Opera Cake

A Grim Aftermath

[A glimpse into the kind of shits that Danny had to do...]

(Trigger Warning; Child soldier, child abuse, and child trafficking)

~

Danny slips into the underground chamber, already disliking what he will encounter. However, despite what he was feeling, his expression was nothing more than a cold mask of nothing. He stared at the cylinders holding marinated ghosts that have no will or Obsession left to hold them in the world, their essence trapped by the liquid slowly dissolving them in the hope that they would be purified for the use of foolish humans.

From the appearance, they were probably street kids taken by syndicates and sold to the GIW to be used as lab rats. Failed experiments who died of ecto-cancer and became ghost inside their containment room. There was no hope for them. Only release into the void.

His wing snapped open when a bullet almost reached him. The silencer almost working but nothing can hide from the ears of the dead. Nothing but death. He looked around to see a dead eyed child soldier aiming an automatic gun filled with ecto-bullets made to subdue ghosts. The empty shell dropped from his feather and the ectoplasm that was supposed to work like a mix of acid and tranquilizer sizzling off from his higher purity ecto-energy. He stared as the child soldier moved. There was nothing in their eyes, only grim resignation. From the veins bulging and glowing green, he was already pumped full of 'purified' ectoplasm.

He have at most 72 hours left to live as a human and the rest of however long they would use him as a ghost.

Danny moved and so did the boy.

He can tell that he was trained from his movement. However, he was inexperienced.

He was a disposable tool.

Danny phased through walls, letting the bullets hit them instead. Experience had taught him that those bullets can ignore intangibility so evading them and using shields were the best way to deal with it. Basically, treat it as real bullets. He held his 'halo', resizing them to fit in his hand. He made it invisible and threw it while evading more bullets, ignoring the shower of glass as the cylinders behind him shattered. He suspected that the act was nothing more than the poor child final act of vindication against his tormentors. Danny offered a proud smirk at him, causing the slight delay from the confusion.

It was enough.

His artery was cut by his 'halo chakram' within that same moment. The look of shock colored the child's expression as he fell down, holding onto his neck gushing with blood. Danny created a whip made of ecto-energy and pulled the gun out from the trembling boy's hand. Only once he was sure that the boy have no more fight inside him did he approach the child on his deathbed.

Danny knelt down and held his hand, one final act of kindness to a tortured soul.

The boy's lips trembled, "I...don't want to..."

What awaited him was a fate worse than death.

Danny nodded, "Cling to me. I'll take you away,"

The boy cried one last tear before closing them, the light of life dimming. But for Danny, he felt tiny hands gripping tightly to his and he looked down to see a small blob of ectoplasm. It was barely sentient and would remind any gamer of the ghosts in a Pac-Man game. Danny nudged it close to his chest and felt it enter him to cling to the pocket near his core. It settled there, purring like a kitten that had found the warmth of its mother.

Danny looked at the corpse by his feet before destroying it with his ghost flame. He then looked around and sent a nudging inquiry to Technus, who should be haunting their technology at the moment. No matter how they put up their defenses against ghost, Technus can easily bypass it once Danny made it past the ghost shield. Technus returned a chime of affirmative and Danny put his hand on the nearest console, shooting some electrical charge to inform Technus where to go. The technology obsessed ghost soon return to the small ring that worked like a USB for Danny. Having not reliable form of his own after the GIW destroyed his old one, Technus could only survive in other technologies.

However, this gave Danny an edge against the agency as Technus could steal any and all information from them.

Danny withdrew, "Let's blow this shit hole sky high,"

He sent another pulse through the base, making sure that there were no trapped lives inside. After that, he flew through the whole place and left pulses of unstable ectoplasm that will detonate by his will. Once outside, he flew out and stopped before he could go through with his detonation. He looked around. Something was telling him that he was missing something.

He felt it; the new child ghost.

Knowing not to ignore their instinctual plea, he followed their direction and this led him to a small hole. He immediately noticed how it was sealed from ghosts and ghostly detection. Sneering at the Hunter's runes that kept ghosts out, he uses the sharp point of the Crown of Fire to rip through the rune. After that, he broke through the entrance and found drugged up children. Each of them already 'infected' with 'purified' ectoplasm.

They stared at him in fear and helplessness. He looked up to see a camera recording him. Due to the rune, Technus could not detect it. He shot an ecto-blast at it, destroying the camera before looking back at the children. He sat down and relaxed his posture. Once they grew lest scared and more curious, he started;

"You will die...either by the explosion I was about to detonate...or by the poisons in you body. You have around 72 hours of suffering through rapid cancer growth before your body give away,"

Some started sobbing and he let them have this moment before continuing;

"I can kill you...and you will return a ghost because of that poison. You can come with me and I will put you in the Ghost Zone where there will be adult ghosts to watch over you until you...make yourself,"

Not grow. Ghosts like them do not grow. Either their will grew weaker until they became nothing more than a mindless ghost feed or they grew stronger and become a new kind of ghost. Either way, they will have to come to term themselves. Any interference on his part could cause them to weaken faster and fail at becoming a proper ghost. In the end, they have to figure things out themselves.

"What is your choice?"

Half an hour later found Danny high in the sky, watching as another GIW illegal base blew to smithereens. In his chest was a roomful of child ghosts. Red dripped from his hands and his 'halo'...

"I fucking hate this part..."