Chapter 3

Act 1: Containment

Danny woke up to a dull ache in his chest. He groaned and tried to sit up, but the pain shot through him like a bullet in response. He winced and rolled to his side, bringing his knees towards his chest. What had that fruit loop done to him? Even the worst fights he'd had with Vlad hadn't hurt for this long. He hoped whatever that maniac did wasn't permanent. Danny sighed. He still couldn't think of what he could do to get out of here other than trying to convince his mom to help him escape, and he was slowly realizing that his plan was going to take too much time. He had a feeling it was going to get a lot worse faster than he could imagine. Darn it! He wished he could just tell his mom and get her help that way, but he couldn't risk revealing his secret here. Not with the constant surveillance.

It took a while, but Danny felt the pain ebbing away. He let out a small sigh of relief as he sat up and massaged his chest. "That took way too long to heal," Danny said to himself as a pit formed in his stomach. He floated up to examine the corners of the ghost-shield and looked for any chink in the containment equipment. He was always pretty good at finding the flaws in Dad's inventions. Maybe he could do the same with these?

Danny heard the door to the room open as his mom strode in and sat at the computer. She began typing her notes, ignoring Danny completely. He let out a frustrated huff as he crossed his arms.

"So, what's the plan for today?" Danny asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"Just some physical tests. I just have to finish updating this before we go. It'll be a few minutes."

Go? She was taking him out of the room? Maybe Danny could find a way to escape while she was transporting him. "Okay."

A few minutes passed, and Danny began drumming his fingers on his arm in anticipation. Ever since the maniac had taken over Danny's powers against his will, he was even more on edge.

The door opened again, and the maniac walked in, ignoring Danny just as his mom had. He knew he was a ghost, but they didn't have to treat him like he didn't exist. It was really getting under Danny's skin.

"Apologies, Dr. Fenton. I got caught up in a meeting about another project."

Danny rolled his eyes. He was probably busy torturing another captive ghost. "Is that what you're calling it?" he said under his breath and he saw the maniac shoot him a piercing glare.

"No apologies necessary, Dr. Minniack. I was just about to take him to conduct the physical tests."

"What, to see if he's strong? We know he's strong. We need to see what he can do. Really do, not see how many pounds he can lift or how much stamina he has—"

"Those things are important to know. He's not the same as other ghosts, and any additional data is vital."

"That data is boring. I want to see the true scope of his power."

Danny didn't like the direction this conversation was taking. "Well, I don't want to show you 'the true scope of my power'," he quoted with sarcasm.

The maniac laughed. "You think you get a choice? You belong to the GIW and you will do as I say."

"I don't belong to anyone," Danny said as a scowl overtook his features.

The maniac held up the remote to the collar. "This says otherwise." The maniac typed into the controller, and Danny felt that sick whirlpool of energy flowing inside him and sparks erupted from him. They began striking every nearby metallic object until he changed the settings on the remote. Again, Danny felt the beginning of his transformation. "No! Not again!" Danny gripped his chest tightly as he fought against the change and felt the same excruciating pain of being ripped apart. He screamed as his body convulsed and doubled over in his midair internal battle, but this time, it was easier for him to hang on.

"That is enough!" Danny's mom shouted at the maniac.

"This thing needs to learn its place!"

"Or you need to learn yours!" She snatched the remote from him.

The pain ceased Danny fell to the floor, gasping and twitching. He heard the door clatter shut, and he tried to regain his mobility. Danny was still in pain, but he found that he could move, albeit sluggishly. He sat up, pulled his legs to his chest and burying his face in his knees. It wasn't supposed to be like this. How did he get so deep into this mess? He felt like the world around him was going to crush him and his breathing sped up to the point of hyperventilating. He was so screwed. There was no way to get out of this fortress. He was stuck in this form unless he wanted to have even more experiments done on him by this maniac once he knew. No one knew where he was. There was no cavalry coming for him. How could he escape on his own? He had to get out of here. His mind kept racing faster, swirling in the same circular thoughts with no answers.

