Danny was roused, not by a hand on his shoulder, but the scent of… well… not bacon exactly, but something close, for sure. He cracked his eyes open, wincing at how dry and crusty they felt, and lifted a hand to rub the sleep from them. Light was streaming in through the window. He glanced up at the clock on the opposite wall, one of the few things that didn't change between cultures. 1:45. Odd… He thought Aizawa would have woken him up earlier than this. Not that he wasn't grateful for the extra few hours. Honestly, he still felt like another hour or two wouldn't be unappreciated.

Memories of tossing and turning for hours trying to get to sleep last night, rustled around in his brain. Then his wandering thoughts and memories from the night before came back to him. Worry for family. Concern for his home. Fear that he would fail. It had all piled on in the dark and loneliness of the night and now all those thoughts were rushing back at him. He raised a hand and felt the stale remnants of salt around his eyes and the side of his face. Had Aizawa known? His cheeks burned, partly out of anger, mostly from embarrassment.

He hastily got to his feet, grabbed a change of clothes and swept into the bathroom, not daring to look in the kitchen as he passed. He let himself indulge in a slightly longer shower this time, sitting under the near-scalding stream and fervently scrubbing his face along with the rest of his skin. When he finally turned off the tap and stepped out, the whole bathroom was thick with steam. He dried off, clicked the overhead fan on, stepped into his clothes, another pair of dark pants and a red t-shirt, and ran a comb through his still damp hair. Not much more to be done with his hair really, but that was nothing new. Still, he stood there at the sink, staring in the mirror and trying to find something else to do. No real point in brushing his teeth if he was about to go out and eat anyways. He could still smell the not-bacon, lingering on the other side of the door. His stomach growled. No use delaying this any further, he thought.

With a sigh, Danny pulled open the door and stepped out into the hall.

"Trying to turn my home into a sauna?" Aizawa asked when he returned to the living room. The man sat at the coffee table, already halfway through a bowl of rice, eggs and some kind of meat which had to have been what smelled so good. Another bowl of the same sat waiting across from him.

"Sorry about that." Danny mumbled as he took his place on the floor across from Aizawa. He eagerly dug into his breakfast. It wasn't nearly as good as the breakfast from the other day had been, but he was hungry and it was better than anything he could have made. Nothing to complain about at least, not that he would.

Aizawa waved his hand. "It's not that big a deal. Just try not to use all the hot water next time." The two sat quietly eating for a few minutes. Danny could make out the sound of the dishwasher running in the kitchen. "Rough night?"

Danny paused, a mouthful of food hovering a few inches above the bowl. He waited, trying to think of how to respond. He shrugged, taking the bite and giving himself a few moments to chew before replying in earnest. "Nightmares." he lied. "Kinda comes with the whole ghosts, hauntings and life threatening dangers lifestyle. I doubt that kinda stuff is a rarity here, yeah?"

Aizawa shrugged. "Even people who aren't in the line of hero work are allowed to have nightmares. Some dream about failing to save a life, while others dream about failing to get into the school of their dreams. At the end of the day it's all just fear. And fears are just a part of being human, after all." His eyes met Danny's. Danny quickly turned his gaze to his food.

"Yeah well… it's not a big deal." he said, quickly stuffing another bite of rice into his mouth.

"Alright. I won't pry." Aizawa said. He finished up his own food and took his bowl to the kitchen. "You're lucky I was able to get someone to cover for me today. I was originally going to have to go into the school today to go over some things with Vlad regarding the summer camp." Aizawa started, his tone casual and conversational.

Danny choked.

He coughed and hacked and worked to clear his throat, then took a big gulp of water before speaking. "Vlad?!" he asked, his voice harsh. "How in the fucking Hell do you know Vlad?"

Aizawa stared at the teen, clearly trying to piece together what he had said and Danny's response. Danny just waited, shoulders tense. His eyes were locked onto Aizawa and he could feel his ghost energy jittering underneath his skin, ready to cocoon him in invisibility and bolt in an instant if he didn't like what he heard. Aizawa must have noticed the sudden tension in the room, because he slowly set down the dishes he'd been cleaning and made a point to keep his face as calm and neutral as possible.

"There is a fellow teacher at the school." he started, his voice calm and steady. "Sekijiro Kan. He's known as the Blood Hero: Vlad King. As far as I'm aware you haven't had the opportunity to meet him as of yet." He paused, letting this information hang in the air for a moment before opening his mouth to continue.

"What's he look like?" Danny interrupted.

Aizawa's brows furrowed slightly, but he answered in that same calm tone. "Well over six foot tall. A very muscular build. Short, white, spiked hair. A slight underbite with tusk-like teeth that usually stick out from the corners of his lips. He usually wears a stern expression." Danny must have relaxed a bit, because Aizawa's guard seemed to fade slightly in response. "Sekijiro's hero name has to do with his quirk. He has the ability to freely manipulate his own blood. The name is a reference to a well known fictional vampire character in our world."

