"RISE
AND SHINE! Time to see what makes you scream!" Someone cackled
through the door, waking Danny from his uncomfortable sleep. The door
swung open and cold hands grabbed him. At first, Danny was so stiff,
sore and drowsy from his sleeping on the hard floor, that he let
himself be dragged like a rag doll, but as consciousness kicked in,
so did his rebellious nature.
"Get off me!" He yelled,
squirming as hard as he could against the hold of two enormous thug
ghosts in white coats. It was quite useless against their steely
grips, but Danny didn't want to make their job easy anyway.
He
saw them get surlier with a sense of satisfaction and continued to
struggle as hard as he could. He stopped very suddenly though as they
came to an enormous laboratory... he knew that was what it was
because it contained equipment not dissimilar from that in his own
basement at home. But what disturbed him most were the large benches
with straps and pointy things suspended above them. He was dragged
over to one of these, and continued his difficult squirming, which
did prove a problem for them now that they tried to strap him down.
Danny actually managed to break free of them and he shot up into the
air with a triumphant "HA!" before flying as fast as he
could, with a thrill of exhilaration, toward the door.
But just
as he was about to reach it and make his break for freedom, he was
hit with searing pain, as though he had just hit a ghost shield. He
actually crashed into the nearest wall, toppling a metal trolley with
empty glass beakers, which shattered and cut him. Danny lay in a
tangled dazed mess, trying to discern what had happened. He now had a
few cuts that stung and bled glowing green ecto-plasma, the ghost
equivalent of blood.
Danny was suddenly raised in the air upside
down, against his will. He found he could not struggle against the
invisible hold, and looking around he saw the bald, flame pony tailed
scientist who had netted him before, holding up a remote that was
controlling his bonds. Danny growled angrily, focussing properly.
"Who are you? What are you doing, let me GO!" Danny yelled
angrily at him, continuing to fight the invisible hold, though he
knew it was a futile struggle. The scientist merely cackled and
pressed a button on the remote he held in his hand.
Danny
screamed as agonising red lightning passed through him from the
bonds. When it finally ceased, he was dropped back on the floor in a
dazed and twitching heap. He groaned as his limp form was finally
strapped down to one of the cold metal tables. He focused his
swimming head once more on the scientist who loomed over him. "Who
ARE you..." he growled again as his head throbbed. A wide,
wicked smile spread across his pasty face. "I am Dr.Silvester
Screech, a pioneer of ghostly research! And since I heard of Halfa's,
I've been... DYING, to get my hands on one of you, because there's
a curious phenomenon I believe you can cure..."
"But
before that, Danny Phantom, I intend to find out, what, makes, you,
TICK..."the last few words were emphasised in a disturbingly
emphatic manner, before he burst out in mad cackling laughter and
grabbed one of the instruments hanging above Danny. A wave of true
fear swept over Danny, because this time, it was horribly real...
there was NO escape like there had been with his parallel mother when
he had changed time.
He would suffer these tests, molecule by
molecule...
"Mr.Foley,
Ms.Manson, the next time you see Mr.Fenton, tell him to see. Me."
Lancer said in a very dire tone before slamming the classroom door
shut behind them. Sam and Tucker gave each other a look of alarm and
anxiety. Now they KNEW something wasn't right. It was lunchtime, and
still no sign of Danny. Not a sight, not a note, not even a call.
They ran into Jazz at her locker around the corner. She looked
stressed and anxious. She spotted them, "Any sign of?..."
Sam and tucker shook their heads.
"Damn, I can't find
him! I brought my parents spectre-scope, it hasn't picked up anything
at ALL today, not even the box ghost." she explained, showing
them what looked like a PDA with a very small satellite dish attached
to the front. She threw it into her locker and shut the door in
frustration.
"Did you check down in the lab? Maybe he left a
note." Sam suggested. "No, I didn't have time, mom rushed
me out of the house before I had a chance, but we could do it
now..."
"Now? You mean, leave school during lunch? Isn't
that against school rules?" Tucker said in slight alarm.
"Since
when have you two been against breaking school rules?" Jazz
replied with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. "We
haven't, but since when were YOU willing to break them?" Sam
said a little surprised. "Well, if Danny is in real trouble, we
need to know, it's more important than sitting around here at lunch
time fending off Dash's advances. Now come on, I'll drive us there,
we can't afford to waste time..."
Sam and Tucker threw each
other another somewhat alarmed look before they shrugged and followed
her.
