The darkened lab hummed quietly to itself as wisps of vapor drifted lazily from vents and pipes, the only light present originating from the glowing containment pod on the far wall. The lab may have been asleep, but the figure within was far from resting, and its awful red eyes scanned the gloom restlessly. What had once been Dan was now something else. The proportions were wrong, the colors were off, the aura was oppressive and sickly--it was like a devil wore his skin. Long, elvish ears replaced the smaller, more rounded ears he used to have, and his long white hair floated freely like a corona surrounding his skull. With every breath, his ribs could be seen faintly as shadows contrasting the light pouring from his core, and when his mouth opened the liquid boiled.
Lights flickered on somewhere in the distance, illuminating the opposite end of the lab. Dan's eyes narrowed into venomous slits as Vlad sauntered into view, making a deliberately slow check of his equipment and side experiments, all the while keeping an eye on his most dangerous prisoner and smirking. Minutes passed achingly slowly, and Dan gritted his teeth in barely suppressed rage as Vlad tapped a password character by character into a keypad with a ponderous click... click... click. Finally, Vlad's half-lidded, heavily bagged eyes flicked lazily to stare directly into Dan's own, and he approached the chamber.
Vlad... The word hissed from parted jaws along with slow moving bubbles, and the murderous intent lurking behind it would have terrified a lesser man. Vlad, however, was unfazed; this was his creation, both in the sense that Dan was partially him, and in the sense that he was the one who had caused all the rather... concerning changes to his ectoplasmic form. He brushed his hand gently along the outside of the chamber, grinning as Dan's hair flared into a flaming tower of rage on top of his head.
"Hush," Vlad crooned, his sick grin widening. "You'll be freed soon enough, don't worry. You have a purpose. I didn't create you only for scientific advancement, you know. You have all of Danny's power that was denied to me because of my imperfect bond. You hold the secret to making me the most powerful ghost this world will ever know, more powerful than Pariah Dark, more powerful than the Master of Time, more powerful than even Danny will become!" He turned suddenly and looked over a screen with a mess of charts and data scattered across it thoughtfully, seeming to be happy with what was there. "Just two more weeks," he whispered. "Then we can take whatever we want from this world."
Dan growled animalistically and the lights in the lab flickered.
*
Danny's face throbbed painfully, and he was reminded just how different pain felt as a ghost. Instead of heat and the rush of blood, the wounds always felt icy and kind of crawly. Still hurt pretty bad, though, and Danny groaned as the pain overwhelmed his senses. Why did it have to be the face? And more importantly, what exactly had happened? How long had he been unconscious? Minutes? Hours? Days? He blinked his eyes open blearily, the bright overhead lights making him squint in pain. His eyes usually were the first to heal whenever he got hit in the face, but they were still very sensitive. A gentle pat-down of his head and the subsequent realization that his hands had come away green with ectoplasm revealed that he still had quite a way to go before he was healed. Great. As his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness of the room, he got a better look around, and was shocked to find out that he was... at home. His parents' lab and its familiar chaos and disarray greeted him through a wavering green ecto-shield.
It took Danny a long moment to register exactly what that meant, but when it sunk in, his already icy blood ran cold. He swayed upright into a sitting position, wincing as he caught sight of his reflection in a shiny glass case nearby. The ectoplasm had dried into a dark green crust covering most of his face, but the rest was still covered electric green burns oozing ectoplasm and steaming slightly as they healed. He hoped it would heal fully, otherwise he would have a lot of explaining to do next time he turned human again.
If he turned human again, that is.
The thought made his arms go weak and brought clammy perspiration to his skin. His parents had every intention of dissecting Phantom, and since they believed he was nothing more than a scrap of consciousness attached to an ectoplasmic core, they wouldn't hesitate to go through with it. Danny trembled at the thought of the dissection table, but trembled even more when he considered telling them the truth about being half-ghost. What if they didn't believe him? What if they thought he was a monster? What if they didn't care, and dissected him anyway? Danny covered his mouth with his hand and ignored the sharp pain as he shivered some more. There's no time for this, Fenton! He scolded himself internally. Don't worry about what could happen, just get out of here.
Danny steeled himself and rose swaying to his feet. He noticed almost immediately a camera pointed at him from outside the anti-ecto box he was in, and crossed 'turn human and walk out of the shield' off his list. He didn't dare expose his identity unless absolutely necessary.