Danny listened, intently absorbing this information while trying to calm his racing heart. This guy clearly didn't sound at all like the Vlad he knew, but damn if the name alone hadn't set off every warning bell in his brain. He forced himself to breathe, though he knew there was little he could do about the tension in his shoulders. Once he was wound up like this, it was hard for him to calm back down again. Whether that was from one-too-many surprise attacks or the countless times he'd been beaten by letting his guard down too soon, he wasn't sure.

"And he's Japanese?" Danny asked.

Aizawa nodded. "I'm fairly certain he's never left the country, though I would have to ask to be sure." He watched Danny for a long moment before continuing. "I highly doubt my co-worker has anything to do with the Vlad from your reality."

A dry chuckle turned into a cough and Danny had to clear his throat once more. "Yeah." he hissed. "Yeah, that… that makes sense."

He watched as Aizawa rounded the counter and took a few steps in his direction. He was wary, almost like he was approaching a wild animal, Danny thought. He stopped a few feet away and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. It was meant to look casual, but Danny knew he could react in an instant if he wanted to. They stared at each other, for a bit. Danny glanced down at what remained of his breakfast.

"Sorry… I think I lost my appetite." He mumbled, sliding the bowl away.

Aizawa nodded, but didn't move from his place. "You gonna tell me what all that was about?" He finally asked.

Danny sighed. "Just… this one villain I have to deal with back home, alright? It's no big deal."

"You know, if you use the same phrase every time you lie, you're going to have a hard time fooling anyone about anything."

Danny looked up then. Aizawa's eyes were locked onto him. He wasn't going to let this one slide by like he had everything else. He was starting to think Aizawa just hadn't noticed or didn't care about the comments he made about his life back home. Clearly he'd been paying more attention than Danny had hoped. And, of course, this little slip had to be about Vlad.

"Ugh." Danny groaned. "Look, it's not really any of your business, alright. I'm not lying. He is a villain I have to deal with pretty often." he hesitated. "He's the only other person like me. Half ghost. And he's absolutely insane and obsessive and it is not at all out of the realm of believability that he would figure out where I am, find a way to get here, and worm his way into your school to creepily stalk me from afar while he plots on how he can use all of this to his advantage to get me on 'his side'." Danny let out a breath. "He's fucked up and I've had enough experience dealing with him to know that anything he's involved in isn't to be trusted. That answer your question?"

Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "I get that you don't like talking about your life back home, but you seem to be unaware of the fact that just talking to you is like tip-toe-ing through a mine field. True, this instance was an outlier, but I hardly have an idea of who you are as a person, much less what kind of triggers or reactions you're prone to. I'd much rather avoid getting you upset, than having to deal with you losing your cool."

Danny rolled his eyes. "I'm not gonna lose my cool unless there's actually something to lose my cool over. And I don't have 'triggers'. I'm not some nut-case, who's gonna blow up at one wrong move."

"You don't have to be mentally unstable to have psychological triggers." Aizawa stated. "All I'm saying is that, I don't think it's healthy for you to keep suppressing your thoughts and emotions while you're staying here. Keeping up mental barriers around certain people is one thing, but keeping yourself walled off for days at a time can have adverse effects on anyone's mental health."

"Oh and you're some sort of expert in psychology now?" Danny scoffed.

"No, but I teach highschoolers for a living. Students who want to make careers out of being heroes, fighting super villains, saving lives and putting their own on the line for the sake of others, while still having families and lives outside of their work someday. Having at least a passing understanding of how the mind works and giving my students tools to better handle the stresses they'll face is just part of the job as far as I'm concerned."

Danny fell silent at that. He didn't know what to say, honestly. At this point he was afraid if he kept talking everything buzzing around in his head was just going to come pouring out of him like a flood. Whatever Aizawa thought was healthy or not, Danny wasn't prepared to deal with that right now. Last night had been bad enough. He didn't want to fall apart completely. Even if Aizawa wasn't really a stranger anymore, he still wasn't a friend. Or… at least Danny didn't think he should be.

Aizawa pushed off from the wall and walked over to scoop up the bowl Danny had set aside. He went back to the kitchen and set to work finishing the dishes in silence. Once breakfast, late lunch really, was cleaned up he made his way back to the living room and settled down onto the couch. He was about to say something when his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and his mood changed instantly. Annoyance settled onto his brow.

"What? More paperwork at the school?" Danny asked.

"One of my coworkers got held up with hero work and is backing out of something I asked him to handle for me." He very nearly hissed on the word, coworker and Danny could feel the tension from across the table. He didn't really get why setting aside schoolwork for hero work was a bad thing, but he knew better than to ask, at least right now. Aizawa sighed and looked at his watch. "So much for having someone handle my duties today. I need to go up to the school. The students who reserved the pool are going to need supervision or someone to kick them out." He mumbled something else under his breath, while texting back.

Danny raised a brow. "So… I'm gonna get to meet your class then? Or are you gonna hide me away in one of the classrooms with Mic?"

Aizawa didn't say anything at first, still typing into his phone. A few moments passed before he finally spoke.