Danny jumped, feeling a hand on his shoulder, and looked up. He hadn't heard his mom approach him, but there she was, and she was trying to comfort him. In this moment, he wasn't Danny Phantom, and she wasn't Dr. Madeline Fenton. They were just a kid and a mother, even if she didn't realize she was his mother. He gave her a small, reluctant smile. She was still his mom, and he was glad to have her here.

"I think you could use a break. I'll be back later." She turned away from him and went over to the desk to grab some of the paperwork, then headed to the door. Danny reached for her and wanted to call her back, but he couldn't find his voice. Don't go.

The door closed behind her, and the lights in the room dimmed. Danny surveyed the vacant, suffocating room. Now that he was all alone in there, it felt that much colder and malevolent. He pulled his legs even tighter to his chin. "I want to go home."

Danny drifted in and out of consciousness as he sat on the floor. He even had a dream at one point, one where he saved the world from a disasteroid, and at the end of it, the entire world knew his secret and loved him for it. It was a pleasant dream, but it only made Danny feel more isolated.

Danny's mind came to attention when he heard a muted argument moving down the hall, stopping in front of the door to his cell. He looked towards the door and saw his mom and the maniac arguing through the window.

"There's a difference between scientific discovery and torture!" Mom said in a raised voice, which caused Danny to cringe. What was Dr. Maniac planning to do to him now?

"It can't feel. Why not find out what we can?"

Mom gawked at the scientist. "Respectfully, Dr. Minniack, are you blind or just ignorant? What he just did in there was a pain response on par with humans!"

Dr. Maniac rolled his eyes. "It's playing you, Dr. Fenton. That thing in there can sense your weakness and it's using it against you. It most likely even knows you have a son. Do not forget, it's a ghost. An unfeeling, barely sentient, composite of ectoplasm. Steel yourself, or it will break you."

There was a short, tense silence. "And how do you explain the panic attack he had?"

"I watched the camera footage back and I hate to tell you, but it faked that. When you left, it laughed at your attempt at comforting it. We can't put anything past an ecto-entity as devious as this one."

Danny grimaced. Liar. Why couldn't she just look for herself?

"How can I trust you on that when you won't give me access?"

Danny frowned at the unexpected answer to his internal question.

"I know the true nature of ghosts, Dr. Fenton. Trust that. This one is no different."

"How can you think all ghosts are the same? This one especially. We've only just begun scratching the surface and with all the inconsistencies we've already found, don't you think he might be different? He may not be human, but he deserves to be treated humanely."

Dr. Maniac let out a frustrated huff. "They are fragments! Nothing more than imprints of a tragic death. That is what all research states, namely your research."

"My research doesn't account for outliers like this one. We need to tread lightly. He is too different to rely on past research."

"This is still my project. I will proceed how I see fit, regardless of your unfounded reservations." He turned to the door to enter the room, but then paused. "You know how they say to never meet your heroes? They're right. They never measure up. The Dr. Fenton I knew of wouldn't care about a ghost's feelings."

"The Dr. Fenton you knew of hadn't seen such a unique ghost. We have to start from zero with this one. Previous data doesn't apply when this ghost has revealed a whole new undiscovered subspecies!"

Danny didn't like the way Mom was talking about him. He didn't blame her. After all, she didn't know who he was or why he was so different, but it still hurt to hear her refer to him so… clinically.

"Okay, if previous data doesn't apply, why do I need you?"

"Not that I need to justify my presence here, but I still know and interpret ghost data better than anyone else in this field, including you."

"Then why am I the head of the project?"

"Because when they asked me to head the project, I turned it down. You," she paused as she pointed at him, "were merely in the right place at the right time."

Danny's eyes widened at the information she'd just revealed, then suppressed a laugh. He couldn't see the maniac's face, but he knew it had to be a sight to see. He could almost see the steam coming out of his ears, and it made Danny chuckle. Go Mom. He watched the scientist come back into the room and his mom walk briskly away down the hallway. He wondered where she was off to in such a hurry.

The man saw that Danny was awake but ignored his presence.

