Danny bit back another scream as Ajax pressed the 'ectoranium' knife into the flesh of his ribs and dragged it as slowly as seemed possible. Ajax may have called the knife ectoranium, but there was no way in all the ancients that it was true ectoranium.

Capable of leaving a mark, yes, but ectoranium? No. true ectoranium didn't burn like this did. Ectoplasm was inherently cold. It was one of the most notable traits about ghosts, it's why rooms get colder when there was a ghost in them. Ghostly auras exuded ectoplasm, and with the exception of a very few ghosts, that meant cold.

Besides, when the GIW had cut into him with ectoranium it had been cold. Painfully cold, so cold that it almost burned, but cold 'ectoranium' was hot. Unbearably so. So hot it was almost cold. His guess was proven right when he listened to Ajax babble.

For someone who despised his test subjects talking, the man sure did talk a lot himself. He was kind of like Vlad that way. Perhaps Danny talking reminded the man of Danny's humanity, or maybe he just considered his test subjects as 'lesser' and therefore unworthy to speak to him. Or maybe he just liked the sound of his own voice. The reasons weren't important, his words were.

"You know, I'm so glad that this works. When Hydra first proposed fusing ectoplasm with metal, it didn't seem to work. But vibranium, oh, that was genius."

Vibranium? Danny had never heard of it, it kind of sounded like the sort of thing you'd call a magic metal in a comic book, to explain away why it worked differently than metal was supposed to. But then, Danny had already concluded that this was a different dimension, and that probably wasn't the only difference.

At some point after the first cut had been made, they had hooked him up to an I.V drip of ectoplasm to keep him in ghost form, and now Ajax reached for his face and unbuckled the gag. "This should hurt quite a bit, and we don't want you choking on your tongue again, do we?"

"Bite me, Soap Man." Danny bit out as soon as the gag left his mouth. Ajax frowned, then shoved the gag back into his mouth, though he left it unbuckled.

"On second thought, I'll just leave this here."

Danny grunted angrily as Ajax picked the knife up again. The man grinned as he set the knife against the edge of the scar on Dannys chest. Just as the knife pressed into his flesh, the lights went red and alarms, reminiscent of those that had gone off when Danny had first come here, blared through the room.

Ajax startled, and the knife skittered across Dannys chest, leaving a jagged green line in its wake. "Fuck!" Ajax swore, pulling the knife away. He ignored Dannys muffled scream and turned to someone else in the room. "Go figure out what's happening." he demanded, tapping something into a computer and cutting off the alarms and flashing lights in the room. Danny could tell that it was only in this room, because he could still hear the alarms muffled blaring from behind the door.

"Yes, sir," a woman replied. The door opened, and Danny saw a moment of flashing lights along with the sound of alarms before it closed behind her.

Ajax was back over him with the knife a moment later. "Now, where were we?" just as the knife touched Dannys chest, an explosion rocked the building. Ajax pulled back with another muffled swear. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he seemed to steady himself as he dug the knife into Dannys chest and traced the old, half healed, vivisection scar. Danny screamed and pulled at the straps that bound him to the table. Another explosion rocked the building, and Ajax ignored it.

Ajax was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't even seem to notice how hard Danny was struggling. He just silently peeled the skin back and pinned it in place. Danny collapsed motionless against the table as Ajax set his knife aside.

"Interesting," Ajax muttered, leaning over Danny's open chest. "You don't appear to have any organs. How curious. Is this an effect of your current form, or do you never have any? I'm sure you do, I thought I saw some last time we cut you open. How very… unique." Danny could feel tears running into his hairline as he cried silently. "Oh! What's this?" Ajax reached a cautious hand into Danny chest, and his fingers brushed against something. Danny went rigid for a moment as burning, searing pain pain PAIN! rang through his head. And then, his jaw dropped open, and he screamed.

All the pain that he felt seemed to bleed into his scream, and beyond the pain he was faintly aware of the lights in the room all shattering simultaneously, he could just about hear, on the edges of his consciousness, the sound of other people screaming with him… and then the world went dark for a moment.

The room was still dark when Danny floated back to awareness, and he could feel a weight slumped down across his legs. His throat burned, and he could feel scraps of plastic sitting heavy on his tongue. He turned his head and spit, and the remaining pieces of his gag clattered to the table and floor wetly. His chest was still open to the air, but he was back in human form. He knew, because he couldn't see anything in the dark. He shifted, and let out a sob as pain ripped through him again. If anyone had asked him to describe what it felt like to have your organs exposed to the air, he didn't know if he could ever even begin to describe it, beyond a feeling of something being indescribably wrong. He could feel warm and wet gathering in a pool beneath him, and he let himself drift, secure in the knowledge that this would be the place of his final death.

He couldn't tell how long he had drifted, maybe a minute, maybe an hour, but he came abruptly back to himself when he heard the door open. He tilted his head towards it, and could just barely make out the silhouette of a tall man in the doorway, armed to the teeth and backlit by flickering red light.

"What the fuck."