"Neither." Aizawa said, standing up. "I'm going to the school by myself. I won't be gone for more than a half hour, I should think. You can keep yourself occupied until then." His tone was casual, but his eyes were boring into Danny's own, daring him to say something.

Danny stared. The world seemed to stop for a moment as his thoughts struggled to catch up to speed. After the conversation that had just occurred, he didn't really expect to get any time to himself for a while, let alone… this. After all, he'd been waiting for an opportunity to be left alone, really truly alone, and… here it was.

His mind raced to make sense of what this meant and his plans to get the portal gun back flared to life again. Had he really let himself forget about that? He'd barely been awake for two hours and already his priorities were all over the place. He didn't have time to contemplate all this existential crap though. He needed to say something and make a decision here and now. On one had, he could do exactly as Aizawa suggested and just chill here at the apartment, get his thoughts in order and wait for another opportunity to come. No doubt proving that he could be left alone and then nothing happening would do wonders for Aizawa's trust in him. On the other hand however, there was no guarantee that he'd get a chance like this again. The 'camp thing' was in a few days, right? And during that time he'd be with Aizawa and his class in god-knows-where for who-knew-how-long. Was he really ready to wait for weeks to have another shot at getting his portal gun back? Was he okay with putting Aizawa's trust on the line after all that he had done for him? Then again, if Danny could get his plan in motion and succeed in getting home, then whether or not Aizawa approved didn't really matter, did it?

Danny shrugged, keeping his expression as relaxed as possible. "I guess. Worst case scenario, I spend the whole time playing phone games." He gave a sort of half smile, still letting his uncertain feelings from earlier linger on his face. Aizawa stared at him for a long time, his face unreadable. Danny started to fidget under his gaze. "Are you sure you're ok with this?" he asked.

The silence felt heavy between them and only made it harder for Danny to keep from fidgeting. He stood and waited for Aizawa to make a move. To anyone else they would have looked like an odd pair. A teenager and a middle aged man, standing barely a foot apart, not breaking eye contact. Yet there was a tension in the air around them. A distinct sense that if either made a wrong move, the other would react with unforgiving force and speed.

And then, all at once, the tension faded. It wasn't gone entirely, but with the next few words, it lessened dramatically.

"It's only for a few minutes." Aizawa said. With that the older man swept out of the living area and into his bedroom. He didn't speak as he went about gathering his usual things, keys, wallet, etc. He seemed calm, if a bit annoyed at his coworker.

Danny didn't have time to worry about who would risk Aizawa's wrath, though. His mind was racing. This was the opportunity, but he needed a plan now. A real plan. He still wasn't quite sure where he was in the city or how he was supposed to get to the police station. One jaunt around a park and a grocery store did not make for an accurate understanding of the whole city. That would be his first priority. After that… well… he just had to break into the evidence room, he guessed. An evidence room that, no doubt, was guarded by all manner of quirk-proof tech and precautions. ...yeah. Just… just bust in there. Piece of cake.

"You remember the rules?" Aizawa asked as he stepped back into the living space.

"Don't leave the apartment without you." Danny said, counting off his fingers while leaning against one of the walls. "Don't talk to anyone. I'm gonna assume don't answer the door is included with that one. And don't take your hospitality for granted, more or less."

Aizawa turned and glared at him. "Don't betray my trust." he corrected.

Aizawa's eyes met Danny's for only a few moments before he turned and made for the door. Danny forced himself to turn away and walk over to the couch, flop down and take the phone out of his pocket.

"I'll be back in half an hour." Aizawa said, from the doorway.

Danny nodded, not taking his eyes off the phone screen. "Alright. See you then."

Aizawa hesitated for just a moment, then closed the door and went on his way. Danny froze, listening as the footsteps outside faded further down the stairs. He turned his attention back to the phone as ideas raced through his head. If he bolted now and Aizawa turned out to be waiting for him, this was going to south VERY quickly. However, if this whole thing was legit and Aizawa really was going to be gone for a while, then this might be his only chance to get the portal gun back.

He stared at the phone in his hand for a moment before realizing what he had at his fingertips, translated into readable english and waiting for him to type something in. After a moment of mentally cursing at himself, Danny got to work. First he looked up how to get to the police station, realized there were multiple stations in the city and ended up having to figure out where it was based on the mall's location. Where that particular mall was though, that was another matter entirely. By the time he'd rummaged through the bags to find a list of stores and cross referenced which mall had all of those stores, he'd spent about 15 minutes just trying to figure out where he needed to go.

Once he had the route memorized, he tossed the phone behind the couch, shifted into his ghost form and went intangible and invisible. He needed to get gone before Aizawa even started to head back. The guy wasn't stupid. He'd be able to figure out where Danny was headed the instant he realized he was gone, which meant the clock was ticking.

Danny phased through the building and sped off, navigating by following the roads below. He nearly passed by the station at first, but thankfully he recognized the building's entrance from when he and Mic had driven by the day before. He grinned. This was it. He'd made it.

...Now what?