"Geeze, at least Mo—I mean, Dr. Fenton," Yikes, that was a close one, "has some manners," Danny said, annoyance thick in his tone. It was so weird calling his mom that.

"There's no reason to converse with an ecto-entity."

"Why not? You might learn something. Isn't that what you're all about?" It was also weird to try to talk to this fruit loop, but Danny had to humanize himself to him somehow. Overprotective Jazz had drilled it into his head that if he was ever in a hostage situation, the best thing to do is try to get the captor to relate to him. He wasn't sure it would work, but he had to try.

He shot Danny a glare and didn't continue speaking. So much for that idea. He grabbed what looked like two pairs of glowing metal restraints from the cabinet and Danny cringed. "What are you going to do with those?"

"We're taking a little field trip, ghost."

"Uh. I'm fine here. Here is good," Danny said as he floated away as much as he could in the containment cube.

"You get no say." The maniac pulled out the remote as he walked over to him. "Get on the table if you know what's good for you."

Danny slumped and descended to the table. The maniac pushed him flat onto his back and fastened the restraints around his chest and legs, then bound his wrists to the table with the smaller pair. Don't panic, Fenton, Danny thought to himself. Just do what he wants. The man must have noticed Danny's unease on his face because when he glanced at Danny while checking that the restraints were secure, he smirked.

Dr. Maniac rolled the exam table out of the room and down the hall to a different containment room. This one was even bigger than the one he'd been in, and in the center of the room, there was a giant glass cage. Between the cage and the wall, there was what looked like a control panel. The man went over to the panel, inserted a key card, pressed a couple buttons, and a door opened on the closest side to Danny. The man walked back over to Danny and pushed him into the glass box, closing the door behind him.

"Uh, aren't you forgetting something?" Danny asked, trying to move his arms.

The man smirked again. "Not at all."

Danny let his head fall back onto the table with a clunk. Of course he wouldn't want to take them off. The guy's a maniac. If trying to make nice with him wouldn't work, could Danny fight him with this stupid collar on? He might get one good sucker punch in, but probably not more than that unless it was a knockout. If he was going to go that route, he had to make sure it was a knockout. As Danny was thinking, he noticed it was getting harder to breathe. It kind of felt like how it was when he was underwater, like there was more pressure on his lungs, but this hurt. The longer he breathed, the more his lungs burned. He took a gasping breath and began coughing. He began retching in between his hacking cough and tried to beg him to stop, but he couldn't stop long enough to get any words out. It felt like there were holes being punched into his lungs, and the more he coughed, the more he moved, the more the holes ripped into him. His coughing morphed from sounding like it could be part of a bad cold to a severe, sickly wheeze.

Eventually, there was a hiss, and Danny could finally take a breath that didn't add to the pain. He gulped in deep breaths as the coughing subsided. He could taste the acrid flavor of his ectoplasm from the experiment. His lungs were still making a sickly wheeze every time he coughed or breathed, but it was rapidly returning to a more normal sound.

"Subject EE0626, gaseous testing phase one. Subject exhibits atypical reaction to mustard gas, as it normally has no effect on ecto-entities."

Mustard gas? Seriously?

"The gas caused an inflammatory response, further suggesting his internal structure is more than ectoplasm, as hypothesized by preliminary vital functions test, phase twelve."

Danny turned to look at the maniac and saw him speaking into a recorder. Great, he thought as he rolled his eyes. Now he'd have to hear him narrating the torture as well as endure it. He typed something into the control panel and the hissing in the chamber stopped.

Danny wasn't sure he was ready for another round as he waited for the new torture, but there was nothing. Nothing, except that Danny noticed he was getting tired. Too tired to think. His eyes kept closing against his will until they shut and he lost the strength to open them. After that, his breathing slowed to a point where he was barely breathing anymore, then there was nothing. Emptiness. He couldn't tell how long he was like that; his sense of time had deteriorated to nothing.

The cube hissed again, and Danny took in a few huge breaths of air, causing his energy to return. He lay there panting, cursing at the maniac in his mind. One good punch. That was all he needed. One good punch at the right time and he could take the control to his collar and get out of here.

