A/N: So, here's the next chapter, as promised. I figured I'd put it up sooner due to the shortness of the previous chapter and since this is where all the action begins.

Chapter Two
The Torture

Danny opened his eyes. He felt no immediate rush of pain. He lifted his hand and looked at it. It looked completely fine, the rash had gone away. He wiggled his fingers, noticing that it was sore and stiff, but he could still manage. He sat up and discovered that his back was sore as well, but not as bad as he had thought. The remnants of the pain still remained, but it wasn't as bad as what he'd faced before. He looked at his clock, noticing with a jolt that it was already a quarter after six. He had only fifteen more minutes to clean the house before his parents got home. He flung himself out of bed and ran down the stairs, flinching at the pain in his back. He stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs. The house was clean and the goo was gone. He walked slowly through the house, wondering what happened. He then saw Sam and Tucker sitting in front of the television, arguing over some superhero show.

"Superman has super strength, he can fly, he can shoot stuff out of his eyes, and he's invincible! He's way better than Batman!" Tucker argued heatedly.

"Yes, but Batman's smart and he doesn't go all weak if there's some stupid rock nearby," Sam retorted back. "Batman uses his brains and technology to fight, so he's clearly better than Superman."

"Only in your dreams. You just like him because he dresses all in black."

"Sorry to break up the argument, but what happened here?" Danny asked, puzzled.

Sam and Tucker turned towards him, surprised to see him awake.

"Danny, what are you doing down here? You should be asleep, or at least resting," Sam advised.

"Relax, I'm fine. I'm just a little sore. But what happened here? Where did all the goo go?"

"We cleaned it. We didn't know how long you'd be out, so we decided to just take care of everything," Tucker explained.

"Plus, we didn't think you should touch that goo again. We found the actual weapon, or at least what's left of it, and the box your parents were planning to put it in. It said that the goo was meant to burn through a ghost's skin."

"Yeah, that's what it felt like. I should just learn not to touch anything my parents make anymore. They're actually finally learning to get stuff right. Speaking of my parents, you guys should probably go. Thanks for all your help. I owe you one."

"No you don't. This was just in return for saving our lives almost everyday," Sam reasoned.

"Good luck on your studying," Tucker offered.

"The test! I totally forgot! Man, this day just gets worse and worse! I'll talk to you guys later."

"See ya Danny."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Sam asked as the walked out the front door.

"Fine. I've been hurt worse than this before."

Danny watched as his friends walked down the street. He shut and locked the door as he headed towards his room, prepared to study for the rest of the night. Just as he started heading up the stairs, his ghost sense went off.

"Not again! I'm never going to get a chance to study!" He transformed into his ghost form, noticing that his hand and back hurt even more as a ghost. He pulled his glove back to see that his hand was red and raw. It obviously only showed up in his ghost form, and it was definitely more sensitive to the touch he noticed as he gently pulled his glove back on with a wince.

He flew down into the basement to find the Box Ghost.

"Why do you always show up when I'm busy with other stuff!"

"I am the Box Ghost, fear me! I have come to control your box shaped dominion with the use of my army of boxes!"

"You've got to be kidding me."

The Box Ghost raised his arms and an army of boxes rose out of his dad's pile of spare boxes.

"I knew he should have gotten rid of those boxes," Danny muttered as he went intangible as the boxes flew towards him. He started shooting ecto-blasts at them. The boxes flew quickly around the room, breaking lab equipment and knocking things over. Danny had a hard time hitting them they were moving around the room so quickly, which resulted in many holes in the walls and floor. One of the boxes hit his injured hand while he shot an ecto-blast at another box and he screamed in pain as he grabbed his hand. The rest of the boxes flew towards him, pummeling him as he comforted his injured hand.

He turned intangible and flew towards the Box Ghost as the remaining boxes flew after him. He turned around and shot a large ecto-blast at the boxes, disintegrating all of them. He charged at the Box Ghost and punched him into the Ghost Zone. He shut the door and locked the portal, glad his weekly fight with the Box Ghost had ended. Just as he was about to turn back his parents thundered down the stairs in full ghost hunting uniform.

"I thought I heard you down here Ghost Boy!" Jack yelled as he pointed a weapon at Danny.

"No, you don't understand…it's not what you think!"

"Oh it's exactly what I think! You were trying to destroy my lab."

"No, I promise, I was just…" Danny tried to reason.

"Well not today!" Jack yelled and launched the weapon at Danny. He went intangible, but the weapon still caught him and trapped him in a bubble.

"Nice shot honey," his mother said.

"Thanks dear."

Danny tried to phase through the ball, but nothing happened.

"That's a new special material we've just designed. It traps ghosts without allowing them to phase through it. Now we've got you."

"What do you want?" Danny asked, slightly concerned. They were getting better.

"We've been waiting a long time for this moment Ghost Boy," Jack remarked in awe.

"And, what moment might that be?" Danny replied smartly.