He floated, unseen, a few stories above the building, absently circling it as his mind rummaged through half-baked ideas. He groaned. Doing nothing wasn't getting him anywhere and time was not a resource he could afford to waste. He decided to just pick a wall and phase through it. The North side seemed as solid a wall as any of the others. He reached out a hand and tentatively touched the outer wall. Then he pushed his arm through, slowly. No shocks. No burns. Nothing solid that he couldn't phase through. Good. That was better than he'd hoped at least. Once he was convinced he could make it all the way, he slipped through the wall.

The room he stood in looked like one of those interrogation rooms from the crime dramas his mom liked to watch on occasion, though these ones were stark white, not dark gray. It still had the basic interrogation staples. One-way mirror. Plain table. A couple of basic chairs. No windows. One door. Danny had to admit though, that the white walls really added an unsettling feeling to the mostly empty room.

He phased through the door and found himself at the end of a hallway with doors on either side every few feet. One door opened and a person with a cat head in a blue uniform stepped out. They walked down the hall towards Danny, then stepped into another room to Danny's left, completely unaware of the teen's presence. Good. His powers weren't muted or turned off or anything.

Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

Now he just had to find the evidence locker, or whatever it was called, grab his stuff and get out of there. He started to move down the hall, glancing at the first door he came to. Intuitively, his eyes wandered to the plaque next to the door. It had a number and some kanji engraved into the metallic surface.

Shit.

Of course everything would be written in kanji. This was Japan after all. He thought about trying to translate through his phone for a brief moment, before recalling that he'd intentionally left it back at Aizawa's place so he couldn't be tracked. He bit his tongue to keep from groaning and looked up and down the hall once more. There was no way around it. He'd have to check each room.

Dejectedly, Danny phased his head into the first room. Another interrogation room. He stepped back into the hall, walked down to the next door and peeked inside. Observation room that looked into the first room he'd come in through. And so he went. Phasing his head through door after door, peeking inside to see what lay beyond before passing onto the next one. Most of the rooms in that hall were interrogation rooms, though one was a sort of surveillance hub, with monitors showing video footage of the entire building. Danny skimmed his eyes over the screens, just making sure he wasn't showing up on any of their cameras. Once he was satisfied that his infiltration was still under wraps, he slipped out of the hall and turned onto a wide corridor. More rooms and more branching hallways greeted him.

Twenty minutes after starting his search and he still hadn't found anything that looked like evidence storage. He'd made it through a whole other hall before moving to a more productive method and just flying through the rooms. He'd scoured the entire first floor this way before diving to see what lay below. The floor, however, was not as normal as it appeared and he was lucky his invisibility stayed up after he roughly rebounded off of the tiles and went tumbling into an occupied office.

"Ugh! What the-?" He grumbled, before clapping a hand over his mouth and looking all around.

The one man sitting behind his desk looked up from his computer and scanned the room. His eyes moved right through Danny and after a moment he shrugged and went back to his typing. Danny stood, phased back through the wall and let out a slow breath. Even if he was invisible to the eye, the ear was another matter altogether. If he couldn't keep his mouth shut, this entire plan was going to go out the window before Aizawa even showed up.

Carefully this time, Danny leaned down and tried to phase through the floor. No luck. He swept through the first floor until he came to a stairway that led downwards. He needed only to peer inside to realize what was preventing him entry. At the bottom of the stairs was a metal-detector-like archway and a hall of barred jail cells. More than likely the entire lower level was reserved for criminals, so it made sense that the walls would be quirk-proof. Danny didn't stick around to confirm his theory though.

Instead he floated upwards and phased onto the second floor. More halls and offices awaited and his search looked like it was going to continue for another half hour. That was, until he found another wall he couldn't phase through. He walked along the wall, keeping a hand on the stubbornly solid surface and rounded the corner. A heavy-looking, metal door was set deeply into the wall. No handle. No lock. Just a scanner of some sort, set into the wall next to the door itself.

Just as Danny reached out to try and phase through the door, a beep and a click sounded and the door swung out towards him. He stumbled back, holding his breath to keep from cursing as a woman stepped out and started briskly walking down the hall he'd just come from. He glanced at her for only a moment before his attention turned back to the door. It was already swinging closed. No time to question it. Danny leapt forward and slipped inside, his foot just grazing the door's edge as it latched shut with another click and a beep.

He only got a glimpse of shelves and boxes before he turned and tried to phase back through the door. As expected though, his hands refused to pass through the surface. He side stepped towards the connecting wall, only to get the same result. Not good. He followed the walls around the entire room, but all of them were ghost proof. Or, rather, quirk proof, he guessed. Very, not good.

He let out a shaky breath. The slight tremble of his shoulders unsettled him and his breaths were coming quicker than they had before. How long had he been breathing so fast?

"Calm down." he whispered to himself. He already knew he was alone from his circuit around the walls, but he still didn't want to make too much noise. "It's ok. You made it where you needed to be. You're fine. Someone else will eventually come in to grab something and you can sneak out then. Just gotta find the gun before then." He forced himself to take a few deep breaths, but his shoulders remained tense and strained.

There was nothing for it though.

