fact, it usually is addictive in some form or another. Spectra is addicted to her youth, but it looks like you got addicted to the power itself."
"All the ghosts in here," Dan moaned, "sensing them hurts. Ever since last year, my core has been twisting and convulsing. It hurts." He curled in on himself tighter.
"How did it start?"
"I was curious," Dan explained. "I studied a small ghost and compared it to the DNA of my ghost half. I used my parents' equipment, and I reviewed the news footage of your old fights. I studied Spectra as best as I could with that. I determined it to be safe and directly injected myself with the ghost's core energy. It felt good."
Vlad nodded in understanding. After a while, Dan's pained gasping stopped. His tense limbs gradually relaxed, though he remained in his position on the floor. "Just out of curiosity, what does ectoplasm taste like?" Vlad wondered. "I always wanted to know, but I was far more cautious than you."
A brief, second-long smile ghosted Dan's lips. "It doesn't really have a taste, but I guess it tastes like freezing, freezing cold, barely flavored limeade."
Vlad laughed lightly. Something glared in his eyes, catching his attention. He looked down and found something on the floor. It was small and black, hardly bigger than an ant. Vlad put his hand down to it, and it crawled onto his palm. Vlad held it up to his face to study it.
"What is it?" Dan wondered.
"One of my projects that just moved to the final phase of testing," Vlad explained.
"What's it doing here?" Dan asked, grunting with the effort of sitting up again.
"No idea," Vlad said.
The green activation light on it started to blink, and it blinked in a familiar pattern over and over again. "It's blinking in Morse Code," Vlad noted.
"What's it saying," Dan wondered.
Vlad muttered the letters the small machine blinked out. "F-e-n-t-o-n-s-s-a-m-t-u-c-k. Fentons, Sam, Tuck. It seems that your family and two friends sent this."
"Do you think they can hear us?" Dan wondered, leaning forward to take a closer take at the thing.
"I'm pretty sure. One of our last additions to these cameras were a microphone, so they can hear us but can't talk to us," Vlad explained.
The small camera's light began to blink again, and Vlad muttered the letters. "G-o-i-n-g-l-o-o-p-c-a-m-f-e-e-d. They're going to loop the camera feed."
"But aren't they coming back for my turn soon?" Dan pointed out.
Vlad nodded. He looked directly at the camera. "Don't loop the feed until Dan is back. They're coming to take him soon. I don't know how long it will be."
The light on the camera blinked out two letters "O-k."
Sure enough, only a few minutes later, the agents returned, and the door hissed open. The same agents pointed their spear-like shock prods, and the same pair picked Dan up off the floor by the forearms and dragged him through the facility. Dan hardly fought as they went through the routine of strapping him down. Donovon approached in the same way with the same scalpel.
"I saw what you did in there over the camera feeds," she said. "Going after your friend like that is interesting. What is an energy absorber, by the way? I suppose we'll find out right now."
She looked to her right and gestured for someone to come forward. Another GiW agent came forward, a struggling ghost on the other end of a glowing leash. The agent grabbed the ghosts hair and shoved her down on top of Dan. The ghost's neck was positioned close to his mouth, and his fangs automatically extended again.
Donovon giggled with delight. "I can tell that you want her energy, and feel free to take it," she invited. "Drain her out of existence for all I care, but if it's all the same to you, I'm going to open you up again after its done so that I can see what happens."
Dan wasn't sure if he should give them what they wanted, but he hardly got any power from Vlad at all. It wasn't even enough to force him to morph. No to mention that if they were breaking out soon, he would need the extra energy.
He hesitantly let his fangs graze the ghost's green skin. Instinct took over the instant the first drop of ectoplasm touched his tongue, and his head shot up, latching onto the ghost. It struggled, but it quickly lost strength. The black transformation rings appeared at his waist, transforming him as they passed his body over. The ghost faded out of existence much more quickly than Dan would have liked, and he only noticed that she disappeared when his jaw clamped shut, cutting his lip.
Donovon squealed with delight as the GiW agent backed away. "Now, let's get started."
After it was over, and Dan was sewn up, he strained to return to human form. His body ached, wanting to remain in ghost form, but he forced even his eyes to remain blue rather than red. He was naturally limp from the sheer amount of concentration it took. The agents pulled him up from the bloodied table and dragged him back to his cell. They dropped him on the floor and backed out, the door closing behind them.
Vlad shook Dan's shoulder. "Are you alright?" he insisted.
Dan looked up at him, his fangs and red eyes slipping through. He smirked. "Never better."