"The day we finally capture you. My entire life has led up to this moment. Everything I've ever done has been for this moment."

"I find that hard to believe since you only met me seven months ago," Danny smirked.

"Yes…well…that's beside the point! The point is that we know you're half human Ghost Boy."

Danny felt like he'd hit a brick wall. How could they know? How could they possibly know? This has got to be one of the worst days of my life.

"What do you mean half human? How can I be half human? I'm a ghost!" Danny argued.

"Don't play stupid with us," his mother warned. "After the battle last week one of our weapons cut your arm and you bled all over the street before you could get away."

Danny remembered that battle. That was the day when Danny realized that his parents were serious about hunting him. Before that day they hadn't done any damage to him, but that day, they really hurt him. The cut had run deep and hurt like crazy. It was after that day that all his parents' inventions suddenly started working a lot better than usual…

"Well, we took a sample of your blood and examined it, and we found red human blood inside it," Maddie continued.

Crap. I've been beaten by science. How am I supposed to refute this?

"So what does that mean?"

"It means that you have human blood mixed with the ectoplasm that ghost's are made out of. We've examined other ghost's blood and haven't found any trace of human blood with it. This proves that you're half human. And those rings that form around your waste sometimes when you get tired, that's you reverting back to your human self. I've seen jeans and a t-shirt."

Crap. He never knew they'd seen so much. There was no way he could refute this, and they knew it.

"Alright fine. I'm half human, but what difference does it make? You're obviously still hunting me."

"I knew it!" Jack yelled.

"Jack dear, we already knew that," she informed her husband. She turned her attention towards Danny. "What we don't know is how."

"You think I know? You're the ghost experts, I'm just an ignorantteenager. How'm I supposed to know?"

"Did you ever die?" Jack asked.

"No," Danny answered truthfully.

"So then how did you get the ghost abilities?"

"I told you I don't know! There was this accident and then I got ghost powers."

"He must have only half died," Maddie reasoned to Jack.

"But still that doesn't necessarily give him ghost powers. He must have come in contact with some ghost energy or something."

They were getting too close. He needed to throw them off track.

"So, now that you got your information, can you let me go?"

"Oh no, we can't do that," Jack answered.

"Why not?"

"Well, do you really think we'll set you free so you can go harm more innocent people?" Maddie asked.

"And plus, we're not finished with you yet. Since you're half human, you obviously have a human persona. So who are you?" Jack questioned.

Danny would have laughed had he not been in an escape proof bubble in his parents' lab. Did they honestly think he would give them his identity?

"You actually think I'm going to tell you?"

"Listen, you're probably a teenager, which means you probably go to school with my children, which means they're in an awful amount of danger. Now, you tell me who you really are so I can remove you from school and keep my children safe," Jack demanded.

"Or so you can hunt me down twenty-four seven."

"That too," Jack admitted. "But that's beside the point! Tell me now!"

"And what if I refuse to give you my identity?"

"Then we'll just have to force it out of you. I promise you Ghost Boy, when it comes to the safety of my family, I stop at nothing."

This was the worst day of his life.

"You…you can't. You wouldn't," Danny desperately tried to reason. But in his heart, he knew they would. For the first time in a while, he actually felt scared. In his parents' demented minds, their family was in danger and they only way to save them would be to find the identity of their most hated enemy. There was no real reason why they wouldn't. He had to get out.

"Watch me."

Jack carried the ball to a corner of the lab where a large sheet draped over a tall object. How come he'd never noticed this before? He pulled it away to reveal a lighted table with three curved pillars forming the outline of a sphere. He placed the ball inside the pillars while his mom fiddled with the controls and the arms lowered, resting themselves on the bubble. Danny started hitting the walls of the bubble, tried shooting ecto-blasts, tried phasing through it. Nothing worked. He was trapped and was about to be tortured by his own parents.

"This is your last chance Ghost Boy. In a matter of seconds we're going to turn on the machine, which will then shoot electric pulses up the pillars and into your bubble. Now these pulses are only felt by ghosts, so if you transform into your human form, they won't hurt anymore. Tell us your name, and we'll save you the trouble."

"You don't understand. You don't want to do this," Danny tried to reason with them, but he knew it wouldn't work.

"Trust me, I do. Now, what is your name?" Jack demanded angrily.

"I can't tell you. It'll ruin everything. You don't want to know, trust me!"

"If that's your choice…" he stated. He held his hand over the button and looked at Danny, disregarding his pleas. His face was resolute as he stared at Danny's pleading face, his bright green eyes large with fright.

He pushed the button.

Purple electric charges shot through the pillars and into the bubble. Danny formed an ecto-shield around him, hoping it would prevent the oncoming pain, but the electric charges penetrated straight through the shield and into him. Pain shot through his body and he screamed. The shield fell, his energy drained on contact from the charges. He couldn't bear the pain. It was worse than the goo, worse than anything he'd ever felt. His skin was on fire, his brain felt like jelly. The electric pulse circulated through his blood stream, through his nerves. It cramped his muscles and lingered in his bones. He felt like the pulses were frying his insides.