Determined to ignore the tension rolling off of his own body, Danny floated forward and started peering into boxes. Any paper files he quickly overlooked, aiming only for boxes and crates that looked big enough to hold the portal gun's pieces. It took him a good ten minutes to skim through the first row of shelves with nothing to show for it. There were, maybe 15 rows of shelves in the room. This was taking too long. He was running out of time. Aizawa was likely to have come home by now. Which meant it was only a matter of time bef-

The lights in the evidence room cut out. Danny froze. A moment passed in the darkness and the quiet before a very loud alarm droned in bursts every few seconds. A couple of red lights on each wall came to life, bathing the room in a warm glow. He could easily see around the room, but not nearly as clearly as he had been able to before.

"Shit!" Danny hissed.

His movements became frantic. He made no move to carefully slide the drawers and boxes back into place on the shelves. No, his time had just been reduced considerably. If he had to guess, this was some sort of lockdown procedure. Any moment now the halls would be swarming with SWAT teams, or whatever they had in this universe. He shouldn't be surprised really. This kinda shit always happened back home. Never an easy mission that went off without a hitch. Nope. That was asking far too much, apparently.

He cursed under his breath as he finished another row of shelves and phased through them to get to the next set. He pulled boxes from shelves, checked under the lids and dropped them from where he floated before grabbing another. He could hear footsteps running on the other side of the walls and if he had a heart in this form, he was certain it would be racing right now. As it was, his hands were starting to tremble slightly and… oh… He looked down and noticed his shaking hands were flickering in and out of visibility. Damn. It was going to be risky holding himself invisible for as long as he had already, the stress and anxiety was pushing his control over the edge.

"Ugh. Fuck it!" Danny growled, dropping the invisibility and intangibility. If there were cameras in here, then they would have noticed his path of boxes already anyways. He couldn't afford to waste all his energy on not being seen, when it was really inevitable at this point.

He tore through another row and grabbed another box off of the next set of shelves. He looked inside and froze. In a couple of clear plastic bag with big, white labels on it, sat the portal gun pieces. Danny cheered and grabbed the bags. It wasn't exactly easy to hold onto them. No handles on the bags, so he'd have to have a hand holding them at all times. He turned himself invisible and grinned when the bags vanished from view as well.

"At least these aren't quirk proof too." he said, turning towards the locked door.

Now all he had to do was wait. The instant anyone opened the door, he could phase right through them and zip out of the building. He really hoped the building didn't have some quirk-proof shield or anything that came online once the building had gone into lockdown.

Danny didn't have to wait long.

He heard footsteps drawing close to the door and went invisible and intangible. With his precious cargo in hand, he felt considerably calmer and more assured of his success. Of course, he still was trying to run the worst case scenarios around in his head from here on out, but it couldn't dampen his glee at having found the portal gun pieces. A voice called out from the other side of the door. Danny didn't have a clue what they said, but he started creeping closer to the door and held his breath. Thankfully, breathing in his ghost form was a necessity.

The door beeped. Then it swung open wide and men in kevlar uniforms swept into the room with big gun-like things, probably intended to shoot tasers or some other non-lethal projectile. Danny didn't wait to find out what they were. By the time the third guy was charging into the room, Danny was up and moving. He phased through the third and fourth guy. Outside the room a group of ten men waited. Danny paid them no mind. He just kept going. Flying and phasing through walls as he went, bundle clutched tightly to his chest.

Then he smacked his head and shoulder, hard, against one of the walls. He flickered into view. He'd almost dropped the bags, but managed to tighten his hold as he righted himself. If he made it out of here he was going to have one hell of a lump on his head, but he wasn't about to be taken down by a wall. He reached out and tried to phase his hand through the wall. This would have been the last wall. The outermost wall. No matter how hard he focussed, it refused to let him through.

"Fuck!" Danny cursed.

A voice shouted from down the hall and Danny only had a split second to phase through the floor, narrowly avoiding something that had been thrown at him. Danny flew through room after room, phasing through walls until he got to an exterior one, only to be greeted with the same result. His mind raced, trying to think of other ways he could get out. He flew up towards the roof, but that surface was just as quirk-proof as the rest. He doubted he'd have any luck in the basement. That left only the doors. He recalled seeing a side door before. He flew there, but it wouldn't let him through ether. A keypad was mounted on the wall next to the door. He wasn't getting out this way without the code.

Danny growled in frustration and zipped back through a nearby wall and phased through a small group of officers. He couldn't keep this up forever. He already felt slightly drained. This couldn't last. There was really only one option left. And, if they knew he couldn't get out any other way, then it would be heavily guarded by now.

The front entrance.

There was no other way though. Danny grit his teeth, held the gun bags tightly and made a bee-line for the front of the building. He swept through a wall and into the big reception area. He hovered, out of sight near the ceiling, taking in the sight below him and his heart sank. Groups of armed men were positioned at the two hallways that lead further into the building, waiting for him to come walking towards them. Closer to the entrance were more officers, talking into phones and communicators as well as each other. The officers weren't what caught Danny's eye though. Off to the side of the main doors, talking to an officer was Aizawa. And he looked furious.