Light footsteps on the stairs caught his attention and he turned as his mom walked down the stairs, fully dressed in her teal jumpsuit, goggles and hood up. Danny stared at her in tense anticipation as she approached, unsure what to say, unsure what to do. Heavier, lumbering footsteps soon followed suit, and before Danny knew it, both his parents were preparing equipment on either side of him in the lab.
"Uh... Hey," Danny said weakly. "Can you guys let me out of here? I think you have the wrong guy. The Wisconsin Ghost is the one you want. You know, the ugly one." He joked halfheartedly.
Jack whirled around, holding some absurd contraption with wires poking out of it haphazardly. "No can do, ghost boy. We've got some tests to run on you. Aren't you excited, Maddie?" He bellowed. Maddie nodded quickly from her spot across the lab.
"Catching this 'Danny Phantom' character was the best stroke of luck we've had in years," she laughed, snapping latex gloves over the pair she was already wearing. "We never get the chance to test our inventions on ecto entities of this high a level. Oh, isn't it wonderful, Jack?" Jack yelled something in agreement but Danny stopped listening.
Danny felt his heart pounding in his chest, and faintly he thought about how weird that was in his ghost form. What do I do? He wondered. Danny tentatively touched the cube surrounding him and flinched as it shocked him painfully. He grasped his faintly smoking hand and hissed in distaste, cursing his own stupidity and cursing the lack of awareness that caused him to get caught. His eyes darted around the room, desperately searching for some kind of escape, when suddenly a thought struck him. Jazz! She would help him escape, if only she knew he was down here! He looked to the stairs hopefully, but a sudden thought made his heart skip a beat. This was the weekend Jazz was going on an early college visit with her friends. She wasn't here to save him this time.
A sudden pronounced click caught his attention and Danny spun, watching as a machine approached the cube. Danny tuned back into his parents' conversation just in time to hear Maddie say "Specter Subjugator: trial one, begin."
"Wait! I-I have something to tell you!" Danny cried, backing into the far corner away from the machine in panic. "Stop! Listen to me!" He wailed, but the machine's roar overpowered his voice. Desperately, he looked for any means of escape, but the only thing he could think to do was turn human again and reveal himself to his parents. He tried to calm his nerves before dumping his biggest secret out into the open, but before he had the chance, the machine's nozzle connected with the side of the cube, and a heavy purple gas filtered in. Danny held his breath for as long as he could, but soon he was forced to breathe, and he coughed painfully as the air entered his lungs. His vision went blurry and his eyes stung painfully. What was this supposed to do, again? He thought weakly. Something about making ghosts tame? It can't be that bad, right?
Wrong. Danny's whole body tensed with sudden, inescapable agony. He tore at his chest, feeling like his lungs were going to explode, and wondered vaguely if he was dying again. He tried to cry out but no sound escaped his lips, and he fell in a heap onto the cement floor. Slowly, the gas cleared, and the spots faded from his vision, but the pain remained. Danny gasped like a dying fish as a new feeling assaulted his body. His ghost core hummed quickly, agonizingly, like a second heartbeat in his chest. Cold fire laced its way through his veins, escaping as crackles of white lightning from his fingertips, eyes, mouth, and nostrils, and he finally was able to cry out as air re-entered his lungs. The humming in his chest grew stronger, and he began to feel something building up within him. His mind went blank as all his thoughts turned to one overpowering need to move.
The hum grew to a roar as Danny began to lift off the floor, still screaming and clutching his head. The lightning intensified, colliding against the green ectoshield with harsh crackles, and the lights in the lab flickered. The Fentons could be heard yelling faintly, but their shouts of alarm and excitement were drowned out by the overwhelming light and noise emanating from the tiny form hovering in the middle of the lab. With a resounding fzzzt the shield broke, the lightbulbs popped, and the Fentons were blown back in a rush of wind. Danny shot through the roof like an intangible bullet from a gun and soared upwards at a speed fast enough to cause a sonic boom, completely overwhelmed by the power humming in every inch of his form.
Far, far above the clouds, he spun wildly with his arms out, slowing gently before tipping downwards into a nosedive and blasting above the town at a speed far greater than one he had ever reached before. White light poured from his mouth and eyes as he rocketed faster than the wind, going wherever his muddled thoughts took him. The wind tore at his face as he whipped closer to the ground. Car alarms blared as he swerved between them, narrowly missing collisions. To an outside observer, he appeared as a white and green blur leaving trails of crackling light behind in a rush of noise and speed.
He felt free.