He could tell his parents wanted to watch his torture, probably relishing in the knowledge they were causing their enemy such pain. They would occasionally turn their heads when he let out a particularly loud scream or convulsed into odd angles and positions as the electric pulses haywired his body, but then they'd face the bubble again, staring at him, watching him as he never stopped screaming, the pain too unbearable.

"Ghost Boy, have you given up yet? Transform and the pain will end," Jack bargained.

He wanted to transform, to end the pain, but he couldn't. He had long since decided that his ghost powers were something his parents never needed to learn about, and he wanted to keep it that way, especially after the past week, and what they were doing to him right now. They had to eventually stop; they couldn't keep it going forever. They'll stop it eventually, they have to.

Danny had no record of how much time was passing. To him it seemed like eternity. He couldn't keep his thoughts straight anymore; his head was so full of pain. His body kept trying to change back, lacking the energy to stay in ghost mode, but Danny had to stop the urge. He could feel it coming again; he could feel himself changing back. The white ring appeared around his waist.

"That's it Ghost Boy, just transform and the pain will be over soon," Jack goaded.

He felt the rings start to separate and move up his body, but he summed up his strength and forced the ring to disappear.

"Why do you keep trying? Just let us know your identity and the pain will end!" his mother yelled. She was no longer watching. Her head was buried in Jack's shoulder, unable to watch the torture.

He wanted to respond, to say that he couldn't, but he couldn't string words together anymore. He just continued to scream.

He heard fast footsteps run down the steps. Jazz must be home and must have heard the screaming. Maybe she'd stop the machine, knock some sense into them. He always thought she didn't hate the Ghost Boy as much as their parents.

"What's going…" Jazz started to say as she beheld the disturbing sight. Her face was a mask of fright, horror, and panic. "What are you doing?" she demanded angrily.

"We just found out the Ghost Boy's half human so we're trying to get his identity."

"Stop! Can't you see it's hurting him? Stop!"

"Once he transforms."

"Please stop! You don't understand what you're doing! Please stop this!"

"Not until he transforms."

"You have to! Trust me when I say you have to! You don't know what you're doing!" She ran towards the controls, preparing to smash them when her father grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back as she screamed in anger.

"No! You have to let me stop it! You don't know what you're doing!" Jazz screamed as she kicked and fought back.

Danny could feel himself fading. He had barely any strength left. The urge to transform was starting, and he wouldn't have enough energy to stop it this time. He had barely enough energy to remain conscious.

"We know perfectly well what we're doing Jazmine. We're doing this for you and Danny, so we can keep you safe. This boy goes to your school, everyone there, including you and Danny, is in danger."

The ring formed around his waste and started traveling up his body. He couldn't stop it.

"But that is Danny!" Jazz yelled as she broke free from her father's grasp, as his attention was occupied by the sudden transformation of the Ghost Boy into his son. She ran towards the machine, trying to find a way to get to him.

"No, it can't be…" Maddiebreathed as Jazz ran into the bubble and lifted Danny's head into her arms. He opened his china blue eyes slightly.

"Jazz?" he asked faintly.

"I'm here Danny, don't worry."

"So much pain," he managed to mumble. "So much pain," he muttered again as he shut his eyes and fell into darkness.

"Danny? Please be alright, please," Jazz begged, tears streaming down her already tear stained face. She lifted him into her arms and carried him out of the bubble, his body limp with a very soft pulse. His face was pale, like he was still in his ghost form. She walked past her parents, who just stared at Danny, a look of horror on their faces.

"Danny!" Maddie yelled as she ran towards him, but Jazz pulled him out of her reach.

"Don't even think about touching him, after what you did."

"We didn't know…" Maddie began, tears falling from her eyes.

Jazz turned around. "I told you," she thundered, stressing every syllable with anger, looking at them with disgust. "I told you that you didn't know what you were doing. I told you that you didn't have a clue what was going on, that you didn't understand. But would you listen, no! Look where your ghost hunting obsession has brought us! Look at Danny! Look what it did to him! Look what you did to him! And all this for his safety, hah! Well it sure kept him safe! I hope you're happy, I really do. I hope that the pain he went through was worth something to you. Do you still believe he's a danger to the other students? Do you still want to throw him out of the school? Maybe we can throw him out of the state altogether and find him a better home away from abusive parents!"

She stormed out of the basement and up to Danny's room where she laid him softly in bed. She pulled the covers over his body and pulled up a chair next to his bed and placed a warm cloth on his frigid forehead.

Mr. and Mrs. Fenton stood outside the door, looking in on Danny. Jazz noticed them outside and rose to shut the door to Danny's room, leaving them to stare at a locked door. Then she buried her face into Danny's arm and sobbed.