A bunch of emotions rattled around in Danny's head at the sight, but he refused to give them any thought. He couldn't get distracted now. He knew Aizawa would come in person. He was the only one they knew for sure could have any effect on Danny. Still… he'd hoped he wouldn't have to see the man again.

Danny took a breath to steady his resolve and silently, unseen, floated down to the front door. His eyes never left Aizawa. Danny reached out once he was close enough and tried to phase through the glass door. But the glass remained solid. Danny had to bite his tongue to keep from making a sound. He quickly looked the door all over. It looked unlocked, from what he could tell. Danny hovered back a few feet and watched as an officer easily pushed the door open. Aizawa's head whipped around and Danny felt the air thicken slightly. The older man's eyes glowed red and his long, dark hair stood on end as he glared at the officer who had just entered the building. HIs quirk, Danny realized. He'd never seen it used on someone else before. The sight sent chills up his spine. The officer nodded and Aizawa blinked. His hair fell and the tension in the air vanished.

It took a moment to figure it out, but Danny wasn't stupid. The door didn't need to be locked. All he had to do was attempt to escape and then everyone would know right where he was. Aizawa would know right where to look. It looked like he was using his quirk on anyone who came in or out, so phasing through someone as they opened the door wasn't going to work this time either.

Fuck.

Danny would have to sneak up, open the door and bolt. He'd have to be very, very lucky.

Danny watched the same routine happen again as an officer walked out of the building. Door open. Aizawa glare. Officer left. Aizawa blinked and relaxed.

Aizawa blinked.

That was it!

All Danny had to do was wait until someone came in or out, Aizawa would use his quirk, but then he'd turn it off for a second. That would be Danny's only window. He knew it. He couldn't be too close, or risk being in the line of sight, but he'd have to be close enough to dash out in a fraction of a second.

His moment came before he could second guess his plan. Another officer from inside was making his way to the door. Danny watched, tensed and coiled like a snake, ready to strike. As soon as the guy touched the door, Aizawa's quirk activated. The man passed through the doorway. The door closed. Aizawa's eyes slid shut. Danny bolted.

He flew forward, full force. One hand out, intending to push on the door. He didn't expect the glass to be just glass. It shattered under the force of the hit, but he kept moving. No time to think about breaking the door. Just fly. Go! Get out of the entryway and fly.

As soon as he could feel the warm afternoon air, he turned upwards and dashed for the sky. Danny silently cursed as he flew, quickly sweeping one way, then another. Zigging and zagging and desperately holding into his invisibility. He couldn't let Aizawa see him. He had to keep moving. He swept around a tree, then dove through a nearby building. He flew through an office and let himself stop when he realized the dark room was empty, say for a desk and some wooden shelves. He pressed himself flat to the floor beneath the windows and tried to catch his breath.

He'd done it. He had the portal gun. He'd made it passed Aizawa. He was safe.

His shoulders were shaking and he let his invisibility drop entirely. A wave of relief washed over his body and he tried to let himself relax. Adrenaline was still racing through him, but there wasn't much he could do about that. His hands still clutched at the bags, unwilling to loosen, even now. He wasn't totally out of the woods yet, after all.

Once he was breathing at least somewhat normally, Danny rolled over into a crouch and peered up over the edge of the windowsill. He could see the street in front of the police station. Aizawa was standing outside, scanning the skies. Shit. Danny really had gotten out by the skin of his teeth.

Danny looked down and opened up the two bags, pouring the contents out on the office floor. He recognised most of the pieces. His mom had put him through enough courses on disassembling and reassembling the various fenton weapons. His hands worked over the pieces, fitting the pieces together as best he could. Some would clearly need bolts or screws before he could safely turn it all on, but it'd be easier to carry in one piece than in big, plastic, hard-to-grip bags. Besides, the activity was doing a lot to calm his nerves. It took only a few minutes and he had the portal gun almost entirely assembled. Now it just needed a few structural fixes and some juice, via the exto converter, and Danny would be home free.

He took a shaky breath and grabbed hold of his invisibility again. He stood and stepped away from the window, holding the fun to his chest. Then he hovered and started phasing through walls again. Warm air hit his face and Danny flew back out over the city. He moved through another building. Then he took a right and phased through another. After that his exhaustion really started to make itself known. He flew towards a street that ran alongside a park, noting that there were not nearly as many people here.

He let his invisibility drop as he flew. If he could hold back using one power, then he'd have a better chance at escaping using the others. Some people pointed, but he just kept moving. Maybe it'd be better if he flew through the park? The fewer eyes the better, right? He swept lower and turned to weave between-

Pain flared in Danny's left shoulder and he could feel himself falling out of the air. His mind panicked. Had Aizawa found him? This quickly? Shit. He was going to fall on that park bench. He phased through it on instinct and slipped underground for a moment before resurfacing. Wait… if Aizawa had turned his quirk on him… then how'd he phase through- Hot. Heat rippled out from his shoulder and he looked down. He'd been burned enough by Valerie's ecto weapons to recognize a burn mark when he saw one. The black jumpsuit was singed and slightly melted around the edges of the hole that revealed his burned shoulder.