"...Ok, the coast is clear, I think they're out
somewhere... lets go!" Jazz motioned them in the door hurriedly
before closing it quickly behind them. They made a B line for the
Lab. It was locked, but a quick thumb scan on a panel by the door
allowed Jazz and the other two access. The Lab, on first inspection,
looked normal. The portal was open, and green swirling ectoplasm
glowed benignly through it. It was the only light source in the large
room, but it was just enough. They could see that the beakers and
equipment sat untouched upon the benches. However, something strange
caught Sam's eye. It looked as though a very small chunk had been
blasted out of the wall opposite the ghost zone, and recently, and
there was also some faded substance splattered on the wall. Sam
thought she recognised the patterning, but she couldn't make it out
with only a trace of whatever substance it was left.
"Hey
Jazz, have your parents got some sort of scanner that shows, like,
ghost trails, or, footprints, handprints, you know..."
"Like
an ecto-tracer?" She said, handing Sam an A4 sized flat panel of
smoky glass. She turned it on and saw through it green splodges
everywhere. Supposedly, ecto-plasm didn't always fade away
completely, and the stains couldn't be cleaned away that easily. Sam
pointed the device up at the wall, looked through it and
gasped.
"What is it!?" Tucker and Jazz asked in unison,
rushing to look over her shoulder.
Jazz gasped as well, but Tucker
had to squint and read it out to realise what it said (his eyesight
isn't the best with ectoplasm)
"Trap... in GZ... Hel...then
why does it trail off in a line?"
"A trap? Then that
ghost, it was bait, it kept waking him up until he chased it, and it
led him down here... into a trap! He must have been ambushed... he
needs Help! He didn't have time to finish the message!" Jazz
said, sounding horrified.
"That's it, we don't go back to
school until we've found him..." Sam started.
There was
suddenly a noise upstairs. Maddy and Jack were home.
"Oh no,
what am I going to tell mom and dad?..." Jazz whispered,
panicking. Thinking quick, Sam looked around and found a small ecto
blaster (and by small, I mean it was the smallest in there, so
roughly machine gun sized). She aimed it at a different wall, put it
on the lowest setting, and traced words into the wall. She quickly
disposed of the gun as they heard footsteps coming down the
stairs.
"Hey, what are you kids doing down here, shouldn't
you be at school?" Jack Fenton asked, a little bewildered, as he
came upon them. "Uuuh, yea Dad, but, we decided to come back
here at lunch to look for clues as to where Danny is..."
"Mr.Fenton,
he's been kidnapped by ghosts! We found a note his kidnappers left,
it had to be ghosts, cause it's written in ectoplasm!" Sam burst
out, running up to him and holding the Ecto-tracer up to the wall she
had written on.
"HOLY FUDGE you're RIGHT! MADDY!"
"What's
going on down here? Hey, what are you kids doing here, you should be
at..."
"Maddy that's not important, look!" Jack
said, pulling his wife over to look through the ecto-tracer. She
gasped, and suddenly her face became set and angry.
"NO ghost
takes MY son and GETS AWAY WITH IT! KIDS, you go back to school,
Jazz, don't worry, your father and I are going to get Danny
back!"
Jazz gave Sam a nervous look. Maddy ushered them out
of the lab as Jack fired up the new spectre speeder he had finished
building recently.
As they walked out the door and heard the
spectre speeder taking off into the ghost zone, they were able to
speak freely again.
"Great, now we can't use the
'Boooo'merang to try and find Danny till Mom and Dad get home and we
can use the spectre speeder..."
"Maybe they'll actually
find Danny and save him, I mean, even if Danny is in Phantom form, he
can change when he sees them and they can rescue him..."
"But
what if they see him change??? What if he doesn't change just in
case, and they'll NEVER find him if they don't know the first places
to look, the ghost zone is huge, he could be ANYWHERE!" Jazz
lamented, sitting down on the front step and burying her head in her
heads. All Sam and Tucker could do was exchange distressed looks,
because they had to admit, she was right, which meant they had to
wait even longer to look for Danny, and who knew what was happening
to him in that time?
Danny lay
twitching on his cell floor, his body aching and stinging. He felt
violated. He had been poked and prodded, had a number of ecto-plasma
samples taken, been stretched, squished, and zapped with a number of
painful lasers all over.
And If that was just the initial tests to
see what made him tick, he didn't know if he wanted to know what
experiments they had in store for him later...
Danny's stomach
rumbled. He was very hungry, he hadn't eaten all day, and apparently
they didn't actually give test subjects in this lab food, because
they were ghosts and ghosts didn't need to eat.
But Half
ghosts... well, Danny assumed part of their experiment was to starve
him and see what happened. His ghost half didn't need food, but his
human half did, and without it, he feared he might become ALL
ghost...
