Danny sat hunched and shivering in the corner of his cell.
"Almost there... just... a little longer..." he muttered to himself. He was still perspiring with fever, his sweat turning to streams of frost down his face, he screwed up his eyes, taking rasping breaths and gasps of pain as the red shocks from the cuffs increased, they stung him incessantly now... and he was feeling sicker and sicker in the stomach because apart from the hunger and injections Screech had given him, it was getting more difficult to contain his ice powers. His breath kept misting before him. Another shock from his cuffs made him yelp, and he screwed up his eyes... "Come ooon..."
Somewhere far down the corridor, Wulf began to howl loudly. Danny wasn't sure why. He heard two guards approaching,
"That's it, I thought I told that mutt to keep quiet..."
One of the guards stopped on their way past Danny's cell. "Hey... is it just me or is it... colder... here?"
The other stopped, turning to his companion with an irritated expression. "This is the ghost zone, its ALWAYS cold here! Now come help me shut this damn mutt up..."
The first guard frowned and looked into Danny's cell.
"What the hell is going on over there? Come on, hurry up!" The other shouted back.
But the guard looking down at Danny wasn't interested in Wulf anymore "Hey... what are you doing? Whatever it is, stop it or we'll subdue you like we did last time..." he growled down at Danny. Danny's eyes snapped open and he looked up at the guard, glowing blue eyes illuminating the dark cell.
"Oh Y-yea?... Subdue THIS!"
Will a Yell, Danny jumped to his feet and let his ice powers loose. Over the sound of his own cries of agony from the red shocks that he suffered, he heard the yells of the guards cut short.
Danny controlled his power again, not wanting to waste a single bit of the still over-concentrated cool within him... he knew his core must be below zero now. He relaxed, falling to his knees, the shocks from his cuffs stopping as he reigned in his powers.
Shaking, Danny opened his eyes to survey the damage. The door had been blasted off its hinges and had squashed the first guard beneath it against the corridor floor. The entire cell was lined with thick ice sheets. Danny realised as he got to his feet that the outburst of cold energy had shorted the bond beams on his cuffs. His wrists and ankles were no longer tied together, but the cuffs still functioned in the way of shocking him whenever he used his powers. Despite this, a wave of excitement swept through Danny. He was free!
Danny stepped out of his cell and looked around. The walls were all iced over like his cell for about 10 feet around. Looking down the corridor, Danny saw the other Guard on the floor, but he was stirring. He got up, floating in the middle of the corridor, gawping at the damage... and at Danny. It was a full three seconds before he started hollering into his communicator,
"SUBJECT ESCAPING! ALL UNITS TO PERSUE SUBJECT 108! Come here you!" Said the guard, flying at Danny. Danny, not wanting to waste more energy, ran in the opposite direction. As he rounded a corner, he heard a loud banging noise coming from the corridor he had left. The guard stopped chasing him and looked back down the corridor. There was a loud howl.
"RUN WULF!" Danny yelled back but he kept running. Wulf's lock must have frozen, he had just smashed it to get out.
"ALERT! ALERT! SUBJECTS 108 AND 107 NOW ON THE LOOSE!" The guard yelled into his communicator before deciding to pursue Wulf the other way.
Danny had no idea where he was going. He was in a corridor without doors and as he neared the end, another pair of ghost guards appeared ahead of him. Danny skidded to a halt.
"STOP RIGHT THERE PUNK!" One yelled, getting out a net gun.
Danny ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction. He heard the gunfire. He wasn't fast enough. It flew over his head and swept up under his feet. Before he knew what was happening he was squished down within the confines of glowing green netting. But within seconds, a few red bolts stung him as the net froze solid. Thrusting out his arms Danny broke the net with ease and flew off. He couldn't go intangible through walls, but he found the cuffs did not sting him when he flew. The energy needed didn't register as a threat. Danny flew around a corner, the two guards still on his trail, yelling for him to stop.
"DO YOU HONESTLY EXPECT ME TO LISTEN TO YOU?" Danny yelled back incredulously. He looked back at the path ahead, finding two more guards coming up to meet him. Danny flew over them, dodging another net. He saw one reach for a silver remote on their belt. "Uh uh uh!" he said, pointing his finger at it. A blue beam shot from his fingertip and froze the remote solid, but Danny received some shocks for using the power. It was bearable at least. The guard dropped the remote and it shattered.
"Come ooon, this place has got to have a window somewhere!" Danny muttered to himself as he tried to put some distance between himself and the guards.
It was like a maze, and Danny felt like a lab rat, except he was a lab rat being pursued by now four angry ghost guards.
"Well if it's so like a maze, maybe I should treat it like one... and in a maze, you always have to turn left..." Danny took the next left he found. "BINGO!" He yelled, ahead was a long corridor, but at the end was a window through which pitch-black sky could be seen.
Danny picked up speed and threw his hands over his head. He smashed through the glass... but something stopped him flying free... it was another net. But this one glowed red...
It was a second before the guard outside holding the net launcher pressed the button and caused the red net to electrocute Danny again. He screamed in pain... he felt a burning sensation build in the back of his throat, and as the agony reached an unbearable pitch, a familiar power escaped Danny...
