Maddie came home to prepare the gear for the mass scale search they were planning, while Jack continued looking for volunteers to help them. So far they had only enlisted the help of two agents of the men in white. Jack was on his way to visit Vlad in Wisconsin, to seek his old friends help, and even Maddie admitted they needed it. But Jack would be gone a while. Danny had been missing for 4 days now, they had to hurry…
Maddie found herself alone in the house, it was about 3 in the afternoon. She rubbed her red watery eyes. She had been crying more than she thought she would. But there was absolutely no sign of Danny, and as much as she willed herself to remain positive they would find him… horrible thoughts kept creeping into her mind of what it would be like if they didn't… and what horrible things was her baby enduring… god only knew what those ghosts wanted of him, but it could be nothing good, because they were ghosts, and all ghosts were evil, right?
Maddie descended the stairs to the Fenton Lab. The first thing she noticed was the lack of light. The ghost portal was closed. Maddie frowned angrily, her unadjusted eyes not picking up the feint glow on the floor. "What idiot did that? What if Danny was trying to get through!" she muttered angrily, turning on the lights.
She gasped. Something lay on the floor, something glowing faintly, white and black, tainted with green. Maddie moved cautiously over to it, but realized it was out cold… she suddenly recognized it as she saw the face.
"YOU!" She shrieked with a mix of horror and anger. The ghost boy's head moved ever so slightly to the side and he seemed almost to flinch at her sudden outburst. His glowing green pupils were seen momentarily beneath flickering half closed eyelids. He seemed to try and focus on her… "I… Danny… he…" he croaked, barely audible. He tensed as though trying to move, but his body shook when he tried to move and he fell limp and unconscious again. Maddie had no pity for him… he said something about Danny… he knew where he was? He probably had a hand in his kidnapping! Maddie fumed inside. She noticed the cuffs on the ghost boy's neck, wrists and ankles, and also his injuries. She had no pity for him. If he knew where Danny was, Maddie would make him tell her. And although his wounds made no sense to her, she would get the story of that out of him as well…
All the ghost restraining equipment had been recently destroyed, by an unknown ghost, so Maddie had to make do with what she had… But that was Maddie Fenton's specialty.
Danny was awoken by a shout… he tried to open his eyes, but they would not comply… he squinted at the fuzzy shape looming over him, but with a jolt of happiness, but also slight fear, he recognized his mother's voice. Danny automatically went into cover mode. He tried to utter something about trying to save 'Danny', but it didn't come out how he wanted. He tried to move himself into a position he could show her he meant no harm… but he was totally drained… he felt his consciousness slip away again and everything went dark again.
The next time Danny became conscious was because something hot was being held near his face. He felt slightly stronger, as though he had finally regained some energy from forced rest of his body. He opened his eyes groggily and tried to focus on the thing in front of him rather than his headache. It certainly woke him up properly. His mother stood before him with an instrument held near his face that was glowing with hit green ecto-energy. Danny also quickly realized something was keeping him upright. He was slumped in a computer chair, arms restrained by the cuffs behind the backrest and legs restrained by the ankle cuffs being attached to the feet of the chair.
"Where is he Phantom? Where's my Danny? I know you have something to do with this now TALK before I start to make you wish you'd never died…" She said in a harsh tone Danny had never heard before.
"Wh-wha…I… don't know what you're talking about… I don't know where…Danny is…" Danny lied badly, trying to get his bearings. The hot instrument on a wire from a large machine on the bench behind Maddie was shoved closer to Danny's face and he automatically recoiled slightly, the heat of it unbearable to his ghostly molecules… it reminded him of a laser Sylvester Screech had used on him… one that it seemed, tested the limits of his pain endurance… it had been the worst test.
"You said his name when I found you,
DON'T lie to me spook! Because I'm not lying to you, I'm not afraid to use this. Don't forget, I can use this on you as much as I like and you'll never die, because ghosts can't die twice, and I'm not pulling you apart molecule by molecule until I have the answers I need. We have hours ahead of us ghost, so make it easy on yourself and start talking!"
Danny looked into the familiar red goggles, the eyes behind them not visible for the tinted lenses, but still her gaze seemed so intense it bored into his own. Danny weighed up his chances, swallowing hard. Could he wait for Sam or Tucker to save him from this situation and endure the pain till then to keep his secret from his parents? God only knew, the thought of more pain made him cringe inwardly. He wouldn't have the power to free himself for at least another week, and he might go mad before then… could he lie? Tell her he knew where he himself was? Send them on a wild ghost-chase to buy himself time… yea right, to do what? She said she'd pull me apart molecule-by-molecule once she had the information… was it at all possible… he could tell her the truth? What was more important… would she believe him?