"Gaseous testing phase two. Subject exhibits atypical reaction to carbon monoxide gas. Subject went into a coma-like state with depressed respiratory and brain function. A trend is emerging in subject's reaction to toxic gasses. Subject mirrors the typical reactions in humans, sans lethality. More tests are necessary to see if this trend continues."

Dr. Maniac pressed a few more buttons on the control panel, and it got harder for Danny to breathe, but it wasn't painful like the first time. He began hearing whispering coming from somewhere around him, but when he tried looking around for the source, he couldn't figure it out. His head felt foggy, and he couldn't think clearly. Suddenly, he saw his mom and dad standing in front of him, both with their goggles on and lab coats over their jumpsuits, holding Fenton Shredders.

"Mom? Dad? How did you get in here?"

"Hi sweetie! We were just in the area and wanted to stop by! You know how lonely it is at the house when you and Jazz are both out," Mom said with a smile.

Danny squinted his eyes in confusion. "But you were… wait, what? Is she okay?"

"Of course she is! Nothing could keep our girl down. Don't think too hard about it, Danno!" Dad said in his usual booming tone.

They both approached him and raised their weapons towards him. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like, sweetie? We're here to rip you apart!"

"Molecule by molecule!" He sounded cheerful at first, but then his tone became uncharacteristically sinister, and it made Danny shrink back in response.

"N-no! Stop! It's me! I'm your son!"

Their weapons began tearing into him, and he couldn't do anything but beg them to stop while he screamed and thrashed. He fought the restraints so hard that he knocked the entire table over. The hiss of the cube broke him out of whatever state of mind this latest round had thrown him into.

"Gaseous testing phase three. Subject exhibits atypical reaction to nitrogen gas. Subject experienced a detailed visual, auditory, and tactile hallucination in which the subject called for a mother and father and referenced himself as son, implying this ecto-entity has family. Further testing is required to deduce whether this is a remnant memory from subject's living past or perhaps its death, an adoptive bond between ecto-entities, or true biological bond."

"Enough," Danny said with a defeated flatness. "Please, just stop."

"Or what? You'll spit more witty banter at me?"

Danny stayed quiet.

"That's what I thought, ghost."

The testing continued for what felt like hours, and with every additional test, painful or not, the further Danny felt from the outside world, his family, his friends, his home, and his place in all of it. Even if he could escape, what would be left of him after all of this?

Danny heard the hiss of oxygen entering the cube again, and the door finally opened. The maniac turned the table back onto its wheels and pushed Danny back into his original cell. It was a chilling thought that Danny had missed it, like he was considering this cell as his new home. He hoped it was just because this was the only room he'd had interactions with his mom.

Dr. Maniac removed the restraints, but Danny didn't move from the table.

"Broken already? We haven't even gotten to the fun stuff," he said with a dark chuckle.

Danny, too exhausted from all the gas experiments, rolled over onto his side, facing away from the maniac. He didn't have the energy to engage in whatever power trip he was trying to pull.

"What? Nothing to say? No more smart comments?" the maniac said with a condescending attitude, and Danny felt something inside him snap. With a sudden burst of energy, and a move much quicker than the scientist was expecting, Danny whipped around, his fist aimed right at the maniac's temple. When it connected, the man crumpled to the ground, out cold.

Danny froze for a moment while he panted and then searched his pockets for the remote. He had to find that remote. Danny felt something about the right size in the man's lab coat pocket, but when Danny grabbed it, the collar around his neck began releasing intense bursts of electric shocks. Danny fell backwards, and as soon as he wasn't touching the remote anymore, the shocks stopped. As he lay sprawled on the floor, he gritted his teeth and listlessly punched the palm of his fist on the floor. That was it. He had no chance of escape. With that last dismal thought, all the fight he'd had vanished into a void and he succumbed to the looming unconsciousness.

Author's Comments:

Thanks for reading my latest chapter! I hope you enjoyed. This was a fun one.