So I wasn't originally planning on writing anything for Ectober but then typo-art posted their art for day 3 with this caption: Okay, but what if Danny learned about duplication the hard way instead of through Vlad.

So now I have an idea and I have to write it. Also see friendly-neighborhood-imbecille 's art for day 3, which I saw after I started this but definitely drew from. Warning for intense body horror, pain and confusion, uncontrollable unintentional agonizingly slow duplication, Two heads etc.

For Ectober Day 3: Mutant

Danny had had headaches before but never like this. The pain drilled through his brain. There was a pressure inside his skull… it was building. Not just behind his eyes or his forehead but all around. It was building, growing, magnifying. The boy leaned forward, nauseous from the pain.

Tears pooled on his eyes. He really should call his friends or his sister. Something…. Something was wrong but… Danny let out a muffled cry as there was another spike. His ears rang. His vision blurred. He couldn't focus. He couldn't see. The boy let out another cry. His head felt like an egg about to crack.

Still sitting on his bed, Danny leaned more as the pain spread. It radiated down, his muscles locking but even as he shook. There was… the pressure. The pressure. Like something inside of him pressing out, desperate to break out of his skin.

Another spike and …. Danny fell off the bed. He curled in on himself, his spasming hands moving to cradle his head.

"P..please..st…stopp." He begged.

His core ached. It vibrated. It pulsed in time with every surge of pain. And Danny could feel its energy. The ectoplasm swirled through his veins, reaching out to inhabit the tips of his fingers, the bottom of his feet, the top of his head.

White light sparked along his middle and the pain crescendoed. His heart beat loudly in his ears, the pressure building and….oh god, he was going to burst. He was going to fracture. He was going to split apart. He was-

The light spread and Danny changed. The boy fought to grasp as he transformed into his ghost form.

The pain crashed into his crown, hammering, cleaving. Danny choked on a scream. There was a tugging feeling, a pulling like someone yanking on his hair, his ears, his scalp. Oh god. His head was splitting. It was splitting and his brain was gonna spill out on the floor, scrabbled like eggs and-

Wait. Danny blinked. It… it didn't hurt anymore. His head didn't hurt anymore. For a moment, he felt like crying in blessed relief but… there was something…

The boy blinked. And he blinked again, trying to clear his vision. But… he frowned. Something looked wrong. It was like… when he'd wake up in the morning, too exhausted for his eyes to even focus. His vision was doubled or… more?

Danny shakily tried to push himself to stand. He settled onto his feet, vision still unclear. He tried to close one eye but he was still seeing multiple. And… there was something strange at the edge of his vision. Out the corner of his left eye? Or his right eye? The boy shook his head, finally closing two eyes. But… he could still see?

Briefly, the half ghost pushed the confusion away at another spike of pain, this time in his right hand. Danny gasped, the sound echoing oddly, as he clutched the appendage in his other hand. He held both hands in front of his face.

Danny's eyes widened in silent horror as his right hand writhed and throbbed. His skin stretched and… oh g- he watched as his thumb widened. There was a tugging sensation and the digit split. Two thumbs… he had two thumbs on his right hand.

Pain! He felt like throwing up. His flesh writhed, pulling away from itself as more fingers grew and divided. And… there were two hands, attached to each other at the wrist.

Danny wanted to scream but no air would enter his lungs. The mutant growth continued, his muscle and skin pulling, growing, separating. Down his wrist, his forearm, to his elbow. The two partial limbs hung from the joint. Numbly, the boy tried to wiggle the fingers and… he flinched as both hands responded, perfectly in sync.

His horror magnified. His upper arm started tugging as well, the flesh peeling away from itself as it grew and separated into two complete arms at the shoulder. And the mutating didn't stop.

A pain started in Danny's skull again, something pressing on the side of his head, on both sides. His vision grew wider and wider, his eyes becoming further apart. There was a tugging over his cheek, his chin, his neck. There was a snap and… something was brushing his ear. His ear was brushing something. Danny tried to turn his head to look but something was squished against his cheek. He thought he caught a glimpse: pale blue, snowy white, and neon green.

Danny's mind was blank, unable to put together what he was seeing.

But then the pulling feeling attacked his chest. Danny looked down and his lungs spasmed in panic. His chest, his chest was splitting as well, growing wider and wider. His shoulders popped longer and longer. With an agonizing crunch, the pulling in his neck drove all the way down to where it met his shoulders.

And he was still growing. His chest stretched farther and farther as his arms at the end of either shoulder became even farther apart. Finally, finally, Danny could turn his head.

And he wanted to… he wanted to scream. But he couldn't, not with the horrifying changes overtaking his torso. But… he had two heads. Two heads with two necks jutting out of his monstrously wide chest.

His shoulders kept elongating. He must be… he must be twice as wide as he was before. There was a crunch and… Both heads, noses scrunching in pain, turned to watch as a depression grew between them. The flesh writhed and separated and… that was another shoulder. A third and fourth shoulder.

And.. oh god. How was he still conscious? How was he still aware as his body was warped and mutated and violated?

But still… now his stomach, down to his hips, were widening as well. His torso swelled and the depression of the growing shoulders became deeper. His newly grown arm shifted. His body rippled and flexed until that set of shoulders, the one of the right, had two arms. And on the left side, there was a stump but not for long. It grew, stretching downwards. Pain radiated up the limb, from the forming elbow, the forearm, the hand. The fingers grew and separated and…

The depression down what had once been his monstrous chest dug deeper, sinking to below his sternum. And farther. His pelvis stretched, crunching and popping wider.

And Danny…he…they were blind with panic, silent with fear, thoughts numb with pain. They… he were two heads, two sets of shoulders, two pairs of arms on two chest, connected by one widened set of hips.

And it was still widening. His… their pelvis was growing, bigger and bigger, wider and wider as the depression sank to their navel. Their legs were growing too, stretching wider and wider, thicker and thicker. The thighs, the knees, the base of the legs, the feet. The flesh stretched and swelled and enlarged as they grew. The limbs shook, throbbing with pain, aching to separate.

And they did. The massive legs tugged and pulled and split, from the top of the thigh downward. Each divided into two pairs. Two pairs of wobbly legs, under a truly monstrous, inhumanly wide pelvis.

Two sets of lungs, two mouths wanted to scream. Two stomachs wanted to upheave. But they couldn't. He couldn't. One more jolt as their pelvis grew to its final width. One more excruciating tug on the lower body. And the two bodies finally pulled apart. They split. They separated completely. That once was one became two.

Both Dannys were thrown away from each other. And both finally screamed.