"Time's up ghost! TELL ME WHERE MY SON IS!" She shouted at him and pressed the button on the device in her hand. A green beam shot from the end of the instrument and hit Danny in the chest. Total and unbearable pain washed over Danny in a sickeningly familiar way. His back arched and head rolled back as he screamed in agony. She held it for at least ten seconds, which to Dan was an eternity, before stopping the device. Danny slumped again, twitching in pain and breathing heavily.
My god, my own mother just tortured me…
It was what Danny had feared for so long… only he had reasoned that if it might ever occur she caught him, he would reveal himself before harm was done… except he'd never considered that he might not be able to change back at the time… and thanks to the cuffs…
"Ready to talk yet spook? Maddie growled. Danny's head was hung back as he gasped pointlessly for air, not really needing it in ghost form. He couldn't think of anything to do except keep trying to bluff his way out…
"I… don't… know… I came to find him… heard he was in danger…"
"HA! Do you think I'm stupid ghost!?"
"No…"
"Then why do you think I'd believe that? I told you not to LIE to me!"
Danny screamed again as she applied the device to his chest. When his screams finally died, she stopped again. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way… it's your choice ghost…" she said, her voice growing harder.
On one side, Danny's heart ached to see the lengths his mother was going through to find him… on the other side, he was wondering if the experience of being tortured would scar him for life… though that was only a possibility if he survived it… perhaps he would have to change tack… tell her some truth, surely if it was true she would believe him…
"He…he was ambushed… by a crazy ghost scientist…" Danny rasped, shaking.
Maddie seemed slightly taken aback that he had actually told her something…
"Where is he? Where did they take him?" she demanded harshly a second later.
Danny swallowed, his throat sore. "He was… held captive, in some sort of… lab… I was trapped there too…(he added quickly, hoping she would buy his being the victim and release him… but knowing her ghost pity levels…)… but he escaped… and now I don't know where he is, I didn't see him, he went a different way than me…"
Maddie withdrew her threatening implement slightly, mulling over the phantom's story, before she frowned. "That explains your injuries, but I don't believe you don't know where he is… you seem to know an awful lot about how he was kidnapped, how do I know you weren't in on it? That you didn't kidnap him from the ghosts that captured you, then came here to gain our trust only to harm the rest of my family?" She said, shoving the implement back in his face…
Danny's mouth hung open… ok, now she was just looking for an excuse to blame the ghost kid? To blame him?… Danny realized with a horrible sinking feeling that it didn't matter what he said… he was a ghost, and she would not trust his word. She would always find a way to accuse him for Danny's… for his OWN disappearance… kidnapping, as they seemed to believe it… well, it was…
Danny slowly came to the conclusion he had only one more tack to try…the whole truth…
Danny had taken to long to answer again, and with a snarl, Maddie used the device on him again. When his broken screams died again, she stopped the machine. "I'm WAITING…"
Danny leaned forward, coughing up ectoplasm which trickled sickeningly from the corner of his mouth…
"Ok… you want the truth?… I'll tell you the truth…mom..." he rasped pitifully in a defeated tone. Maddie was completely taken aback. "WHAT did you call me?" she asked, slightly shocked, slightly horrified.
Danny swallowed and couldn't find the courage to look her in the goggled eye…
"I'm… I'm the ghost kid, mom. I'm half ghost, I got captured and then I had to escape and… it's been me all along… there was an accident when…"
"SHUT-UP!" She screeched suddenly. Danny looked up at her, his heart falling. Her expression was one of utter revulsion. She had her hands over her ears… she was shaking. "HOW DARE YOU GHOST! HOW DARE YOU TRY TO PLAY ME FOR A FOOL, YOU CRUEL, FOUL… YOU EVIL…YOU ARE NOT MY LITTLE BOY!" she shrieked, before she poked the instrument hard into Danny's chest and turned it on again at full power. Pain like never before set fire to every ghostly nerve in Danny's body. His screams were a mix of agony and anguish… without a physical way to prove to her he was her son, she would NEVER believe him… tears leaked from the corners of Danny's eyes… Maddie passed them off as his eyes watering from pain, which gave her a cruel sense of satisfaction. Danny eventually could scream no longer and fell into blackness once more…