The net broke apart in its wake and the ghost guards were thrown back as Danny let out a ghostly wail... except it sounded a little different... it was deeper. As long as Danny held it, the cuffs continued to shock him. He realised he was using his wail without meaning to and stopped. The moment he did he dropped to the ground, but the shocks didn't stop. A light sparked at his middle, but did not form into the two rings it normally did. Danny couldn't change back as long as those cuffs were on. And he had just been forced to waste a lot of energy he needed to escape. He rubbed his head and looked up. The Four guards, including the fifth who had netted and shocked him, were flat on the ground around him, and part of the building had collapsed, but coming around the sides of the large complex were the group of white lab coat specialist capture guards, and they headed straight for him. Danny shot into the air, ignoring the aching he felt all over. He shot off through the ghost zone, praying that he would come to an area he recognised so he could loose the guards and find his way home. A green hot ray shot past Danny's left ear and he dodged sideways. He looked behind him to see the specialist guards aiming disabling guns at him. If he was hit with one of those he would be temporarily paralysed by pain... and that was the last thing he wanted. Danny took careful aim and shot a blue beam at one of the guns. It hit true to its mark. One of the pursuers cursed as he dropped his cold-snapped gun in surprise. Danny dodged some of the typical rock debris of the ghost zone, desperately looking for some recognisable feature... the only things he saw were one or two floating doors and some big purple thing in the distance...
Danny dodged two more shots before he was suddenly stuck dead in his tracks by blinding pain.
His hand was outstretched towards the pursuers, and the pain caused a blue light to emanate from his hand. The next thing Danny knew, Red bolts interjected the stinging green light around him... but all pain quickly ceased again. He opened his streaming eyes, now watering with the pain, and looked towards the shooter. Their gun had been incapacitated by three large knife-like icicles. Danny now found himself surrounded by the specialist guards, who sneered at him. One, he saw, was holding a remote... he pressed it and Danny was overcome by a flood of red electric charges from his cuffs. He let out a piercing scream... but no wail came from his throat now... Danny had to battle the pain to keep his head clear... he stretched out his shaking arms as red lightning stung him and pierced his skin, cutting him in places, he called up his still minus degree core and focussed the energy to his hands, letting it flood free. He heard muffled yells and stopped the flow of cold power as his pain died down slightly. He looked around; the guards who had not been frozen solid in the line of fire gave him a momentary wide berth. Danny looked around frantically... the only thing close now was a large purple football... Danny stared for a second, recognising it.
"YES!" He yelled, and shot off in the opposite direction. It was Vlads portal, but he did not go to it... god only knew how Vlad could take advantage of him in this state... but at least it let him know where he was... and Danny was now heading home...
The last six guards pursued him when their shock wore off. They put away their guns; obviously they were not helping much. Instead they got out their lassos and net guns again...
Danny weaved through as much Debris as he could, making it impossible for them to aim accurately, but he was loosing energy fast, he couldn't keep up the dodge act much longer... it would take at least another ten minutes to reach the Fenton portal...
Eventually, after Danny began to flag weaving cat and mouse style through the expanses of floating chunks of ghost grassy ground, he came to the long stretch before home...
It would take five minutes to cross if he was fast enough. Danny picked up speed, and a few jolts of lightning stung him, making him twitch in pain, but he wouldn't stop now... not even if...
FOOM! Another net flew across Danny's field of vision, and quickly it encased him. Danny did not slow down though, he dragged his captor along with him and all the while let out some more ice power... it froze the net, but he got a much more severe shock for it than the last time... his powers were running out, soon he wouldn't be able to do so much as make his hands glow without getting severely punished by his cuffs. Danny growled. He felt a sudden heavy tug on his left leg, one of the ghosts had gotten a lasso on his ankle, but Danny let off a little more ice, froze it solid and snapped it off. Danny squinted into the distance and saw the growing light of a swirling green vortex.
"YES!" He yelled automatically. "OH NO YOU DON'T! YOU'RE OURS!" yelled a voice nearby. Danny looked around to see the last six guards catching on him... they were trying to surround him. Danny knew they would follow him through if need be... now was his last chance to make a clean getaway. He concentrated on what was left of the cold within him. He focused it inwards, compressing it to build pressure... he felt two lassos close over his wrists and the guards tried to slow him down... Danny struggled, still suppressing the energy within him... it wouldn't be enough... he combined it with what ecto-energy he had left... and then as they guards pulled him to a halt 20 feet away from the portal... Danny let it all loose in a wide arc around him... Through the waves of red electricity that engulfed him for it, he saw a green and blue shockwave spread out from around him like the shockwave of an explosion. All the guards were thrown back and the force of it, knocked back by the ecto energy and frozen stiff by the ice. Danny threw his head back and screamed as the pain became blinding. Finally, his energy ran out. The shocks dissipated and he gathered himself together, near to blacking out, he used what coherence he had to direct himself to the ghost portal... a cry followed after him. He hadn't expected any of the guards to still be able to follow him... but one it seemed had managed to shield themselves behind a colleague and weren't totally incapacitated by ice. He came at Danny with an ecto-paralyser... Danny flew as fast as he could and made it through the Fenton portal... before he went straight to the control console and pressed the button to close the portal doors. They quickly slid shut with a mechanical sound and a metallic THUNK. A second Later, Danny heard a loud THUD as the ghost chaser hit the blast doors.
Danny smiled triumphantly and shuffled over to the doors, looking at the Fenton portal admiringly. He collapsed in front of it, rasping for breath, ecto-plasma leaking from his mouth... everything became blurry and he felt dizzy. He had no energy left to sustain his ghost form... but with more crackling light around his waist, the cuffs stung him with a few more bolts. Danny grunted and sunk completely to the floor, lying looking up at the ceiling, his last thoughts before darkness took him was he had a really bad craving for pizza.