Danny looked up and his eyes fell upon a giant of a man in a blue suit with flames coming off of him. Even the guys eyebrows were on fire, though he didn't seem bothered by that little fact. He radiated heat and power and his expression was one of utmost seriousness. It didn't take a genius to figure out where the attack had come from.

The huge, muscular guy pointed at Danny with one hand and started speaking in Japanese. He paused in his speech and used his other hand to summon a flame in his palm before speaking again.

"Sorry, Hot Shot." Danny quipped. "Can't understand you and I don't have time to deal with this right now."

Danny moved to fly away, but the other guy was faster, shooting a stream of fire in Danny's path. Danny darted back, the heat from the flames feeling far too warm on his ghostly cool skin. He went intangible, but even then he could feel the heat. That was nothing new. He could always feel things when he was intangible, but what he didn't expect was for the flames to latch onto him while he was intangible. Even as he backed away, the flames licked at the front of his suit and he could feel the too-hot burn against his chest. Not good.

Danny landed in a crouch on the ground, cradling the portal gun over the stinging spot on his chest that felt way too warm. He couldn't fight. He needed to escape. There was no telling when Aizawa would actually show up and Danny could not let that happen. Not this time.

Danny barely shifted on his feet and the fire guy shot a stream of flames at him. Danny dove out of the way and immediately flew upwards. He just made it above one of the trees, when something pulled at his right leg. He was violently yanked back to the ground and the pain hit him before the heat did. He had just enough time to look down and see the tendril of flames licking up the ankle of his boot before he hit the hard, unforgiving ground. The gun clattered out from under Danny and skid to a stop a few feet away.

"Shit." He hissed, forcing himself up onto his feet. Clearly he couldn't afford to turn his back on this foe. The man was walking towards him, unhurried but determined. "Ok, big guy? You wanna fight? Let's try this on for size."

Before he'd even stopped speaking, Danny moved. He used all the speed he could muster, diving forward while the guy was mid-step and dodging the first attack he threw. Danny forced himself to ignore the heat at his back and reached out. Intangibility wrapped around Danny as he touched the fire wielder and then he slipped inside the massive body.

Danny screamed through Endeavor's voice.

It was hot. Too hot! WAY TOO HOT! Why was it so hot in here? Fuck! Hell! Shit! He was burning. Every piece of his ghostly self felt like it was burning from inside this man's body. He was burning and he couldn't stop burning. Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off. Shit! Why couldn't he turn it off?! He couldn't stay. He was going to burn up and die if he stayed in this body. He was going to die.

Danny phased out of the man's body and stumbled back against a tree. He hissed at the contact. He felt raw and far too warm all over. He needed to cool down. He needed to cool down and get away. But when he looked up, he locked eyes with the huge fire guy and he felt the color drain from his face. There was a burning fury in the man's eyes and Danny knew he'd made the wrong move trying to overshadow him.

It hurt like hell, but Danny forced himself to move. The pillar of flames he narrowly avoided engulfed the tree he'd been leaning on in an instant. Danny didn't stop to watch. He couldn't. He ran and cursed. Every step he took was chased by flames and he was struggling to keep from falling over. He tried to fly, but streams of fire blocked his path even in the air. In moments the park all around them was alight with fire. His skin was screaming at him, he was freaking out and he couldn't get away. No. No he couldn't leave yet anyways. He needed the portal gun. Where was-

Danny spotted the gun on the ground a few feet to the right of the raging bulk of fire and muscle. A bulk that had noticed Danny's pause, shouted something and then shot another stream of fire right at him. Danny skirted the attack and rushed towards the gun. No time for fancy maneuvers. Just grab the gun and get gone. Maybe he could phase through the ground again. He doubted the fire could reach him there. Even if he couldn't hold his intangibility for long… he just had to grab the fun and get out of this guy's range.

But nothing was ever that simple.

Danny saw the flames out of the corner of his eye and swept upwards to avoid the stream. But they weren't aiming for him. As he flew back, he watched with wide eyes as the pillar of fire stayed its course and engulfed the portal gun. Something inside the gun overheated and a glass tube exploded open. Even through the flames Danny could see the metal buckling under the stress of the heat.

Danny wasn't given time to register what he was seeing. A wave of heat and pain crashed into his left side and sent him sailing towards the ground. He hit the grass with a thud. The impact couldn't compare to the pain in his side though. Everything was so hot. And he hurt everywhere. He needed relief. He needed to cool down. He needed… ice.

Green eyes shifted to an eerie, icy blue and Danny felt his ice powers well up inside him and flow outwards. Instantly the pain and heat all around him subsided considerably. He rolled onto his knees with only a slight twinge where the flames had really dug into him before. Damn. Why hadn't he thought of this before? He breathed out, his breath showing up easily in the now chilled air, and let the ice spread. Frost covered the grass all around him and began to spiral out from where he knelt.