Suddenly the humming of his core changed pitch, and his conscious mind took hold again. Wait, Danny's confused mind squawked, this is too much! He lost control of his wild flight and clipped the edge of a building, sending him spinning like a rocket gone off course. He was launched high above the town before crashing down into the park, tearing a huge tract into the earth. Bumping and rolling through the rough earth, he finally came to a shuddering stop. Nearby civilians screamed, and Danny understood why when he caught sight of his reflection in the nearby lake. He was glowing so brightly that he was nearly unrecognizable, and was surrounded by a crackling white and green aura that sent off sparks that seared the ground.
The humming, buzzing, roaring sensation overwhelmed his senses like a swarm of insects, and his consciousness swam under the pressure of his core. He stood shakily among the withering grass and disrupted picnics, and like a shooting star lifted off into the sky. Far below, Amity Park was spread out in a blurry phosphorescent haze to his newly enhanced eyes, with electric flashes of color illuminating ectoplasmic entities like neon under a blacklight. Strange... he hummed. I've never seen the world like this before.
A brighter spot blazed its way towards him and Danny slowed, passing through the cloud layer before stopping midair to confront whatever was making its way towards him. A hundred yards or so away, the familiar greasy head of Johnny 13 poked its way up and above the clouds, motorcycle and Shadow appearing a second later. "Hey! Punk!" Johnny squawked. "I don't know who you are or what your deal is, but you just about wrecked my bike with your show-offish "joy flying", and you interrupted my date! What gives, huh?" he made to come closer, but after getting a closer look at Danny and his overwhelming presence, he motioned for his Shadow to stay back. He squinted in disbelief for a moment before finally recognizing Danny through the harsh glow. "No way... The ghost kid? What the hell happened to you?" His voice fell to a shocked whisper.
Danny meant to try and explain what had happened back at the lab, but his thoughts were so muddled that it was all he could do to keep his eyes fully focused on Johnny. Before he realized it, he had raised a limp, white-shrouded hand to gesture in Johnny's general direction, and released possibly the most powerful ectoblast the world had ever known. Johnny had seen it coming, however, and the blast--at least seven or eight feet in diameter, and a bright, awful green-white color that shrieked and howled upon release--missed him by mere inches. His motorcycle roared as he and Shadow dived beneath the clouds in a desperate attempt to hide, but when Johnny looked back in fear of pursuit, he was shocked to see the tiny boy falling slowly from the sky and wrapped in a dimmer, smokier aura. Johnny paused to watch the descent in a state of disturbed fascination. Danny shook his head halfway down to earth again, and ever so gently his flight changed from straight down to a gentle, meandering line in the general direction of Sam's house. Johnny narrowed his eyes. Whatever that had been, it wasn't anything originating from the Ghost Zone. Only one other source could be responsible for this. With a sudden, biting anger, he revved his motorcycle and decided to pay Fentonworks a visit.
*
Sam was jolted from the twisted world of her latest choice in literature by a dull thud on her window. Glancing out, she was shocked to see the familiar form of Phantom clutching his head before remembering he could phase and passing sloppily through the window. He fell in a heap on her carpet, smoking faintly and dripping pure white ectoplasm from his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose. Sam leaped from her bed and ran to him in shock. "Danny! Oh my god," she flipped his limp form onto his back and fumbled desperately for the first aid kit under her bed. Despite all the blood, he had no obvious wound anywhere, and she had never seen ectoplasm this color before. Her heart caught in her throat as he coughed weakly and closed his eyes. With trembling fingers, she called Tucker's cell, and was relieved when he picked up immediately.
"Tucker, it's Danny, something's wrong," she hissed. "I need you to get over here ASAP. He's hurt bad and I don't know what's wrong with him. Please." Tucker started to ask a number of frantic questions but Sam hung up on him without listening. She pulled some shirts from her hamper and tried to mop up some of the strange ectoplasm, thinking the wounds might be hidden under all the gore, but she cried out in pain when her fingers came in contact with it. It was like sticking her hand in liquid nitrogen--so, so cold--and she realized that Danny had felt unusually cold when she flipped him over, too. Usually he was just chilly, but when she tentatively touched his arm, he felt different. Like ice.
"Danny," Sam whispered, her heart pounding. This wasn't like the usual ghost fighting injuries Danny had sustained over the past few months. This was worse, much, much worse. When it came down to it, they were all just kids in way over their heads, and Sam feared that one day hers and Tucker's improvised medical treatments just wouldn't cut it. She knew all too well just how little they knew about Danny's physiology, and she had an awful feeling that it might be what ended up killing him for good.
He may have regenerative capabilities, but even those couldn't cut it when the teen had so many enemies on every side.