Look at me, I'm on a roll. Two chapters in less than a week!
Thanks again for all the favorites, follows and especially to those who reviewed! :) hope you enjoy this one! Also, this story is officially FINISHED so all I have to do is go through and edit them and the story will be completely posted in the next week or two! Yaay!
~cosette141
This was it.
Danny stared, transfixed, at the crimson staining the metal table and now the floor. He was still bleeding, neon green ectoplasm steadily dripping to the table. But he'd waited too long to stop himself from resorting back to his human form. It wavered long enough to change his blood from green to red, even in that span of seconds.
This was really it.
"Is that…" said Agent E after a long hesitation. She dipped two gloved fingers to the blood on the table, bringing them to her eyes. She examined it. She looked at him.
Danny slowly looked at her, fighting the mix of fear and settling defeat in his chest. The shock was fading on her face, being replaced with an interest that was even deeper than before.
A tremor swept through Danny's body and ice slid through his veins. He shut his eyes, clamping hard onto his core. Don't change back, don't change back—
He didn't, and the need faded, making him collapse a little to the table.
I can't do this forever.
Agent E stepped away from him, and Danny breathed a short sigh of relief with the distance. He pulled weakly at the restraints, but was nowhere closer to getting out of them than he was before.
Metal was clinking together somewhere outside his vision, and Danny realized Agent E was doing something. Danny's chest tightened. His imagination was doing a fantastic job at filling in what his eyes couldn't see. Desperate panic had him pulling and jerking at the restraints harder. But his strength was waning. He couldn't free himself.
Someone…
...please…
"It…" came Agent E's voice. More tinkering with the metal whatever-it-was. "It can't be. That's-this is impossible."
Danny turned his head toward her, but she was too far outside his vision. His fear pulsed through his entire being like an erratic heartbeat.
-more interesting-
-than we could have ever imagined-
Clacks of high heels were coming back toward him and Danny flinched involuntarily.
Agent E stopped beside him, still looking at the blood on her fingers. She looked at him. She was more stunned than anything. "This is blood." she told him bluntly. "Warm, human blood." She looked at him again, that wickedness twisting the shock in her eyes into something terrifying, making Danny's chest hurt more. "I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it. But this has the makeup of a human blood cells. It came from you." Sudden puzzlement shined in her eyes, quirking her brows. "Every ghost we've dissected-" Another broken sound ripped from Danny's throat at the casualness, the bluntness of the words- "had no such properties. Blood needs oxygen, and ghosts don't breathe." She shifted her calculating eyes to him, where he was near-hyperventilating. "But you breathe. You've been breathing this entire time. How does a ghost breathe?" she asked quietly. She began to pace slowly, in a way that only scared Danny out more. Fear and panic were fighting for purchase, making Danny shake harder.
She knows.
She took a step toward him. "You breathe. You feel."
She knows.
"You suffer." Another look to the blood on her fingers. "And you bleed blood." She stopped pacing, back near Danny's head. A heavy silence stretched between them, Danny staring at her with raw, pure fear.
She burned her gaze into his. "You aren't a ghost, are you?" she whispered. It wasn't a question.
Danny didn't respond.
He couldn't.
She knows.
Something sparked in her eyes. "So, if you aren't a ghost," she went on, and Danny's chest burned, "then what are you?"
Danny just shut his eyes, the weakness in his body becoming harder and harder to fight. "Please, stop," he whispered.
"If I were to run a DNA test on this," she said, and Danny's eyes widened, fear shooting down his spine, "what would I find?"
DNA.
His DNA.
If she linked Phantom to Fenton… it was over. Everything was over. He was an enigma. And an enigma to a scientist was a project. A curiosity. He wasn't human. They wouldn't stop until they figured out just what he was.
Even if it killed him in the process.
"What exactly are you, Phantom?" she asked him, rising to her full height.
His core shifted again but Danny held fast to it. The need—the damn need—to change back was beginning to be suffocating. He was drowning in weakness and needed to break free for air. If he just...let...it...go...
"What are you?" she demanded, the slick interest in her eyes abandoned for something irritated and impatient.
Danny breathed hard, terrified of losing control. "Please—" he gasped.
Agent E's eyes narrowed. "You're fighting whatever it is you're hiding." She narrowed her eyes further when she received no response. "Very well," she said. "I'll have to find out for myself, then."
Fire ignited his veins again.
He wasn't prepared for it. A scream ripped from his throat and he jerked hard off the table, the light from his transformation bursting free again.
NO.
Molten agony still coursed through his veins, but Danny's eyes snapped open.
This was not ending that easily.
With all his strength, he fought the transformation. The light froze again, it's reflection dancing off Agent E's transfixed eyes.
With a growl of effort, Danny shoved the light back out of existence, and collapsed to the table, heaving for breath.
"Dammit!"
The electricity was still coursing through his body, making him jerk uncontrollably. It finally shut off and Danny shook violently as the static traced his body.
He shut his eyes.
He couldn't fight his transformation another time.
If it happened again, he was done for.
His body felt burnt from the inside out. He was too weak.
The realization—the truth—made his eyes burn.
"Well," she huffed. "I have another trick up my sleeve, Phantom." Something clicked and she growled, "Get me the child! Bring him down here now!"
Danny's eyes opened.
Tucker.
Weak, tired fear filled his chest. "D-Don't ev'n th-th-th—" He couldn't speak. He was shaking too hard. He closed his eyes.
Fight it, fight it, fight it—
"You're lucky I'm too afraid to accidentally destroy you," growled Agent E. "But you will tell me what I want to know," she went on angrily, "or the child will suffer."
Danny glared at her, his eyes a fire of hatred. But fear was quickly overcoming his anger.
Because he couldn't protect Tucker.
He couldn't even protect himself.
A door opened loudly and footsteps pounded in.
"Agent E," said an out-of-breath voice.
"Where's the child?" demanded Agent E, making Danny crack his eyes open again.
"He's gone, the room is open!" he said in a huff.
"He's what?!"
Danny, however, started to laugh.
Tucker was safe.
He laughed, the very action hurting his injured torso even more, and sounding more and more insane due to the wracking tremors in his body.
Pain erupted in the side of his head. Agent E had hit him hard, effectively shutting him up and causing the light to flash out again. Danny groaned.
He was walking on thin ice, and the entire surface was a spider web of cracks.
But he still smiled.
Tucker was safe.
At least one of them was going to make it out of this mess.
But unfortunately, that was no longer an option for him.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Tucker wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, his other hand still typing madly on the keyboard. His eyes were trained to the screens, following his progress as he broke past the firewall to bypass their password and he put every ounce of knowledge into his mission.
Once he was through, he could shut everything down.
Just...a...few...more...minutes…
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Danny was losing the battle.
The light flashed out again, and Danny cried out, more out of frustration than anything else.
But he was so tired.
So damn tired.
He fought.
He fought.
But he wasn't strong enough.
The light was growing.
No.
The last of his strength—he froze the light where it was. He gasped.
No.
Even inside his head, the word wasn't strong and determined anymore.
It was broken.
It was pleading.
He was losing hold. It was slipping. There was nothing to grab onto.
Danny's eyes burned.
Tears slipped down his cheeks.
He tried to grab control, but he was chasing after a rope that's already fallen down the cliff.
He was done.
It was happening.
He was changing back.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
"Almost… there…" whispered Tucker, his fingers flying over the keys.
A monitor flashed with a pop up asking: DISABLE?
Tucker grinned.
Enter.