Now that he wasn't burning, Danny's attention fell back to the portal gun. He quickly sent a burst of ice to overpower the flames that hid the gun from view. Something moved off to the side and Danny summoned an ecto-shield just in time to deflect a fireball. Then he pulled at the icy feeling in his core and pushed the feeling outward. A thick wall of ice came up around Danny, shielding him from view and giving him a clear path to the portal gun. Any other time he would have been impressed with himself. As he neared the lump of metal on the sidewalk though, what little pride he might have mustered was snuffed out.

Danny knelt down in front of the melted, mangled hardware. It didn't even look like a gun anymore. It was just a heap of still steaming metal, fused to the cement below it. Little pieces of glass stuck out from some parts. Danny reached out, but the surface was still too hot to even get within a few inches of. He stopped breathing. He stared. Everything around him seemed to dim and he was vaguely aware of his mouth moving, but he couldn't even hear his own words. The gun… it wasn't even a gun anymore. His one way home. The one thing that he'd been trying to get hold of, the one thing he'd been so focussed on retrieving. It was… gone. It was a pile of useless, molten metal and… he couldn't do anything about it.

A now all too familiar jolt of pain and heat crashed into Danny's back and he just barely caught himself on his hands to keep from tumbling face first into the molten remains of the gun. Danny's thoughts stopped. The tangent he'd been about to go down closed up and he just stopped for a second. One second of nothing. Then the pain pulsed and radiated from his back and his thoughts became very clear and very focussed.

Danny stood, far quicker than was natural. He turned, locking eyes with the fiery man, but he didn't see him. Not really. Danny didn't have a clue what the guy did next or what expressions he wore. Danny didn't see any of that. All he saw was red. Red and fire and burning and fury and hatred. And yet, he felt only the chill on his skin. The cold and ice gripped at him and poured out of his core, rushing towards the enemy in daggers that sped through the air and spikes that shot up from the ground. Ice spread out from Danny in all directions, even as he tried to focus his attack on the man before him.

But this foe would not take a hit like this so easily.

As fast as Danny was, this guy was well trained and had years of experience. He reached out and a massive jet of fire rushed forth to meet the ice. The two forces met with a hiss and Danny didn't wait to pour more energy into his attack. Fury dug into him as he felt the heat from the flames intensify. Ice may have been a good way to combat the head, but physics would still win out between the two. Realizing this, Danny dropped his hands and phased through the ground.

He could have left. He could have swept away and escaped this fire demon. But the thought barely crossed his mind before it was violently shoved aside.

This man had just destroyed the portal gun. This man had just taken away Danny's one way home. This man was going to pay.

Danny resurfaced a few feet behind the man, who was approaching the place where Danny had been only a moment before. He didn't waste time drawing out another bout of attacks. He didn't hesitate. Danny planted himself on the ground, took in a deep breath and wailed.

The sound tore through the air and pure energy rippled outwards. Waves of ghostly energy pulsed and hit Endeavor hard, sending the large man to the ground. He tried to raise a hand to retaliate, but each wave of force and sound hit him like a heavy punch. He covered his ears to at least block out the sound, but the force was far from waning. The Ghostly Wail echoed forth, digging into the ground, tearing branches from trees and shattering windows all along the block. The raw power of it was hard to ignore and even harder to withstand.

Danny didn't let up for a second. He was pouring every ounce of energy he had into this. His opponent was on his knees, but he wanted more. He wanted to see him fall. He wanted this one to suffer. Fury fueled him and he didn't care if it took the very last drop of ghost energy from him. Danny wanted to watch this man crumble before him. He would pay for what he'd just done. He would-

All at once the Ghostly Wail faded and the energy in the air vanished, as if it had never been their to begin with. Danny's voice wavered and fell silent as he fell forward, unable to move.

No.

He hit the ground without feeling the impact and the stinging in his lungs that couldn't pull in air was already fading. No pain. No feeling. No cool, ghostly core. A wisp of dark hair fell over his brow. His vision was just starting to go black when it all rushed back to him. The air. The ache in his chest, like he'd been kicked by a horse. His vision. He coughed and breathed and the first move he made was to look up. Not at the fire guy, but off to the side. Strained, red eyes locked with his mortal, blue ones.

"I said, stand down." Aizawa demanded.

Danny breathed. It wasn't as bad as the last time. Aizawa must not have let his quirk linger, Danny thought. He blinked and contemplated Aizawa's words. It didn't sound like the worst idea… Then he heard a shuffle from the other direction. He turned his head and watched as the enemy got to his feet, flames still licking at his suit. Danny felt his lip twitch and something akin to a growl rumbled in his chest.

"Danny, stay down!" Aizawa shouted. He said something in Japanese to the other guy but Danny didn't know or care what it was.

Danny forced an arm up under himself, glaring daggers at the man ahead. It took all the concentration he had to reach back in his mind and latch onto his ghost half, but he managed it. He pulled it forward, dragging it around him like a blanket and he felt his eyes glowing and the energy pouring into his hands.

This time, when Aizawa's quirk hit him, the darkness took over completely and Danny was out before he even hit the ground.